New York Times bestselling author to headline FMU’s Pee Dee Fiction and Poetry Festival

Author Celeste Ng, twice the author of a New York Times bestseller for her novels Everything I never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere, is the headliner for the annual Pee Dee Fiction and Poetry Festival at Francis Marion University.

The annual two-day festival will be held on campus Nov. 8-9. It features panel discussions and book signings by the authors. It is free and open to the public.

Ng is a regular on literary “best of” lists, and is an active writer outside of her novels. She’s had fiction and essays appear in The New York Times, One Story, The Guardian and TriQuarterly, among others.

Other authors appearing at the festival include Adrian Matejka, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton and Kristin Robertson.

Poet Adrian Matejka has become renowned for his works The Devil’s Garden, Mixology, and The Big Smoke, which was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize, and won the the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton debuted into the world of literature with A Kind of Freedom: A Novel and has followed up with work published in The New York Times Book Review, Oprah.com, Lenny Letter, The Massachusetts Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, and other publications.

Kristen Robertson is an acclaimed poet known most for her works that have appeared in Harvard Review, Indiana Review, TriQuarterly, Third Coast, and Verse Daily, among other journals. She’s also the author of the Alice James Award-winning Surgical Wing.

This year’s festival will begins with a panel discussion featuring Ng and Matejka, followed by two full days of readings, colloquiums, book signings and interactive activities.

The festival also plays an integral role in the fall academic year at FMU. Works by the participating authors are taught in select classes. Students in those classes, and others, have an opportunity to meet with the authors in special workshops and discussion groups.

For more information on the festival, visit peedeefiction.org.