Mark Defoe featured at Monongalia Arts Center

(This news courtesy George Lies with Morgantown Writers Group)

Mark Defoe, Award Winning Author to be featured at MAC

Award winning author Mark DeFoe will be featured with Morgantown Poets at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 18, at Monongalia Arts Center (MAC).

The event is free and open to the public. The MAC is at 107 High Street, downtown Morgantown (beside Hotel Morgan).

DeFoe’s ninth chapbook, “Ten Scenes with Mocking Bird,” won the 2009 Tennessee Chapbook Award sponsored by Poems and Plays, a journal published through the Department of English at Middle Tennessee State University.

His work has been widely published and anthologized, appearing in Poetry, Yale Review, Kenyon Review, Sewanee Review, Paris Review, New Letters, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, North American Review, Poetry Ireland Review and many others.

DeFoe was winner of the 2005 Chautauqua Writers’ Center Literary Journal’s national poetry competition. In 1998 and 2003, he was awarded individual artist grants from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.

The author lives with his wife, Jeanne, a pianist, in Buckhannon, where he is a professor emeritus of English at West Virginia Wesleyan College.

Morgantown Poets urges caution in winter driving season. Featured authors are scheduled on a weather-permitting basis. Don’t drive to any event if road conditions are hazardous. Safety first!

Public parking is available near the MAC in the parking garage at the corner of Pleasant and Chestnut streets and at the city lot behind 142 High Street (enter off Spruce). The MAC is accessible to individuals with special mobility requirements; schedule ahead at least seven days prior to the event by calling 304-292-3325, or write to info@monartscenter.com.

Morgantown Poets is an informal not-for-profit, all-volunteer community group that meets 7-9 p.m. the third Thursday each month at the MAC, providing literary enthusiasts in north-central West Virginia the opportunity to express themselves, share their work, network and to connect up-and-coming writers with more established authors. New writers are welcome. Join on Facebook by entering “Morgantown Poets” in the search. Or join the mailing list at morgantownpoets@yahoo.com or the listserve, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/motownpoetry.