HAMPTON ROADS, Va. – (March 8, 2005) – Tidewater Community College launches its
4th Annual Literary Festival with a schedule of activities and speakers ranging from famous national writers to regional talented authors. The Literary Festival promotes cultural development of the entire Hampton Roads community.

Held April 4 through April 8, this exciting annual festival presents world-renowned authors, poetry readings, receptions and faculty and students’ literary works. All events are free and open to the public.

Award-winning writer and novelist Jamaica Kincaid opens the festival at 7 p.m. on April 4 at the TCC Jeanne and George Roper Performing Arts Center in Norfolk. And at 7 p.m. on April 5, famed Appalachian novelist Sharyn McCrumb will treat the audience to her experiences in weaving ballad novels.

Kincaid, a native of Antigua, has become one of the most influential and important authors writing today. She is known for her books that vividly describe the difficult coming-of-age of strong-minded girls who, very much like herself, were born into poverty. Her style has been described as “emotional truthfulness,” and Kincaid has carved out a unique place in American literature, with novels such as Annie John, Lucy, A Small Place and At the Bottom of the River, which won the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts.

Kincaid left Antigua at the age of 17, bound for New York and a job as an au pair. After working for three years and taking night classes at a community college, Kincaid won a full scholarship to Franconia College in New Hampshire. Back in New York she started a job writing interviews for a teenage girls’ magazine. Kincaid’s work in The Village Voice and Ingenue magazine caught the attention of then-legendary editor Williams Shawn of The New Yorker. Kincaid became a staff writer for the magazine in 1976 and stayed there for nine years.

The complete Literary Festival activities are as follows:

Monday, April 4
Student/Faculty/Staff readings
1 p.m., Room 2502, Norfolk Campus

Keynote Address - Jamaica Kincaid
7 p.m., TCC Jeanne and George Roper Performing Arts Center, Norfolk Campus



Tuesday, April 5
Student/Faculty/Staff Readings
12:30 p.m., Waterfront Conference Room, Portsmouth Campus

Student/Faculty/Staff Readings
12:30 p.m. Room B100, Virginia Beach Campus

Sharyn McCrumb
7 p.m., Pungo Auditorium, Virginia Beach Campus
Sharyn McCrumb’s award-winning novels celebrating the history and folklore of Appalachia have received scholarly acclaim and ranked on the New York Times Best-Seller lists. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with an MA in English from Virginia Tech, she has lectured on her work at Oxford University, the University of Bonn- Germany, and the Smithsonian Institution; taught a writers workshop in Paris, and served as writer-in-residence at King College in Tennessee. The Appalachian Writer’s Association in 1997 honored Sharon for Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature. She has a long list of awards to her credit.

Wednesday, April 6
Jay Paul
11 a.m., Waterfront Conference Room, Portsmouth Campus

Jay Paul is a professor of English at Christopher Newport University where he directs the honors program and teaches advanced writing and honors seminars. His publications range from poetry to short fiction, critical studies and book reviews. His poems have appeared in many publications including Hyperion, New Virginia Review, Panoply, Poetry Northwest, and Shenandoah. A collection of his poems, Going Home in Flood Time, was published in 1999.

Tim Seibles
1 p.m., Room 2505, Norfolk Campus

In addition to Hammerlock, Tim Seibles is the author of Body Moves and Hurdy-Gurdy. His newest collection, Buffalo Head Solos, has just been released by the Cleveland State University Poetry Center. He is a former NEA fellow and received an Open Voice Award from the 63rd Street Y in New York City. His work has been featured in anthologies such as Humor Me, Role Call, Outsiders, and The Poets’ Grimm. He has led workshops for Cave Canem – a retreat for African American writers – and for the Zora Neale Hurston-Richard Wright Foundation. He lives in Norfolk where he teaches courses for Old Dominion University’s English department and MFA in writing program.

Thursday, April 7
John Slade
Noon, Chesapeake Campus Theater

John Slade, an English professor with a doctorate in literature from Stanford University, has taught in the United States, the Caribbean, Norway and Russia, and is the author of 10 books. Slade’s passion for life and the environment are evident in his writings. He will feature his most recent novel, Oslo, in April, an engaging tale about a symphonic conductor.




Collegewide Faculty Readings
7 p.m., Room 2057 A/B, Whitehurst Building, Chesapeake Campus

Rick Alley is the author of The Talking Book of July, a book of poems published by Eastern Washington University press.

Rachel Blue Ankney has been published by the Chrysler Museum of Art-Celebration of Ekphrasis. She is currently working on her memoir, The Last of the Handpicked Tomatoes, and her compilation of poems, This Island's History.

Joe Antinarella has co-authored three books on teaching writing.

Robert P. Arthur has published a best-selling book of poetry, Hymn to the Chesapeake, and has published or had produced 18 other books and/or plays. Two of his poem/plays have won Port Folio awards and he has been awarded three life-time Achievement Awards for Poetry, Playwriting and Criticism, including the Christians in the Arts Award in 2002.

Susan Boland, who teaches English as a Second Language, has recently joined the TCC faculty. Susan primarily works in creative nonfiction, and has been published in The Virginian-Pilot, Naval History Magazine and Portfolio. Her work, as well as more information about Susan, is available at www.tcc.edu/faculty/webpages/SBoland.

Mike Cohen has been on the adjunct faculty for more than 10 years, teaching math at the Norfolk Campus and physics at Chesapeake. He is also on the adjunct faculty at Old Dominion University and works full time as a senior contract administrator for Northrop Grumman Newport News.

William Galloway has published poems in Western Humanities Review, Exquisite Corpse, The Sow's Ear, and some smaller publications in California.

Doug Thiele is a poet and lyricist who received his masters degree in creative writing from Indiana University. His lyrics have been recorded by major recording artists, and he is internationally published in the craft of songwriting. His latest collection of poems, Like Chinese Milk, is available at www.amazon.com.

Laurie Sisson Skidmore White - With a penchant for musings inspired by others’ tales - useful in her work as TCC’s chief communications officer - White wrote and designed a short book about 12 collectors for her graduate thesis. A Passion for the Hunt: The Collector’s Soul, sits only on the shelves of family and friends.

Tom Williams’s poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Stray Dog and Poets Against The War. He is a poetry editor for Ordinary Review.


All events are free and open to the public. Call 757-822-1122 for more information or visit the web site, http://www.tcc.edu/LiteraryFestival/index.htm.

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Tidewater Community College is the second largest of the 23 community colleges in the Commonwealth of Virginia, enrolling more than 35,000 students annually. The 37th largest in the nation’s 1,600 community-college network, TCC ranks among the 50 fastest-growing large community colleges. Founded in 1968 as a part of the Virginia Community College System, the college serves the South Hampton Roads region with campuses in Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach as well as the TCC Jeanne and George Roper Performing Arts Center in the theater district in downtown Norfolk, the Visual Arts Center in Olde Towne Portsmouth and a regional Advanced Technology Center in Virginia Beach. Forty-four percent of the region’s residents attending a college or university in Virginia last fall were enrolled at TCC. For more information, visit www.tcc.edu