WritersFest to bring noted authors to campus for public readings

The community will have a chance to attend readings by noted authors who are alumni of Pittsburg State University's Creative Writing program on Sept. 25 as part of the 3rd Annual WritersFest.

The authors, Allison Blevins (MA '11), Lori Martin (MA '09, BA '06), and Cody Shrum (BA '13, MA '15), also will lead writing workshops that day for high school and university students.

The reading will take place at 7 p.m. in 109 Grubbs Hall and is free. A reception will follow.

Blevins, who specializes in poetry and nonfiction and is the founder and director of Small Harbor Publishing, is the author of "Where Will We Live if the House Burns Down" and three other full-length collections and five chapbooks. She is the winner of the 2023 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor's Choice Award.

Lori Baker Martin, poetry editor for The Midwest Quarterly and a board member of The River Styx, is a graduate of Iowa Writers' Workshop and currently teaches creative writing at Pittsburg State University. She's had work published in Room Magazine, Maine Review, Tampa Review, and others.

Cody Shrum, a two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated Kansas writer and fiction editor for Identity Theory, earned his MFA in Creative Writing and Media Arts from The University of Missouri-Kansas City. His debut poetry chapbook, "Green Acre," was the top finalist in the 2024 Jonathan Holden Chapbook Contest.

WritersFest is sponsored by the Distinguished Visiting Writer Series and the Student Fee Council.

-- Pitt State --