About Riverviews Artspace

Constance Merritt will be reading from her new book, including a segment about career/trajectory/craft. Constance Merritt is an American poet. Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1966, and educated at the Arkansas School for the Blind in Little Rock. She is also the winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry and a finalist for the William Carlos Williams Book Award. In 2001, Merritt received a grant from the Rona Jaffe Writers' Foundation and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. From 2003 to 2005, Merritt served as the Margaret Banister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College. Merritt lives in Lynchburg, Virginia.

February 19

Lesley Wheeler, Professor and Department Head of English at Washington and Lee University, has a chapbook and is the editor of a newly released anthology of women’s poetry, Letters to the World. Her latest publication, Voicing American Poetry, explores oral tradition and poetry in America since the 1920’s. Wheeler’s writing reference theatre and radio, as well as the rise the poetry-slam scene.

March 19

Craig Challender teaches American literature and creative writing at Longwood College in Farmville, Virginia where he also directs The Longwood College Authors Series. His first full length collection, Familiar Things (Linwood Publishers) has received positive reviews in Prairie Schooner and Northeast; his poems and reviews have recently appeared or are forthcoming in South Dakota Reivew, Connecticut Review, Tar River Poetry, The Midwest Quarterly The Paterson Literary Review, and Chelsea.

April 16

Laura Longsong will read from Imagine a Door, her first book of poems, published by Turning Point in Spring 2009. Her poetry and fiction are published in Arts & Letters, North American Review, Southern Review, and other magazines, and have been recognized by a James Michener Fellowship, Texas Individual Artist Grant, PEN-Texas Award, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowship, and Pushcart Prize nominations. In addition to teaching at several universities and currently at Lynchburg College, she has taught creative writing to children in Houston inner-city schools, the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and rural schools on the Texas-Mexico border.

May 21

STAMMER is an open mic night featuring the best talent in downtown Lynchburg. Witness an evening of prophetic, performance poetry with Riverviews Artspace’s second annual spoken-art extravaganza. The event will feature spoken word and poetry performances and performance art. Hosted by Charlotte Morgan.