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Record Numbers Attend Annual Arts and
Humanities Speaker's Forum
Northeast Alabama Community College in
Rainsville, Alabama, held its annual Arts and Humanities
Speaker’s Forum recently. Guest speaker was award-winning author
Pamela Duncan, who addressed a group of over 300 in the
college’s Tom Bevill Lyceum. Immediately following the reading,
Duncan signed books and returned to the college’s library that
evening for another reading and book signing. Duncan also
addressed Joan Reeves’ Southern literature class the next day at
an informal breakfast before visiting Fort Payne Middle School,
where she read and answered questions for the 7th graders.
Duncan
is the author of three novels—Moon Women (2001), Plant
Life (2003), and The Big Beautiful (2007). Her first
novel was a Southeastern Booksellers Association Award Finalist;
her second novel was awarded the 2003 Sir Walter Raleigh Award
for Fiction. Pamela Duncan also is the recipient of the 2007
James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South by the
Fellowship of Southern Writers.
 Duncan was born in Asheville, North
Carolina, but grew up in Black Mountain, Swannanoa, and Shelby,
North Carolina. She holds a BA in journalism from The University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MA in English/Creative
Writing from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. She
lives in Cullowhee, North Carolina, and teaches creative writing
at Western Carolina University.
The Washington Post writes about Duncan’s Plant Life,
“Duncan has a fine ear for dialect, which finds expression in a
series of striking set-pieces...Well crafted, with expert
attention to the cadence of regional speech patterns, these
short pieces ring with the authority of oral history...It is a
novel with heart.” About Duncan’s Moon Women, Publisher’s
Weekly states, “In the tradition of Fannie Flagg and Rebecca
Wells comes a Southern-fried debut.... Duncan shows promise as a
from-the-heart, quirky storyteller.” Furthermore, Southern
author Lee Smith states about Duncan’s The Big Beautiful,
“Jane Austen meets Mayberry: for once, a real romance, with a
heroine worthy of it! Smart, sweet, and funny. This is one big,
beautiful, life-affirming novel.” For more information about
Pamela Duncan, visit her webpage,
www.pameladuncan.com.
Dr. David Campbell, President of NACC, began the Arts and
Humanities Speaker’s Forum in 1994. Since that first year, the
Forum has hosted such writers as Janisse Ray, Mary Hood, Dori
Sanders, Thomas Cook, Jerry Ellis, Ron Rash, and Michael Knight.
This event is offered for the community as well as the students,
faculty, and staff at Northeast.
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For more information about events at the
College, see the
Calendar of Events. To view more photos of Ms. Duncan’s
visit, go to
http://www.nacc.edu/englishdept/Default1.htm.
Author Pamela Duncan poses for a
snapshot with a Northeast student. On the left is Joan
Reeves, NACC Director of the English and Fine Arts
Division.
Below, Pamela Duncan autographs books
in the Northeast Learning Resource Center.
Article and photos provided by Cindy Holland. |
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