Evening with Poets and Spring Writers Conference set for April 25 and 26

Author Gurney Norman will be featured at An Evening with Poets on Thursday, April 25 at HCTC in the Stephens Library on the Hazard Campus. Admission is free and the event begins at 6:30 p.m. This event will be highlighted by the unveiling of the 2013 edition of Kudzu, the college s literary book. Others published in the book will read their work.

Leigh Anne Hornfeldt and Gurney Norman will be featured at the Spring Writers Conference on Friday, April 26 in HCTC s First Federal Center. The conference will hold two concurrent sessions, from 10 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. This event is also free and open to the public.

Gurney Norman is the author of Kinfolks: the Wilgus Stories, a collection of connected short stories featuring Wilgus Collier, and the novel Divine Right s Trip; he is also a contributing editor of Back Talk from Appalachia: Confronting Stereotypes and An American Vein: Critical Readings in Appalachian Literature and, most recently, Ancient Creek. Norman, a longtime advocate for Appalachian writing and culture, has participated in the Spring Writers Conference since its inception. Gurney Norman has been a writer and teacher of writing for 50 years. He served as Kentucky's Poet Laureate for 2009-2010.

Leigh Anne Hornfeldt is a Kentucky native whose poems have appeared in journals such as Foundling Review, Lunch Ticket, Spry, and most recently New Southerner. In 2012 she was a semi-finalist for both the Mary Kay Ballard Poetry Prize and the James Baker Hall Memorial Prize in Poetry, and was the recipient of the Kudzu prize in Poetry. Her debut chapbook, East Main Aviary, was recently released through Flutter Press. She is the founder and editor of Two of Cups Press where she is currently co-editing the forthcoming anthology Bourbon for Blood, due for publication in July 2013.