SWCC
2010 SWCC News
More information:
Lee Smith Bibliography at SWCC Library
The residency with Lee Smith and Barbara Bates Smith is part of the MINDS WIDE OPEN celebration of the contributions of women artists, sponsored by the Virginians for the Arts.
Southwest Virginia Community College is pleased to announce a residency with renowned best-selling author and Southwest Virginia native Lee Smith. Residency activities will take place Monday & Tuesday, March 15 & 16, 2010.
Monday, March 15, 7:00 p.m. SWCC King Community CenterPublic Reading and Book Signing of her new book "Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger". This will be her FIRST public reading of this book.
Reception to follow reading. King Community Center.
Tuesday, March 169:25 a.m.: Reading, discussion and Q & A, from the same book, in Ratliff Commons in Dellinger Center. The Book Store will have Lee’s books available for purchase and signing.
11:00 a.m.: Meet with Reminiscent Writer’s Class for discussion and lunch in the Community Center
1:00 p.m.: Richlands Middle School writing workshop at RHS
2:00 p.m.: Richlands High School writing workshop at RHS
7:30 p.m.: B. Smith (Barbara Bates Smith) does Lee Smith, a one-woman play which is a sampler of excerpts, music and anecdotes based on Lee’s life and her writings selected from her new book; music by Jeff Sebens.
King Community Center
Free Admission
For more information, please contact Mary Lawson, 276.964.7348, mary.lawson@sw.edu
On Tuesday, March 16, the one-woman performance “B. Smith Does Lee Smith” will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the King Community Center at SWCC. Musical accompaniment is by Jeff Sebens. Admission is by voluntary donation at the door.
The play highlights three stories from Buchanan County native Lee Smith’s new book, Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger, with music, anecdotes and vignettes from novels as well. Featured characters are a newspaper columnist, a feisty nursing home resident, a teenager bent on salvation, and a brash country singer, among others - all with a flair for storytelling. Following the performance, Lee, Barbara and Jeff will engage the audience in a talk-back about the performance. On Monday night, March 15, at 7:00 p.m., in the King Community Center, Lee Smith will be reading from her new book. A reception and book signing will follow the reading.
“The two Smiths seem made for each other” cites the Asheville Citizen-Times. Lee Smith has said “I am Barbara’s most avid fan and groupie.” Smith’s other adaptations of Lee Smith’s works are Ivy Rowe, On Agate Hill, and The Christmas Letters. Winner of the 2003 Southeastern Theatre Conference Best Actress Award, Barbara has recently played featured roles in regional productions of Hamlet, Wit and Doubt.
Lee Smith has written twelve novels, including the best-seller The Last Girls, which has been adapted into a musical, Good ‘Ole Girls, which just opened Off-Broadway in New York. Literary awards for Lee Smith include the Lila Wallace/Readers’ Digest Award, the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Fiction Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
