'Evening with Writers’ to showcase original writing by 15 area teachers participating in the UA’s Summer Invitational Writing Institute

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Fayetteville authors Margaret Bolsterli and Robert Ford will read from their work Saturday, April 22 at Giffels Auditorium in Old Main on the University of Arkansas campus at an event also featuring work by participants in the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project.

“An Evening with Writers” will showcase original writing by 15 educators from throughout northwest Arkansas who are fellows of the Summer Invitational Writing Institute sponsored by the College of Education and Health Professions. Samuel Totten, UA professor of middle-level and secondary education, brought the California-based institute to Fayetteville in 1997. It offers accomplished teachers an opportunity to immerse themselves in the science and art of teaching writing.

The event at 7 p.m. April 22 gives many of these teachers their first public forum in which to read from their writings.

“The evening will highlight the remarkable talent of both professional writers and teachers who write for the sheer joy of writing,” Totten said. “If the evening is as successful as we hope it will be, it may become an annual event.

Margaret Bolsterli

Bolsterli, the author of a memoir called “Born in the Delta,” is professor emerita of English at the University of Arkansas. “Born in the Delta,” published in 2000 by the University of Arkansas Press, is subtitled “Reflections on the Making of a Southern White Sensibility.” She also wrote “The Early Community at Bedford Park” (1977) and edited “Vinegar Pie and Chicken Bread” (1982) and “A Remembrance of Eden” (1993).

An early draft of Ford’s first published novel, “The Student Conductor,” was selected from among more than 700 manuscripts for a James Fellowship from the Heekin Group Foundation for most promising novel-in-progress. He is artistic director of the Arkansas Playwrights Workshop, author-in-residence at the Fayetteville Public Library and playwright-in-residence and co-founder of TheatreSquared.

The event is free and open to the public. Bolsterli and Ford will be available to sign their books, which will be available for purchase along with the newly published, “Spark the Brain, Ignite the Pen,” an anthology of quick writes by institute participants.