Videos - LKRS

Poet Doug Van Gundy
Van Gundy is the author of A Life Above Water (Red Hen Press, 2007), a cycle of poems that examines both the natural and human worlds and explores the boundaries between the two. He coedited the book Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia (Vandalia, 2017). He is an Associate Professor and directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at WV Wesleyan College. He is also a musician, performing and teaching traditional West Virginia music on the fiddle and banjo.
View Doug's Reading. (04/18/24)

Author George Dudding
A Mason County, West Virginia native, Dudding holds degrees from Glenville State and West Virginia University, both specializing in physics and mathematics. His interest in UFOs, aliens, ghosts, Bigfoot, crypids, and other paranormal events has evoked the writing of more than 60 books on these topics.
View George's Reading. (03/21/24)

LKRS Chapbook Contributors
The release of the first Little Kanawha Reading Series chapbook - Little Kanawha Review - took place in 2023. The publication features selections from the first three years of the series. This reading features chapbook contributors Mack Samples, Mark Romano, Danielle Curry, and Marjorie Stewart, as well as guest readings from the chapbook.
View the Reading. (11/09/23)

Poet John Hoppenthaler
Hoppenthaler has written four books: Night Wing over Metropolitan Area (2023), Domestic Garden (2015), Anticipate the Coming Reservoir (2008), and Lives of Water (2003), all with Carnegie Mellon University Press. His poetry has appeared in many journals, anthologies, and textbooks, and he has won numerous writing awards. He taught at WVU-Parkersburg, and is currently a Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.
View John's Reading. (10/26/23)

Poet Matthew Wimberley
Wimberley grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Daniel Boone’s Window (Louisiana State University Press, 2021) and All the Great Territories (SIU, 2020). He is an Assistant Professor of English at Lees-Mcrae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina, where he lives.
View Matthew's Reading. (09/28/23)

Author Sara Henning
Henning is the author of Burn, Terra Incognita, and View from True North. She was awarded the 2015 Crazyhorse Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, the 2019 Poetry Society of America’s George Bogin Memorial Award, First Prize in the 2020 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship in poetry to the 2019 Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Her work has appeared in journals such as Quarterly West, Crab Orchard Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Southern Humanities Review, and the several others.
View Sara's Reading. (03/15/23)

Author Robert Gipe
Gipe won the 2015 Weatherford Award for outstanding Appalachian novel for his first novel Trampoline. His second novel, Weedeater,  was published in 2018. His third novel, Pop, ​was published in 2021. All three novels are published by Ohio University Press. In 2021, the trilogy won the Judy Gaines Young Book Award. From 1997 to 2018, Gipe directed the Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College Appalachian Program in Harlan. Gipe is founding producer of the Higher Ground community performance series, and has served as a script consultant for the Hulu series Dopesick and a producer on the feature film The Evening Hour. Gipe resides in Harlan County, Kentucky. He grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee.​
View Rob’s Reading. (01/31/23)

Author Patrick Bizzaro
Bizzaro is the author of 12 poetry collections and chapbooks, two literary studies of Fred Chappell’s work, a National Council of Teachers of English book on creative writing pedagogy, and many other publications. In 2012 he traveled to South Africa on a Fulbright grant to assist with an English language literacy program at University of the Free State. He is an award-winning teacher and professor emeritus of English at East Carolina University.
View Patrick’s Reading. (10/13/22)

Author Marie Manilla
A West Virginia native, Manilla was Shepherd University’s 2021 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence. She often grapples with issues of race, class, and gender in her work and also strives to present a fuller portrait of who West Virginians are, not only to outsiders, but to insiders as well. Her 2014 novel, The Patron Saint of Ugly, is set in a fictional version of the Huntington neighborhood where she grew up. The book received the Weatherford Award and was the 2021 One Book, One West Virginia Common Read. The touching and lively story features Garnet Ferrari, a wonderful, witty, sharp-tongued girl and unwilling saint. Her 2012 novel Shrapnel, also set in Huntington, won the Fred Bonnie Award for Best First Novel.
View Marie's Reading. (09/08/22)

