Creative Writing Festival Inaugurates Fall Writers on the Shore Series Wednesday, September 7

Salisbury University inaugurates its fall Writers on the Shore series with a Creative Writing Festival 8 p.m. Wednesday, September 7, in the Great Hall of Holloway Hall.

The event includes poetry by Dr. John Nieves, creative non-fiction by Dr. John Wenke and fiction by Dr. Katherine Zlabek, all of SU’s English Department. The evening also features students reading from their works in celebration of the publication of SU’s annual literary arts magazine, The Scarab.

Nieves has published in journals including Beloit Poetry Journal, Southern Review, Crazyhorse, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Ninth Letter and Cincinnati Review. He won the 2011 Indiana Review Poetry Prize and is a 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee. His first book, Curio, published in 2014, won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize.

A recognized scholar on the work of J.D. Salinger, Wenke wrote the first book-length study of the author’s uncollected and collected short fiction and was featured in the 2013 documentary Salinger, directed by Shane Salerno. His scholarship, literary non-fiction and short stories have been published in journals and publications including The Gettysburg Review, Resources in American Literary Studies, Cimarron Review and Forbes.

Zlabek’s unpublished novel-in-stories, Love Me, and the World Is Mine, has been a finalist for a number of honors, including the Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award. She has earned the AWP Intro Journals Award. Her chapbook, Let the Rivers Clap Their Hands, was published in 2015. Her work also has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, The Kenyon Review and The Literary Review, among other journals.

Sponsored by the English Department and Writers on the Shore, admission is free and the public is invited. For more information call 410-543-6445 or visit the SU website at www.salisbury.edu.