Wayne State College's Language and Literature Department, the School of Arts and Humanities and the WSC Press are pleased to host the academic year’s first Plains Writers Series event, featuring Charlene Pierce and Tom C. Hunley, on Thursday, Nov. 16, at Wayne State.
The reading, free and open to the public, will begin at 2 p.m. in the second-floor lounge of the Humanities Building. This event will be live-streamed on the Plains Writers Series Facebook page.
Poetry Slam 47 will follow the Plains Writers Series reading. The slam will be held at 7 p.m. at the Max Bar and Grill in downtown Wayne. Registration begins at 6:30 p.m. for slam participants who need to bring four original poems and the $5 registration fee. The slam is also free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.wscpress.com.
About the readers
Charlene Pierce founded the Nebraska Poetry Society, a non-profit organization, to make poetry accessible to all. It is an essential mission to her as one with a disability who overcame poverty. Her poetry and prose have appeared in the Nebraska anthologies “How it Looks from Here,” “Voices of the Plains” and “Misbehaving Nebraskans.” Her poetry is forthcoming in “The Good Life Review” and has appeared in “Page and Spine,” “BlazeVOX” and “Literary Yard.” She published “The Poet's Journal: A Beginner's Workbook for Writing Poetry.” Pierce is a freelance writer appearing on websites and blogs across the country and local magazines.
Tom C. Hunley's eighth full-length poetry collection, “The Loneliest Whale in the World,” is forthcoming in 2024 from Terrapin Books. His eighth chapbook, “Abridged,” is forthcoming in 2024 from Kelsay Books. His first short film, “You're Not Alone,” is currently in postproduction with Forerunner TV, Inc. Hunley is a professor of English/creative writing at Western Kentucky University. He has taught there since 2003.
About the Plains Writers Series
The Plains Writers Series is held several times a year at Wayne State and has been an integral part of the college’s history since 1977. This reading series generally features Great Plains authors and artists in a one or two-day event that is free and open to the public. The Plains Writers Series brings attention to the prose and poetry of Great Plains writers through reading and interacting with area audiences.
The Plains Writers Series provides a forum for Nebraska’s contemporary writers and poets to share their work with Nebraska readers. The content of the project is literature, especially that of rural Nebraska. Literature will be the entire focus of the series throughout the day in the form of readings, questions and answer sessions, one-on-one conversations between the audience members, and the authors presenting their work. Following the readings, a poetry or fiction slam is held in downtown Wayne.
For more information about the Plains Writers Series, contact Chad Christensen, managing editor of the WSC Press and director of the Plains Writers Series, at wscpress@wsc.edu or 402-375-7118, or visit www.wscpress.com.
