The annual Hughes Lecture Series commences for 2012 with an Evening of Poetry, 8 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 3, in the R. Emmett Boyle Conference Center, located in the academic, sports and recreation complex (ASRC).
Featured poets will include: Marc Harshman, C.J. Farnsworth and Devon Miller-Duggan.
The Hughes Lecture Series also will present a 3 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 4 lecture, featuring West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harsham. This program will take place in the Alumni Lounge, College Union.
Appointed Poet Laureate of West Virginia by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin in May 2012, Harshman is a well-known author of children’s books. His 11 books include “The Storm,” a Smithsonian Notable Book. His short prose works have recently been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His poetry booklets include “Rose of Sharon” and “Local Journeys.”
His poems have been published by Kent State University, the University of Iowa, University of Georgia and the University of Arizona.
Harshman was named the recipient of the West Virginia Arts Commission Fellowship in Poetry for the year 2000 and the Fellowship in Children’s Literature for 2008. He holds degrees from Bethany College, Yale University Divinity School, and the University of Pittsburgh. He and his wife, Cheryl, who is director of the Paul N. Elbin Library, are residents of Wheeling and are the parents of one adult daughter, Sarah.
Farnsworth is employed at West Liberty University where she is developmental advising specialist with the Learning and Student Development Center. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Bethany College and is nearing completion of her Master’s of Fine Arts at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Her poetry has appeared in “Kenning,” “Kestral,” and “Poetry on the Move.” She also has written for the magazine, “West Virginia Living,” and placed poems in the annual West Virginia Writer’s competition. She resides in Wheeling, with her husband Thomas, and son, Holden.
Miller-Duggan’s poems have appeared in “CutBank,” “The Indiana Review,” “Hayden’s Ferry Review” and “The Chattahoochee Review.” She has won a fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts and the Editor’s Prize with her poem, “Margie.”
Her first collection, “Pinning the Bird to the Wall,” appeared in November 2008 from Tres Chicas Books.
Miller-Duggan teaches and advises for the University of Delaware’s Honors Program, She earned a bachelor’s of arts degree from Mount Holyoke College, a master of art’s from Johns Hopkins University and a doctoral degree from the University of Delaware. A resident of Newark, Del., Miller-Duggan is married to an historian and has two grown daughters.
The Hughes Lecture Series was begun in the 1970s by former WLU professor, Dr. Raymond Grove Hughes, a beloved professor who joined West Liberty in 1931. Thanks to his endowment, the series has brought a wide range of speakers to the University, including: Dr. Ralph Abernathy, confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Eugene McCarthy, U. S. Senator and presidential candidate in 1968; and John Simon, noted film critic and West Virginia writer and NASA scientist Homer Hickam.