Emerging Writers

JOHNSON CITY (Sept. 12, 2018) – “Two Emerging Writers” – Tasha Fouts and Matt McBride – will visit East Tennessee State University next week to take part in a free public reading of their works.

Sponsored by the “ETSU Celebrates Creative Writing” initiative and Department of Literature and Language, this reading will be held Wednesday, Sept. 19, at 4 p.m. in the Reece Museum.  Each writer will present a 20- to 30-minute reading, and the public will have the opportunity to interact with both during a question-and-answer session and book-signing.

In addition to the public reading, the “Two Emerging Writers” event will allow ETSU students to gain exposure to these young, professional writers, who will visit classes in the Department of Literature and Language during their time at the university.

Fouts is the 2018-19 Sundress Academy for the Arts Writer in Residence at Firefly Farms in Knoxville.  She is editor-in-chief of the Packingtown Review, which she founded in 2006 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she is completing her Ph.D. degree.  She holds an M.F.A. degree from Bowling Green State University (BGSU).

Fouts’ poetry has been featured in numerous journals, including Small Po[r]tions, Rogue Agent, Potluck and others.

McBride’s first book of poems, “City of Incandescent Light,” was released by Black Lawrence Press in May.  His work has also appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Another Chicago Review, Cream City Review, Columbia Poetry Review and other journals.  His chapbook, “The Space Between Stars,” won the 2007 Wick Poetry Chapbook Prize from the Kent State University Press.

McBride is the recipient of a Devine Fellowship, a Writers in the Heartland Residency and an Ohio Arts Council Grant.  He holds an M.F.A. from BGSU and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Cincinnati.

For more information, contact Dr. Jesse Graves, associate professor of English and poet-in-residence in the ETSU Department of Literature and Language, at 423-439-6674 or gravesj@etsu.edu.  For disability accommodations, call the ETSU Office of Disability Services at 423-439-8346.

Media Contact:
Jennifer Hill
hill@etsu.edu
423-439-4317