Author & Photographer Mark Romano
Glenville State alumnus Mark Romano will read from his latest book, One Lives One Dies. The book is a true story of two men – Bud Webb and Junior Smith – their families, their girlfriends, and their fellow soldiers during World War II. One lives and the other dies. Their stories are told through actual journals, letters, interviews, and photographs.
View Mark's Reading. (04/26/22)

Author Tara Wine-Queen and Trillium Contributors
Glenville State alumnus Tara Wine-Queen headlines this installment of the LKRS. Her book, Tenderness and Troubling Times, reached number one on Amazon’s U.S. Short Stories Bestsellers list after its release in fall 2019. She has also authored The Baby Losers Club, a novella that was released in August 2020. Additionally, the Weston, West Virginia native has a very successful social media presence where she interacts with readers and writers from across the world.

Contributors to the 2022 edition of Trillium, Glenville State’s annual student literary magazine, also present their works. The Trillium was founded in 1979 by the GSU Department of Language and Literature. Much like the botanical trillium, this publication emerges in the spring with poetry, prose, photographs, and drawings from GSU students, faculty, and staff, and the general public.
View Their Readings. (04/20/22)

Author Jeff James
A native of Glenville, West Virginia, James holds a Master of Science degree from West Virginia University in Labor Relations. His lifelong interest in diversity, inclusion, and innovation led him to co-found Create West Virginia, a non-profit initiative to advance innovative economic opportunities in his home state. James authored a book in 2020 titled, Giving Up Whiteness: One Man’s Journey. In the book, he leads readers on an intimate, humble, and disorienting investigation of what it means to be white in 21st century America.
View Jeff's Reading. (03/23/22)

Author & Musician Mack Samples
Samples is a Navy veteran and a graduate of Glenville State College. He taught at the Lancaster Regional Campus of the University of South Carolina, served 21 years as Registrar and Director of Admissions at GSC, and worked as the WVU Extension Agent in Clay County. He is probably best known as a musician, and has been a member of the five-piece Samples Brothers Band since 1976 and continues to perform, but he is also the author of eleven well-received books, including his latest, The Tribulations of Sarah Ann Legg, a novel based on the sensational murder trial in Clay County in 1905 from Quarrier Press (2020).
View Mack's Reading. (10/14/21)

Author Chaise Robertson and Trillium Contributors
The event features readings by contributors to the 2021 Trillium, plus a special featured reading by Glenville State alumnus Chaise Robertson. He reads from his new poetry collection The Positive Side of Negative Thinking.
View Their Readings. (04/15/21)

Storyteller Bil Lepp
www.leppstorytelling.com
Bil Lepp is an American storyteller and a five-time winner of the West Virginia State Liars’ Contest. Bil’s humorous, family friendly tall-tales and stories have earned the appreciation of listeners of all ages and from all walks of life. Though a five time champion of the WV Liars’s Contest, Lepp’s stories often contain morsels of truth which present universal themes in clever and witty ways.
View Bil’s Performance. (03/18/21)

Glenville State Campus Speakers
Featuring Glenville State President Dr. Mark Manchin, faculty member Dr. Ed Wood, and Athletic Director Jesse Skiles. Manchin is GSU’s 26th President and his career in education includes a lifelong dedication to literature and the arts. Wood is a Professor of History at GSU and authored Mud: A Military History in 2006. Skiles is a Glenville alumnus and former track and cross country coach. He published his most recent book, DuPont Football History, 1939-1998, in 2017.
View Their Readings. (10/15/20)

Instructor and Writer Danielle Kelley
Danielle Kelly has a master’s in fine arts in fiction from West Virginia Wesleyan College and is the managing editor of HeartWood, an online literary journal in association with the low-residency program. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in Deep Water Literary Journal, rkvry Quarterly, and the Women of Appalachia Project’s 11th annual anthology Women Speak.
View Danielle’s Reading. (08/26/20)