Aug. 31

Before JCSM officially reopens for fall semester, Pebble Hill will graciously open its doors to host our first poetry reading of the 2017–18 academic year.

Jesseca Cornelson is an associate professor of English at Alabama State University where she teaches composition, literature, and creative writing. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as Botticelli Magazine, Mid-American Review, Parody, Platte Valley Review, and Salamander. She is an alumna of the Sewanee Writer’s Conference, has twice been a writer-in-residence at the Catskill Center’s Platte Clove Preserve, and is a recipient of a Fellowship in Literary Arts from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

Sept. 21

Allison Joseph lives, writes, and teaches in Carbondale, Illinois, where she is part of the creative writing faculty at Southern Illinois University. She serves as editor and poetry editor of Crab Orchard Review, moderator of the Creative Writers Opportunities List, and director of the Young Writers Workshop.

Oct. 19

Naomi Shihab Nye, in addition to giving a reading, will also introduce winner of the annual Southern Humanities Review Witness Prize, for which she is the 2017–18 judge. Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes. Having spent 40 years traveling the world to lead writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages, she describes herself as a “wandering poet.” Nye was born to a Palestinian father and American mother, and she grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian- American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity.

The reading by Naomi Shihab Nye is funded in part by a grant from South Arts, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

Nov. 16

Christina Olson’s latest collection is Terminal Human Velocity. Her work has also appeared in The Atlantic, Arts & Letters, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, Brevity, River Styx, Gulf Coast, Passages North, The Normal School, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume 3. She is the poetry editor of Midwestern Gothic and teaches at Georgia Southern University.