The Marshall University A.E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series will kick off its 2022 season with Writers’ Harvest: A Benefit for Hunger Relief, featuring Dr. Sara Henning, on Thursday, Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the Drinko Atrium on Marshall’s Huntington campus.
The reading, which is free and open to the public, will benefit the Facing Hunger Foodbank in Huntington. Attendees are encouraged to donate 2-3 nonperishable food items or to make a monetary donation at https://facinghunger.org/donate-now/.
Dr. Rachael Peckham, professor of English and coordinator of the Stringer Visiting Writers Series at Marshall, organized the reading and said she is delighted to have Henning kick off this year’s Visiting Writers Series programming. Henning is an award-winning poet and author of BURN, (published by Southern Illinois University Press), Terra Incognita ,(published by Ohio University Press) and View From True North (Southern Illinois University Press).
“Sara’s poems are exceptionally intimate and beautiful, not only in terms of craft but for their tender honesty about love, loss, and grief,” Peckham remarked. “They’ll resonate powerfully with the audience in a way that is so fitting for Writers’ Harvest, with its special focus on helping the community.”
Henning, who joined the faculty of Marshall University this year as an assistant professor of English, was named the winner of the 2021 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize for her collection of poetry with Terra Incognita. She was also named the winner of the Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, the George Bogin Memorial Award, the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award and awards from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Vermont Studio Center.
For more info on the Visiting Writers Series, visit https://www.marshall.edu/english/vws/.