Katherine Min Memorial Reading by Mesha Maren and M. Randal O’Wain

This reading by two UNC Asheville graduates with acclaimed new books, is a part of UNC Asheville’s Visiting Writers Series, free and open to everyone at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 6 in Karpen Hall, Laurel Forum.

Mesha Maren’s Sugar Run debuted in January to unusual fanfare, including a feature on public radio’s The State of Things, a review in The News & Observer, and these words of praise in The New York Times from Charles Frazier: “The literary lineages here are hard-boiled fiction and film noir, but on every page of her debut novel, Mesha Maren creates bold new takes on those venerable genres, a much needed refresh of worn tropes and clichés.”

For this event, Maren will revisit campus with fellow 2012 graduate M. Randal O’Wain – the two worked together as co-editors of Headwaters, UNC Asheville’s student literary and arts journal, and as mentors of other students in the university’s Writing Center. O’Wain was the 2009 winner of the Thomas Wolfe Award for Fiction, a prize won five years later by Maren. O’Wain’s memoir, Meander Belt: Family, Loss, and Coming of Age in the Working-Class South, will be released in October by University of Nebraska Press, and his Hallalujah Station and Other Stories is forthcoming next year from Autumn House Press.

Both Maren and O’Wain studied with the Katherine Min, the late writer and UNC Asheville faculty member who was a mentor to many budding writers at the university. She died in March after a long battle with cancer and this will be the inaugural Katherine Min Memorial Reading in her honor.

Upcoming Visiting Writers Series Events

Oct. 29 – Best-Selling Author Wally Lamb

Nov. 14 – Poet Jericho Brown

Click here for building accessibility information.

Accessibility Contact: Carrie Plaxco (828.251.6227) or cplaxco@unca.edu

Visitor Parking on the UNC Asheville Campus – Visitors may park in faculty/staff and non-resident lots from 5:00 p.m. until 7:30 a.m., Monday through Friday, and on weekends, holidays, and campus breaks. Visitors are not permitted to park in resident student lots at any time.