RADFORD – The Radford University Highlander Literary Festival is March 21, 7:30 - 9 p.m., in McGuffey 203. Readers are Sharyn McCrumb, David Huddle, Rita Quillen and Richard Rose. RU English professor and author Jim Minick will moderate a panel discussion. The festival is being sponsored by the English Club at RU and co-sponsored by Campus Club Programming.

McCrumb (right) is an award-winning author whose books include St. Dale, She Walks These Hills, The Rosewood Casket, The Ballad of Frankie Silver, The Songcatcher and Ghost Riders. McCrumb, who has been guest lecturer and reader at RU’s annual Highland Summer Conference, has won a Library of Virginia Award and the Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year Award.

Huddle has taught at the University of Vermont and the prestigious Bread Loaf School of English. He is the author of Glory River, Grayscale, Summer Lake New and Selected Poems, Story of a Million Years and La Tour Dreams of the Wolf Girl. His writings have appeared in Esquire, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Story, The Autumn House Anthology of Poetry and the Best American Short Stories.

Quillen is the author of five books including Her Secret Dream, winner of the Poetry Book of the Year 2008 from the Appalachian Writers Association.  She is also the author of October Dusk (Poetry), Counting the Sums (Poetry), Looking for Native Ground (Literary Criticism) and A Southern Appalachian Reader.  She is a well-known speaker and workshop leader and has published work in Appalachian Heritage, Roanoke Review, Antietam Review, Chattahoochie Review, Appalachian Heritage, Appalachian Journal, Cold Mountain Review, Cumberlands, Laurel Review, Mockingbird, Mountain Review, Mountainside, Now and Then, Old Hickory Review, The Plow, Common Ground:  Anthology of Appalachian Poetry, and many more.  Quillen is an assistant professor of English at Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap, Virginia.

Now in his 17th year as Producing Artistic Director for Abingdon’s Barter Theatre, the state theatre of Virginia, Rose has produced and directed theatre throughout the United States including off-Broadway in New York. Since coming to Barter, Rose has brought the theatre into the international spotlight through an exchange with Russia, New York productions, the premieres of new works and the founding of Barter’s Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights.

Minick will moderate "Ocean to Ocean:  Creating Universal Art for Specific Communities."  He is the author of Burning Heaven, Her Secret Song, and Finding a Clear Path. His writing has appeared in many publications, including Shenandoah, Orion, Rivendell, The Encyclopedia of Appalachia, Conversations with Wendell Berry and The San Francisco Chronicle.