PRESS RELEASES

Contact:
Dianne Lester
(276) 676-6383

dlester@wcpl.net

 January 11, 2006

To be published:  January 11-15

 “Belle of Amherst” Opens Sunday with Friends Literary Series

The annual “Sunday with Friends” series begins Sunday, January 15 with a performance of “The Belle of Amherst” by Abingdon actress Quinn Hawkesworth.  Sponsored by the Friends of the Washington County Public Library, the event will be at 3 pm in the conference room of the library in Abingdon.

“Belle of Amherst” is the award-winning  show about the life and art of one of America’s greatest poets, Emily Dickinson.  During her lifetime Dickinson was the local eccentric in her small Massachusetts town, but after her death over 1,700 epigrammatic poems were found in which she had recorded her private thoughts for many years.  They have since become some of the most enduring and beloved lyrics in American literature.

 Hawkesworth has performed with theater companies throughout the country and is famous for her one-woman shows of Charlotte Brontë and Lee Smith’s novel Fair and Tender Ladies.

Upcoming in the series be the guest writer Jim Minick, an environmental essayist, on February 5.  The best-selling cultural historian Jeff Biggers will come to Abingdon on February 26 as part of the national tour promoting his new book, “The United States of Appalachia,” a re-evaluation of the importance of the Appalachian region to American political and cultural history.

 West Virginia poet Susan Matthis Johnson will give a poetry reading on March 19.  Noted Appalachian writer Ron Rash will participate in the series on April 9, when he will be promoting his new novel, “The World Made Straight,” about a community haunted by the legacy of a Civil War massacre.

 One of Canada’s leading novelists, Wayne Johnston, will be featured in a reading on April 30.  He is a writer-in-residence at Hollins University this semester and is the author of the international best seller, “The Navigator of New York.”

 The culminating event will be readings by Lee Smith, the area’s most beloved novelist, and her husband Hal Crowther, who is a nationally syndicated cultural and political essayist. They will be in Abingdon on May 21.

 All of the events are free of charge.  There will be book sales and signings and a reception following each of these events.

For a flyer on the entire series or more information, contact Ida Patton, Public Service Coordinator at the Washington County Public Library:  676-6390.

Go Back