Schedule of events

Monday, March 26

• 2 p.m. — WPA Talks, films and readings

• 7:30 p.m. — Fleda Brown and Catherine Carter poetry readings

Tuesday, March 27

• 2 p.m. — R.T. Smith reading

• 7:30 p.m. — Nick Taylor reading

Wednesday, March 28

• 2 p.m. — Tanure Ojaide reading/performance

• 7:30 p.m. — Gish Jen reading

Thursday, March 29

• Noon — panel discussion featuring Tanure Ojaide, Farnoosh Moshiri, Charles Baxter and Catherine Carter

• 2 p.m. — Farnoosh Moshiri reading

• 7 p.m. — Charles Baxter reading

All events are free and open to the public and take place in the University Center theatre.

This year’s 5th Annual Spring Literary Festival at Western Carolina University features a broad range of award-winning and internationally acclaimed novelists, poets and non-fiction writers.

The literary festival, which runs from March 26-29, includes afternoon and evening readings and plenty of books available for the authors to sign. All events are free and open to the public and take place in the University Center’s third-floor theatre.

This year’s special guests include New York Times bestselling author and WCU alum Nick Taylor, Chinese-American novelist Gish Jen and Iranian-born author Farnoosh Moshiri. R.T. Smith, a poet, fiction writer and editor of the Shenandoah Review, will also be on hand as will novelist and essayist Charles Baxter. Fleda Brown, the Poet Laureate of Delaware; Nigeria-born poet Tanure Ojaide; and WCU poet and English professor Catherine Carter will also give readings during the week.

“This year, the festival will reach out to different audiences, not just our loyal regulars,” said Mary Adams, associate professor of English and festival director.

This year’s selected writers include:

• Charles Baxter, who once taught creative writing at Warren Wilson College and is the author of numerous books and short stories. His novella, The Feast of Love, was a finalist for the National Book Award. The story was scripted for a film due out this fall starring Morgan Freeman, Selma Blair and Greg Kinnear. Baxter’s books include Harmony of the World, Shadow Play, A Relative Stranger and Believers. In addition to garnering fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund, Baxter has been published in The Best American Short Stories collection five times.

• Fleda Brown is the author of six poetry collections. Her latest, Reunion, won the Felix Pollack Prize. Her other collections are The Women Who Loved Elvis All Their Lives, Fishing With Blood (winner of the Great Lakes Colleges New Writer’s Award), Do Not Peel the Birches, The Devil’s Child, and Breathing In, Breathing Out (winner of the Philip Levine Prize in 2002). Though retired from the University of Delaware, Brown is on the faculty at Pacific Lutheran University.

• Catherine Carter, author of poetry collection Memory of Gills (2006), is the coordinator of the English education program at Western Carolina University. She teaches English education, American literature and creative writing. Her work has appeared in numerous publications such as Poetry, Cider Press Review and the Louisville Review.

• Gish Jen examines life from a Chinese-American perspective with her books. Her debut novel, Typical American, was a New York Times notable book of the year and finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award. Her second book, Mona in the Promised Land, was voted by The Los Angeles Times as one of the top 10 best books of the year. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Republic, and included in textbooks and anthologies. She’s also received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bunting Institute and the Lannan Foundation.

• Tanure Ojaide is a prolific, award-winning Nigerian poet who has published 14 collections of poetry, four books of literary criticism, two novels and one collection of short stories. His books include Labyrinths of the Delta, The Fate of Vultures, The Blood of Peace, and Invoking the Warrior Spirit: New and Selected Poems. He is the Frank Porter Graham Professor of Africana Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

• R.T. Smith is an award-winning short story writer and poet. His short stories have appeared in the Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, New Stories from the South and Best American Mystery Stories. His poetry collections include The Cardinal Heart, Trespasser, Split the Lark, Messenger, The Hollow Log, Lounge and Brightwood. He has received several poetry prizes including the Richard Hugo Prize and the Guy Own Prize. He’s also received fellowships from the Alabama State Council for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Arts Commission and Arts Council.

WCU is already putting together a list of participants for next year’s festival. Among the big names are novelists Lee Smith, Pat Conroy and Russell Banks, and poet Thomas Lux.