Patriot Digest 10-15-08 Single Pages.Indd

Faculty and Staff Newsletter for Francis Marion University OOctoberctober 15,15, 20082008 FMU to hold Pee Dee Fiction and Poetry Festival, Nov. 6-8 For those looking to get in a bind, the book festival held annually at Francis Marion University is the place to be. Six nationally known and bestselling authors and their avid readers will descend upon the university Nov. 6-8 at the third annual Pee Dee Fiction and Poetry Festival, which is free and open to the public. Th e three-day festival will celebrate and promote literature and reading with renowned authors Ethan Canin, Sara Gran, Dorianne Robert Wrigley Valerie Martin Laux, Valerie Martin, Tom Perrotta and Robert Wrigley. Th ere will be readings, lectures and panel discussions with programs for mature audiences. A number of fi ction topics will be covered as well as opportunities for book signings. In addition, there will be screenings of fi lms based on novels by Canin, Martin and Perrotta. Ethan Canin Sara Gran “Th e event will off er dynamic and personal interactions between readers and authors as they share the joy of reading,” said FMU English Professor Ed Eleazor who is organizer of the event along with a committee consisting of a number of faculty members from Dorianne Laux November 6 - 8, 2008 Tom Perrotta the English Department. Francis Marion University About the authors: Canin enrolled at Stanford University, fi rst majoring in All scheduled events will be held on campus. Admission is free. engineering and then earning his undergraduate degree in English. For more information, call the English Department at 843-661-1371 In 1982, he joined the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of or visit us on the web at http://alph1.fmarion.edu/~pdfiction/ Iowa. Two years later, he left Iowa and applied to Harvard Medical School. During his fi rst year, he wrote a book that was published Continued on page 2 Mathis receives alumni award from FMU Psychology Department Connie Parker Mathis, psychologist for Horry County Schools, provision of services and the building of legally defensible programs has been honored by the Francis Marion University Department of that meet state and federal guidelines as well as the needs of the child Psychology with an outstanding alumni award. are her primary areas of focus. Mathis received the Professional Psychology Award for 2008-09 at Mathis has worked collaboratively with parents and professionals a reception held recently on the FMU campus. to develop educational programs for students with disabilities that She earned a bachelor of science in psychology, graduated with a ensure a free appropriate education is provided to each student as master’s of education required by federal and state regulations. She has worked as a general On the Inside degree in learning education teacher, a special education teacher in self-contained and disabilities and a resource model classrooms, a school psychologist, an administrator for Jobs on Campus master’s degree in school programs for students with autism and moderate to severe disabilities, Page 2 psychology, all from and as a district level administrator, supervising all programs and FMU. Mathis also earned services for students with disabilities. In addition, Mathis has Events Calendar the Ed.D. in educational worked directly with students with autism, their families and private Page 3 administration from providers, including health care providers and educational support South Carolina State staff . Faculty/Staff News University. For her work with autistic students, in 2005 Mathis was chosen Page 4 Th e early to receive the Bravo Award by the South Carolina Autism Society identifi cation of learning Parent-School Partnership. She earned this award for her love and and behavioral needs, dedication in helping students with autism unlock their potential. October 15, 2008 • 2 Pee Dee Fiction and Poetry Festival . Continued from front two years later. Canin then took a seven- Addonizio, of “Th e Poet’s Companion: A has a basic understanding that life is complex, year break, traveling to South America before Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry” and everyone has a story if you take the time again settling in San Francisco. (W.W. Norton, 1997). Her fourth book to listen. Finishing his medical degree in 1991, of poems, “Facts About the Moon,” was Wrigley collections of poetry include Canin began an internal medicine residency at published by W.W. Norton in fall of 2005. “Earthly Meditations: New and Selected the University of California in San Francisco. Her work has been published in numerous Poems” (Penguin, 2006); “Lives of the He continued to write and practice medicine, magazines and she is the recipient of countless Animals” (2003); “Reign of Snakes” (1999); but following the publication of “Th e Palace awards. Among them are a Pushcart Prize winner of the Kingley Tufts Award, “In the Th ief,” he decided to refocus his professional for poetry, two fellowships from the National Bank of Beautiful Sins” (1995); winner of the life and concentrate on writing. Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award and In 1998, Canin joined the Iowa Writers’ Fellowship. Laux is an associate professor and Lenore Marshall Award fi nalist, “What My Workshop faculty. Author of two collections works in the University of Oregon’s Creative Father Believed” (1991); “Moon in a Mason of stories, “Emperor of the Air” and “Th e Writing Program. She lives in Eugene, Ore., Jar” (1986); and “Th e Sinking of Clay City” Palace Th ief,” and three novels, “Blue River,” with her husband, poet Joseph Millar, and her (1979). “For Kings and Planets” and “Carry Me daughter Tristem. His work has also been published in Across the Water,” he is also director of the Martin is the author of three collections of numerous anthologies and literary journals. Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. With two short fi ction, most recently “Th e Unfi nished Wrigley’s awards and honors include friends, Canin started the Writer’s Grotto in Novel and Other Stories,” and seven novels, fellowships from the National Endowment San Francisco - an offi ce of 19 writers and including “Italian Fever,” “Th e Great Divorce” for the Arts, the Idaho State Commission on fi lmmakers. He and his wife, Barbara, have and “Mary Reilly,” the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation, two daughters and live in Iowa City. story told from the viewpoint of a housemaid, as well as the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Gran is the author of the novels “Dope,” which was fi lmed with Julia Roberts and Wood Prize, the Frederick Bock Prize from “Come Closer” and “Saturn’s Return to John Malkovich, and the 2003 Orange Prize- Poetry magazine, the Wagner Award from New York,” in addition to many stories, winning “Property”. She is also the author the Poetry Society of America, the Th eodore pamphlets, missives and other publications. of a non-fi ction work about St. Francis of Roethke Award from Poetry Northwest, and Before making a living as a writer, Gran had Assisi, “Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. two Pushcart Prizes. From 1987 until 1988, endless jobs, primarily with books, working Francis.” She resides in upstate New York. he served as the state of Idaho’s writer-in- at bookstores like Shakespeare & Co., the A Yale graduate, Perrotta studied writing residence. Strand, Housing Works and selling used & under Th omas Berger and Tobias Wolff Wrigley lives with his wife, writer Kim rare books on her own. Born in Brooklyn in before moving on to teach creative writing Barnes, and their children, on the Clearwater 1971, Gran moved to New Orleans in 2004 at Yale and Harvard. During this period, River in Idaho. He is the director of the and to California in 2007. he began work on the stories that would M.F.A. program in creative writing at the Laux is the author of three collections of comprise his fi rst release, “Bad Haircut.” University of Idaho. poetry from BOA Editions Ltd., “Awake” He had fi nished two more novels including For more information on the Pee Dee (1990), introduced by Philip Levine, “What “Election” before “Bad Haircut” was fi nally Fiction and Poetry Festival, contact the We Carry” (1994), fi nalist for the National picked up by a publisher in 1994. “Election” Department of English at 843-661-1371 or Book Critics Circle Award, and “Smoke” (1998) was made into the much-beloved visit the festival’s website at http://alpha1. (2000). She is also co-author, with Kim fi lm starring Matthew Broderick and Reese fmarion.edu/~pdfi ction/. Witherspoon. Jobs on Campus Th e theme of ordinary people trapped in lives they never imagined runs throughout DDigestigest DeadlineDeadline 10-15-08 Perrotta’s novels. Success for his characters The Patriot Digest is Chair of Department of History is always just out of reach, and the world is always just outside of their control. Characters published twice monthly and Custodian that seem destined for success serve as foils to distributed on paydays. Lead Groundskeeper the true protagonists, constant reminders of Submit copy to the editor by October 27 for the October Part-time/Temporary Substitute the unfairness of life. Perrotta’s razor-sharp observations of the 31 edition. Contact the Teaching Assistants human condition are often side-splittingly editor, Angela Crosland, at funny, and the compassion he exhibits in [email protected] or at ext. 1227. Visit Human Resources in his writing makes even the most ostensibly SAB, Rm 105 or call ext. 1140. unlikable characters sympathetic. He does not create caricatures; his novels work because he October 15, 2008 • 3 Civitan charters club at FMU Civitans from the Francis Marion University community gathered recently to celebrate the formation of one of Civitan’s newest clubs.

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