PEN/Hemingway writing honorees Watts, Hudson to speak in Asheboro

Stephanie Powell Watts

ASHEBORO – Two award-winning writers with local ties will share their work during a reading at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 11, in the Sara Smith Self Gallery of the Randolph Arts Guild in Asheboro.

Stephanie Powell Watts and Marjorie Hudson, who were recognized in the PEN/Hemingway First Fiction Awards in 2012, will perform a joint reading entitled “Southern Neighbors/Different Worlds.” They employ a call and response format that reveals the connections between the shifting and separate worlds of the contemporary South – rural and small town places, New South and old South cultures, Black families and Northern retirees, religion and family life.

Their appearance, sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the Randolph Arts Guild, is free and the public is invited. A reception will precede the reading.

Marjorie Hudson (photo by Brent Clark)

Watts was a PEN/Hemingway finalist for her short story collection We Are Only Talking About What We Need. She writes about African American families under stress, religious conversion and young black women in Randolph County, Raleigh and Hickory.

Hudson’s story collection, Accidental Birds of the Carolinas received an honorable mention in the awards. It tells tales of Northern newcomers and Southern old timers in central rural North Carolina, exploring themes of loss, migration, rural life and religious conversion, in language that author Doris Betts called “pure as birdsong.”

The two writers met at a reception for PEN/Hemingway honorees and discovered their North Carolina connections.

The Randolph Arts Guild is located at 123 Sunset Avenue in Asheboro. For more information about the event, call 318-6803.