'Point Blank' explores drug trafficking and espionage during Civil War

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Point Blank

• Carmine Sarracino

ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (01/14/2016)(readMedia)-- "Point Blank," the debut novel by Carmine Sarracino, professor of English at Elizabethtown College, is set in a Civil War hospital amid drug trafficking, espionage and murder. He will discuss the book at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20, at the College's Bowers Writers House.

Sarracino, educated at Rhode Island College and The University of Michigan, has had his poems published in magazines and has written three books of poetry: "The Idea of the Ordinary," "The Heart of War" and "The Battlefield Photographer." He also has co-authored a cultural study of pornography, "The Porning of America." "Point Blank" has just been released in hardcopy and electronic formats by The Wild Rose Press.

Sarracino's reading is followed by a book-signing and a chocolate-fondue reception.

Additional events at Elizabethtown College's Bowers Writers House include:

Scholars Robert and Ruth Ann Johansen visit Bowers Writers House Thursday, Jan. 28, and Friday, Jan. 29.

At 4 p.m. Thursday, Bob talks about his approach to global writing and how writing, itself, can help us create a better life experience for all peoples.

At 4 p.m. Friday, Ruth Ann discusses what it means to her to be a writer, what it takes to write professionally and personally, and the processes she goes through in creating literary criticism, the personal essay, narrative theory and memoir.

At 7 p.m. Friday, Bowers Writers House and The Center for Global Understanding and Peacemaking celebrate the work of the two scholars. They will each read a selection of their own work.

Robert is professor emeritus of political science and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame and Senior Fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He has written "The National Interest and the Human Interest," "A United Nations Emergency Peace Service," and numerous articles on global governance, United Nations peacekeeping, nonviolence in peacebuilding and international enforcement of human rights.

Ruth Ann served as president of Bethany Theological Seminary, was a professor at the University of Notre Dame and taught in the Program of Liberal Studies, administered the interdisciplinary Core Course in the College of Arts and Letters. She was a Fellow of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies where she taught courses on the literary imagination and peacemaking and on the role of narratives in understanding cultures and identity and mediating conflicts. She currently is working on "When Fiction and Philosophy Meet," on the intellectual and spiritual kinship of the U.S. fiction writer Flannery O'Connor and the French philosopher Simone Weil.

An evening reading and presentation by Dr. Kelly Baker takes place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2. She will read from her essay "Hometown and Horror" about The Dozier School, a reform institute for boys, and her hometown, Marianna, Florida. Baker is a freelance writer with a religious studies Ph.D. who covers higher education, gender, labor, motherhood, American religions and popular culture. She's also an essayist, a historian and, occasionally, a reporter.

Writing a novel takes the greatest patience, skill, vision and persistence. But what happens when two people undertake that task together? Two of the most talented writers working, today, have done just that, and will discuss their process creating together a fantastic novel, "A Well-Made Bed," a first work by Laurie Alberts and Abby Frucht.

Part one of Collaboration and Creation takes place at 4 p.m. Monday, March 7; part two, a reading from the work, itself, takes place at 8 p.m. Monday, March 7.

"A Well-Made Bed," from Red Hen Press, will be available for sale at both events.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 9, Dr. Kyle Kopko, assistant professor of political science at Elizabethtown, and Dr. Christopher Devine, assistant professor of political science at Mount Vernon (Ohio) Nazarene University, celebrate the publication of "The VP Advantage: How Running Mates Influence Home State Voting in Presidential Elections," a book they co-authored.

These events at Bowers Writers House are free. Contact: Jesse Waters, 717-689-3945 or writershouse@etown.edu

Bowers Writers House: www.etown.edu/centers/writershouse/

Bowers Writers House at Elizabethtown College, 840 College Hill Lane, was created with a generous gift by Kenneth L. '59 and Rosalie E. '58 Bowers to support a culture of creative curiosity and foster a new sense of excitement and enthusiasm for intellectual diversity. The Bowers Writers House is an interdisciplinary venue for presentation, performance, expression and study. The programs-from dramatic readings to interactive panels to musical performances-offer a dynamic variety of enjoyable and informative experiences.

Read about additional events at Elizabethtown College.

Elizabethtown College, located in historic Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is a private coed institution offering more than four dozen liberal arts, fine and performing arts, science and engineering, business, communications and education degrees. Learn more: http://www.etown.edu/about/

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