CAMILLE DUNGY + JAMIE FORD: Looking Glass Rock Writers’ Conference Public Readings

Looking Glass Rock Writers’ Conference faculty, Camille Dungy and Jaime Ford, will give public readings of their work at the Porter Center on the Brevard College campus on May 19 at 7:30 pm.

Camille T. Dungy’s debut collection of personal essays is Guidebook to Relative Strangers, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophic Cascade, winner of the Colorado Book Award. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019.

Dungy’s other poetry collections are Smith Blue, finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award, Suck on the Marrow, winner of the American Book Award, and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison, finalist for PEN the Center USA Literary Award for Poetry. Her poems and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry, Best American Travel Writing, 100 Best African American Poems, and nearly 30 other anthologies, plus dozens of print and online venues including Poetry, American Poetry Review, VQR, Guernica, and Poets.org.

Other honors include two Northern California Book Awards, a California Book Award silver medal, two NAACP Image Award nominations, two Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominations, fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and fellowships from the NEA in both poetry and prose. Dungy is currently a Professor in the English Department at Colorado State University. She lives in Fort Collins, CO with her husband and child.

Jamie Ford is a Northwest author most widely known for his bestselling Seattle-based novels. His debut, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list, won the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and the Langum Prize for Historical Fiction. Hotel was named the #1 Book Club pick in 2010 by the American Bookseller Association and is now read widely in schools all across the country. This multi-cultural tale was adapted by Book-It Repertory Theatre, and has recently been optioned for a stage musical, and also for film, with George Takei serving as Executive Producer.

Jamie’s second book, Songs of Willow Frost, was also a national bestseller. His third novel set in Seattle, Love and Other Consolations Prizes, was published in 2017 and Library Journal named it one of the Best Historical Fiction Novels of 2017. An award-winning short-story writer, his work has been published in multiple anthologies, from Asian-themed steampunk set in Seattle in the Apocalypse Triptych, to stories exploring the universe of masked marvels and caped crusaders from an Asian American perspective in Secret Identities: The First Asian American Superhero Anthology, and Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology. His essays on race, identity, love, heroes, and complex families have been published nationwide and his work has been translated into 35 languages. He says he’s holding out for Klingon, because that’s when you know you’ve made it. Jamie’s most recent novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, will be published in August 2022.

The Looking Glass Rock Writers’ Conference (LGRWC) is a unique creative experience for writers which aspires to foster reading, writing, creativity, and a sense of place in Transylvania County.  The Transylvania County Library is a vital, trusted source for discovery, inspiration, and innovation at the heart of a community that celebrates learning, creativity, and curiosity.  Brevard College provides an experiential liberal arts education that encourages personal growth and inspires artistic, intellectual, and social action.

As partners, Brevard College and the Transylvania County Library Foundation seek to enrich the cultural and educational life of Transylvania County by nurturing and developing the LGRWC. Through intensive community-building creative workshops and public readings, the LGRWC will offer Transylvania County residents the opportunity to interact with renowned authors, engage in meaningful conversation about writing and place, and strengthen ties across generations by reaching out to the diverse population of Transylvania County.