Lee University welcomes best-selling novelist Ron Rash to campus Thursday, Oct. 4, to open the 2018-19 Writer's Festival.
Rash will present a reading at 7 p.m. in Rose Lecture Hall in the Helen DeVos College of Education on Lee's campus in Cleveland, Tennessee.
"Students and guests have a great opportunity to hear an award-winning author in Ron Rash when he visits our campus," says Dr. Kevin Brown, professor of English. "His writings reveal truths about the South and the human heart, as uncomfortable as they both may be."
Rash is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner finalist and New York Times bestseller "Serena," which was adapted into a 2014 movie directed by Susanne Bier that starred Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.
Rash is also the author of "Above the Waterfall," in addition to four prize-winning novels: "The Cove," "One Foot in Eden," "Saints at the River" and "The World Made Straight." He has four collections of poems and six collections of stories. "Burning Bright" won the 2010 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and "Chemistry and Other Stories" was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award.
Twice the recipient of the O. Henry Prize, Rash teaches at Western Carolina University.
"We are so glad that Ron Rash is coming to Lee to give a reading," says Dr. William Woolfitt, associate professor of creative writing. "He reminds us that stories have the power to deepen our empathy."
The Writer's Festival will continue on Feb. 28, 2019, when poet Alison Pelegrin, author of "Big Muddy River of Stars," visits the campus.
For more information on the Writer's Festival, email Woolfitt at wwoolfitt@leeuniversity.edu.