Rebecca Godwin book launch

Time: Robert Morgan's Words for Home

Location: R.A. Fountain

Rebecca Godwin’s new book is a study of Robert Morgan’s fiction, including his Oprah-Book Club novel “Gap Creek.” Morgan is one of NC’s best known writers, and it’s been nearly 20 years since he and his friend, local hero James Applewhite (from Stantonsburg), were in Fountain for a reading.

Morgan retired from teaching at Cornell University last year.

Godwin, a WIlson native,recently retired from Barton College, where she was Professor of English and Elizabeth H. Jordan Chair of Southern Literature. She is author of a book on Lee Smith as well as forty essays and book reviews in critical anthologies and scholarly journals, all focused on Southern or Appalachian writers. Her new book, published by West Virginia University Press, includes an extended biographical essay that ties characters and plot details from all of Morgan’s novels and stories to his ancestors’ lives and to his own experiences growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountain community of Zirconia. Godwin will talk about her research, answer questions about it, and sign copies.

In addition to Godwin’s book, we’ll have copies of  several other Morgan novels and poetry collections for sale, a few of which were autographed by Bob during the semester he spent at ECU working on his Daniel Boone book–his office across the hall from mine.

This event will take place in the Smith-Yelverton Typewriter Museum & Poetry Bookstore, at 6756 E. Wilson St., its entrance beside that of R.A. Fountain. 

Tags: Book release, literary