Award-winning author George Ella Lyon to speak at SSU

Mar. 30, 2012

Award winning poet, writer, playwright and activist George Ella Lyon is coming to Shawnee State University on Tuesday, April 3 for two presentations, one at noon and again at 7 p.m. as part of the J.G. Foster Distinguished Lecture Series.

The author of more than 30 books and poetry collections for children, young adults and adults, Lyon is known for such works as "With a Hammer for My Heart," "Father Time and the Day Boxes," "Cecil's Story" and "One Lucky Girl," among others. Lyon will speak about her personal writing process at noon in the alcove of the Clark Memorial Library. The presentation is open to SSU staff, faculty and students as well as the community.

"She will be focusing on how she writes, explaining how she puts her books together and talking about how she comes up with her ideas for her books," said

Ann Marie Short, SSU's Clark Memorial Library associate director and event coordinator. "She has a process and she wants to share that process with us."

A prolific writer, Lyon began writing poetry when she was in third grade. Her first poetry collection called "Mountain" was published in 1983. In addition to her writing, Lyon has taught writing classes at universities including the University of Kentucky, Transylvania University and Radford University. She now teaches writing at workshops, conferences and author visits.

"I think George Ella's visit to campus will not only appeal to our education majors who will be working with children but also our English majors who might possibly be writing and any of the faculty who have an interest in children's literature, Appalachian literature, writing and the writing process," Short said.

An environmental activist as well as a writer, Lyon will speak again at 7 p.m. in the Flohr Lecture Hall in the library on "MTR: Blowing up Our Future One Mountain at a Time."

"She uses music and song and activity to promote her cause of being opposed to mountain top removal," Short added. "It's a different spin. She is not going to lecture about it. She is just going to talk about what mountain top removal will do to our children."

Both appearances are free and open to the public.