WESTFIELD – The Westfield State University English department presents fiction and nonfiction author Steve Edwards, who will read from his 2010 memoir “Breaking Into The Backcountry,” a nonfiction account of his time spent as a caretaker of a remote homestead in southwestern Oregon, on Wednesday, February 26, at 3:30 p.m. in Scanlon Banquet Hall.
His work has recently appeared in AGNI Online, Electric Literature, and The Fiddleback. Edwards is currently writing a series of essays about parenting a special needs child for The Good Men Project, a social media platform that focuses on what it means to be a good man in the 21st century, and how this definition continues to affect and shape our lives.
Edwards is a professor of English at Fitchburg State University, and was invited to speak by Yelizaveta (Lisa) Renfro, associate professor of English at Westfield State.
“This event will allow the Westfield community to become acquainted with the work of a contemporary fiction and nonfiction writer,” Renfro said. “Bringing authors to campus allows the Westfield community to be exposed to different types of writing and to engage more deeply with writers and the works that they produce. Steve is a gifted writer and teacher, and I feel fortunate that he is coming to share his work and his insights about writing with us.”
Students in Renfro’s Creative Writing and English Composition courses will be reading Edwards’ work, and the event will give them a chance to meet and directly interact with an author whose work they will be studying.
“My creative writing students will be reading Steve’s work as an example of the kind of writing a contemporary author is producing and publishing,” Renfro said. “My composition students are reading Steve’s work due to its relevance to our course’s theme: nature and ecology. These students will be examining the types of personal connections Steve makes with nature, and will be using Steve’s writing as a model for their own work.”
“Hearing a writer read and discuss his own writing helps make the work come alive, and it offers students insight into the writing process of a successful published writer,” Renfro said.
This event is sponsored by the English department. For more information about the English department, visit www.westfield.ma.edu/prospective-students/academics/english/ . For more information on Steve Edwards, visit his website: www.steveedwardswriter.com . For more information about the reading, please contact Yelizaveta (Lisa) Renfro at (413)572-8416 or by email at [email protected] .
