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WRITERS SERIES

The goal of our brand new HAC Writers Series is to deliver interesting virtually-delivered content to the HAC community in the form readings, commentary, interviews, etc. from many of the writers and poets that call this area their home.
 

HOLIDAY SPECIAL // DECEMBER 10, 2020

Cozy up by the fireplace with your favorite device and let us do all of the reading. The HAC Writers Series returns in December with a Live Holiday Special! Guests will share stories, poems, conversations, and music. Steven Petrow hosts a wonderful lineup including John Claude Bemis, Jane Holding, William Davis, and Andrea Edith Moore. John Claude Bemis and Jane Holding will be reading from famed local authors Lee Smith and Allan Gurganus. Poet William Davis will share selections of his poetry, and soprano Andrea Edith Moore will treat our viewers to her incredible vocal talents. This program will be featured on Facebook Live at 10:45 AM on Friday, December 11. It will be available on the HAC Website, Facebook, and YouTube following the live event.

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The Hillsborough community is home to many talented, award-winning writers. The Writers Series was designed to showcase the incredible literary talents and achievements of our neighbors and friends.

JILL MCCORKLE // OCTOBER 10, 2020

Bestselling novelist Jill McCorkle is interviewed by our gracious host Steven Petrow; Jill shares the inspiration for, and reads from, her latest novel, Hieroglyphics.

 

Jill McCorkle’s first two novels were released simultaneously when she was just out of college, and the New York Times called her “a born novelist.” Since then, she has published six novels and four collections of short stories, and her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories several times, as well as The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Five of her books have been New York Times Notable books, and her novel, Life After Life, was a New York Times bestseller. She has received the New England Booksellers Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. She has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Garden and Gun, The Atlantic, and other publications. She was a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard, where she also chaired the department of creative writing. She is currently a faculty member of the Bennington College Writing Seminars and is affiliated with the MFA program at North Carolina State University.

REMEMBERING RANDALL KENAN // SEPTEMBER 19, 2020

The Greatest Showman (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (C) 2017 Atlantic Recording Corporation

Born in Brooklyn. Moved to Duplin Co, NC as a baby, where he lived with his grandparents. His most notable works include Let the Dead Bury their Dead, A Visitiation of Spirits, The Fire This Time, and his latest, If I had Two Wings. He was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowhip, a Whiting Award and the John Dos Passos Prize. Black. Gay. Southern. He died too young at age 57. BELOVED.

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Very special thanks to Jill McCorkle, Steven Petrow, Tom Rankin, Jaki Shelton Green, Lee Smith, and Daniel Wallace. 

Excerpt from New York Times Tribute by Richard Sandomir

Mr. Kenan’s gregarious but guarded personality was topped with a “virtuosic panoply of chuckles,” Alane Mason, his editor at W.W. Norton and former college classmate, wrote in the draft of a tribute to him for the website Literary Hub. His eclectic enthusiasms included physics, science fiction, Moby-Dick comic books, the blues, the music of Taylor Swift, great meals and the food writing of M.F.K. Fisher. Read the full text...

STEVEN PETROW // AUGUST 29, 2020

Steven Petrow is an award-winning journalist and book author who is best known for his Washington Post and New York Times essays on aging, health, and civility. He’s also an opinion columnist for USA Today,  where he writes about civil discourse and manners.

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