Flagler College to host Texas author and poet John Blair

ST. AUGUSTINE, FL (03/16/2012)(readMedia)-- On Monday, April 9 at 7 p.m., Flagler College will welcome poet, fiction writer and critic John Blair for a reading and discussion.

Blair's work has appeared in more than seventy journals and magazines, including Shenandoah, The Antioch Review, The Sewanee Review, Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, Southern Humanities Review, American Literature and Studies in the Novel. He is the author of two novels, "A Landscape of Darkness" and "Bright Angel," both published by Ballantine Books. His collection of short stories "American Standard" was the 22nd winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. His poetry collection, "The Green Girls," won the Lena Miles Wever Todd Prize and was published by Pleiades Press. He has also won several other literary prizes, including Sewanee Review's Andrew Lytle Prize for Fiction, the Texas Institute of Letters' Helen C. Smith Award for Poetry, the Phoebe Winter Fiction Prize, the Arts & Letters Rumi Prize in Poetry. His work has been nominated for the National Book Critic's Circle Award.

Born in St. Petersburg, Florida, Blair is the first Florida-born author to win the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry, which celebrates its first decade of awards this year. He is currently a professor in the Department of English and director of the undergraduate creative writing program at Texas State University.

The reading will be held in the Gamache-Koger Theater at the Ringhaver Student Center at 50 Sevilla Street. The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis. If you are a person with a disability and need reasonable accommodations, please contact Lynn Francisco at 904-819-6460. Sign Language Interpreters are available upon request with a minimum of three days' notice. Call (904) 819-6339 or visit www.flagler.edu/our-community/events/writers-in-residence for more information.

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Flagler College is an independent, four-year, comprehensive baccalaureate college located in St. Augustine, Fla. The college offers 24 majors, 29 minors and two pre-professional programs, the largest majors being business, education and communication. Small by intent, Flagler College has an enrollment of about 2,500 students, as well as a satellite campus at Tallahassee Community College in Tallahassee, Fla. U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review regularly feature Flagler as a college that offers quality education at a relatively low cost; tuition is $22,500, including room and board. A relatively young institution (founded in 1968), Flagler College is also noted for the historic beauty of its campus. The main building is Ponce de Leon Hall, built in 1887 as a luxury resort by Henry Flagler, who co-founded the Standard Oil Company with John D. Rockefeller. For more on Flagler College, visit www.flagler.edu.

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