HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Marshall University’s A.E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series hosts its final event of the semester at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 16, in the Drinko Library Atrium. 

The featured writer is Kari Gunter-Seymour, the Poet Laureate of Ohio, an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship recipient and a Pillars of Prosperity Fellow for the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio. The event is free and open to all.

Gunter-Seymour’s award-winning collections include Dirt Songs (EastOver Press, 2024), Alone in the House of My Heart (Ohio University Swallow Press, 2022), and A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila Na Gig Editions, 2020).

She is a ninth-generation Appalachian, the executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project and editor of its anthology series, Women Speak. Gunter-Seymour is also a retired instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University and the founder, curator and host of “Spoken & Heard,” a seasonal performance series featuring poets, writers and musicians from across the country.

Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Verse Daily, World Literature Today, American Book Review and on Poem-a-Day.