{"id":29364,"date":"2026-04-13T15:53:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T19:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/?p=29364"},"modified":"2026-04-13T16:00:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:00:52","slug":"writers-series-features-authors-marc-harshman-and-mary-barbara-moore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/2026\/04\/writers-series-features-authors-marc-harshman-and-mary-barbara-moore\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers series features authors Marc Harshman and Mary Barbara Moore"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The A.E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series will present readings by authors Marc Harshman and Mary Barbara Moore at 7:30 p.m. April 16 in the Shawkey Dining Room of the Memorial Student Center.<\/p>\n<p>Harshman was appointed in 2012 as the seventh poet laureate of West Virginia. He is, besides being a poet, the author of 14 nationally acclaimed children\u2019s books including \u201cFallingwater: The Building of Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s Masterpiece,\u201d co-authored with Anna Smucker and subsequently named an Amazon Book of the Month.<\/p>\n<p>His previous titles have included \u201cThe Storm,\u201d a Smithsonian Notable Book, and collections of poetry, including \u201cWoman in Red Anorak,\u201d winner of the Blue Lynx Prize from Lynx House\/University of Washington, and \u201cBelieve What You Can,\u201d winner of the Weatherford Award from the Appalachian Studies Association. His fifth full-length collection of poems, \u201cDispatch from the Mountain State,\u201d has just been published by West Virginia University Press.<\/p>\n<p>He is co-winner of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award and holds degrees from Bethany College, Yale University Divinity School, and the University of Pittsburgh. For many years, he taught fifth and sixth grades in a three-room school in rural Marshall County, West Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>Moore\u2019s newest poetry collection, \u201cAmanda Chimera,\u201d came out in January 2025 and won Madville Publishing\u2019s Arthur Smith prize. Prior poetry books include \u201cDear If,\u201d Orison Books 2022, a contest finalist; \u201cFlicker,\u201d winner of the Dogfish Head Prize in 2016; \u201cThe Book Of Snow,\u201d Cleveland State U Poetry Center, 1997; and prize-winning chapbooks \u201cAmanda and the Man Soul\u201d and \u201cEating the Light.\u201d She is a retired Marshall University professor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHosting our very own West Virginia Poet Laureate is the kind of dream come true that brings so much pride not only to Marshall, but to the literary scene of West Virginia,\u201d said Sara Henning, coordinator of the A.E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series. \u201cThe same is true of hosting a beloved professor emerita. Both Marc and Mary have forged legacies of excellence for our state and our university.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a series coordinator and English professor, I have learned that transformative learning happens when students see themselves reflected on the stage and on the page. Bringing a much-loved Marshall professor and Poet Laureate to campus reminds us that West Virginia is a hotspot of literary activity, but also that voices so close to us sing here and across the Appalachian region. We are happy to welcome both Mary and Marc home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The event is presented by Marshall University with support from the Department of English and is free and open to the public.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The A.E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series will present readings by authors Marc Harshman and Mary Barbara Moore at 7:30 p.m. April 16 in the Shawkey Dining Room of the Memorial Student Center. Harshman was appointed in 2012 as the seventh poet laureate of West Virginia. He is, besides being a poet, the author of 14 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":239,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cola","category-news-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29364"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29369,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29364\/revisions\/29369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}