Peckham has published 11 collections of poetry and nonfiction, most recently Any Moonwalker Can Tell You: New and Selected poems (Stephen F. Austin State University Press) and Gone the Sun (UnCollected Press). A spoken word LP, Still Running: Words and Music by Joel Peckham also appeared from EAT Poems in 2022. With Robert Vivian, he also co-edited the anthology, Wild Gods: The Ecstatic in Contemporary Poetry and Prose. He is an associate professor of American Literature and Creative Writing at Marshall University.
Pleska, a native West Virginian, is an award-winning author, educator and storyteller. Her memoir Riding on Comets was published by West Virginia University Press in 2015, and her latest memoir, My Life in Water, was released by UnCollected Press in 2024. Cat has edited four anthologies, and her work has appeared in Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Women Speak, Still: The Journal, Heartwood Magazine, and more. She teaches creative writing in Marshall’s Department of English, as well as Appalachian Culture and Literature in Marshall’s Graduate Humanities Program.
Henning is the author of the poetry collections Burn (Southern Illinois University Press, 2024), a Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Editor’s Selection; Terra Incognita (Ohio University Press, 2022), winner of the 2021 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize; and View from True North (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018), winner of the 2017 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition Award and the 2019 High Plains Book Award. She was awarded the 2015 Crazyhorse Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize and the 2019 Poetry Society of America’s George Bogin Memorial Award. She is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Marshall.
Henning, who coordinates the Stringer Visiting Writers Series at Marshall, organized the reading event.
“I am excited for this opportunity to shine a spotlight on our creative writing faculty,” Henning said. “Our faculty is composed of compassionate and committed professors, but students often lack familiarity with their published work. Hosting faculty readings invites students to see that faculty joyfully practice what they teach.”
The event is presented by Marshall University, with support from the Department of English and the College of Liberal Arts.