Creative writer Heather Sellers will visit the University of Central Arkansas as artist in residence Nov. 8-9.
Sellers’ latest volume, the memoir You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know, was selected as an Oprah Winfrey Book Club pick in November 2010 and was also chosen as a New York Times Notable Book.
On Tuesday, Nov. 8, Sellers will give a public reading at 7:30 p.m. in the College of Business building, room 107. A book-signing will follow. On Wednesday, Nov. 9, she will give a craft lecture and Q&A at 10 a.m. in Thompson Hall 331 and a Q&A on Writing for Children and Creative Nonfiction at 1 p.m. in Thompson 331.
All residency events are free and open to the public.
“Heather Sellers is a personal and literary dynamo,” said Dr. John Vanderslice, associate professor of writing and the faculty sponsor for the residency. “She is one of the hardest working writers in America.”
You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know tells the story of Sellers’ face blindness, a neurological disorder that prevents her from recognizing people by face. It reveals the deeper truth that even in the most flawed circumstances, “love may be seen and felt.”
Sellers teaches poetry writing, fiction writing, and creative nonfiction writing at Hope College in Holland, Mich.
Her short story collection, Georgia Under Water (2001) was selected for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers program. She has also published three volumes of poetry, most recently The Boys I Borrow (2007). Her writing spans almost every genre taught in the UCA Department of Writing. Most students are already familiar with Sellers through The Practice of Creative Writing (the second edition is scheduled for publication next fall) or her earlier craft book, Chapter After Chapter, both of which have been assigned by several UCA instructors. “Our students should can and should learn much from Sellers about both the craft of writing and the obligations of the writing life, a subject about which she feels deeply and has written profoundly,” Vanderslice said.
“An experienced, demanding and widely admired teacher of writing, she knows exactly how to challenge and inspire our students to make the most of their talents. With her passion, her energy and her commitment to the life-changing power of the written word, I expect our students will not only be moved by her but spellbound.”
For more information, contact Vanderslice at (501) 450-3653 or johnv@uca.edu.
The Artist in Residence program is funded by UCA’s arts fee and is administered by the College of Fine Arts and Communication. For more information, call the Office of the Dean, College of Fine Arts and Communication, at (501) 450-3293 or e-mail lesleya@uca.edu.
