MURRAY, Ky. — Three creative writing faculty members at Murray State University — including Ann Neelon, Dale Ray Phillips and Allen Wier — will give readings from their work Thursday, Feb. 8, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Clara M. Eagle Gallery on Murray State’s campus. A book-signing and reception will follow the reading. This event is free and open to the public. 

Ann Neelon is a native of Boston and a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and of Holy Cross College. She has been a Peace Corps volunteer as well as a Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University. Her collection of poems, “Easter Vigil,” won the Anhinga Prize for Poetry. Her poems and translations have appeared in “American Poetry Review,” “Gettysburg Review,” “Pequod,” “Poetry East,” “Mānoa,” “Michigan Quarterly Review” and other magazines. She is a professor at Murray State and the founding editor of “New Madrid Journal,” the semi-annual journal afiliated with the University’s master’s program in creative writing.

Dale Ray Phillips is the author of “My People's Waltz,” which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His short stories have appeared in “Best American Short Stories,” “Best Stories from the South,” “The Atlantic Monthly,” “Harper's Magazine,” “GQ,” “Zoetrope” and various literary quarterlies. Phillips earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Arkansas and has taught at a variety of universities — including, most recently, Murray State, where he held the endowed Watkins Chair in Creative Writing appointment and now serves as an assistant professor.

Allen Wier is the author of four novels, including “Blanco,” “Departing as Air,” “A Place for Outlaws” and “Tehano,” in addition to two collections of short stories: “Things about to Disappear” and, most recently, “Late Night, Early Morning.” His work has appeared in “The Southern Review,” “The Georgia Review,” “Ploughshares” and “The New York Times.” Wier is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Paisano Fellowship from the University of Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters, the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature and the Robert Penn Warren Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Previously serving as chancellor for the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Wier has taught writing at Carnegie-Mellon University, Hollins University, the University of Alabama and the University of Edinburgh's New Orleans Workshop. He is professor emeritus of the University of Tennessee, where he held the Hodges' Chair for Distinguished Teaching. Currently, Wier is the Watkins Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Murray State. 

For further information about the readings, please contact Dr. Carrie Jerrell at cjerrell1@murraystate.edu.