Scholar and award-winning author Darnell Arnoult is the featured writer for Coffee Night, a reading and performing event dedicated to the poetry and prose at The University of Virginia’s College at Wise.

Coffee night is set for Thursday, Nov. 8 at 6:30 p.m. in the Chapel of All Faiths.  The Department of Language and Literature, Department of Communication Studies and the Jimson Weed, the college’s literary magazine, sponsor the event. The event is free and open to the public.

The 2012 fall edition of Jimson Weed will be released during Coffee Night. All Jimson Weed contributors are invited to present their work at Coffee Night. Others in the region who are interested in participating or performing at Coffee Night may contact Lauren Miller, Jimson Weed managing editor, at lwm2d@uvawise.edu, by Monday, Nov. 5.

A native of Henry County, Va., Arnoult received a Bachelor’s of Arts in American Studies with a concentration in Southern Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing from North Carolina State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Memphis.

Arnoult’s collection of poems “What Travels With Us: Poems” (Louisiana State University Press, 2005) received the 2006 SIBA Poetry Book of the Year and won the 2005 Weatherford Award in Appalachian Literature. She was named Tennessee Writer of the Year by the Tennessee Writers Alliance in 2007 and received the Mary Frances Hobson Medal in Arts and Letters from Chowan University in 2009.

An assistant professor of English and a writer-in-residence at Lincoln Memorial University, she co-directs the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival and the Appalachian Young Writers Workshop and serves as director of the Cumberland Gap Writers Studio and the Appalachian Reading Series. She teaches fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and creative practice at conferences and workshops throughout the Southeast. Arnoult also teaches at an independent novel writing workshop and an independent memoir workshop in Sweetwater, Tenn.

Arnoult will also be speaking at a public lecture, “The Siren and Narrative Voice” on Friday, Nov. 9 at 1 p.m. in the Chapel of All Faiths.  Her two award winning books “What Travels With Us: Poems” and “Sufficient Grace” will be available at both events with a book signing following. UVa-Wise students receive cultural credit for attending these events.

Arnoult divides her time between Harrogate and Middle Tennessee, where she resides with her husband, metal artist William Brock.

For more information, please contact College Relations at 276-376-1027.