By Karen Chambless

Author Scott Russell Sanders will be the next guest to read at Lee University’s Writer’s Festival on Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. The reading will take place in the Rose Lecture Hall, located in the Helen DeVos College of Education.

Sanders is the author of 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, including “Hunting for Hope” and “A Conservationist Manifesto.” His most recent books are “Earth Works: Selected Essays” and “Divine Animal: A Novel.” A collection of stories titled “Dancing in Dreamtime” will be published this year, along with a new edition of his documentary narrative, “Stone Country.”

According to Image, “In genres as diverse as short story and memoir, nature essay and manifesto, Scott Russell Sanders’s prose is consistently propelled by a concern for the well-being of the world and the people who inhabit it.”

Among his honors are the Lannan Literary Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, the Mark Twain Award, the Cecil Woods Award for Nonfiction, the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Sanders is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have two children.

“We are thrilled to have a writer of Sanders’s stature reading at Lee,” said Dr. Kevin Brown, professor of English at Lee. “His excellent career shows a wide range of ability in diverse genres, coupled with a commitment to the idea of awe and wonder at the beauty and mystery of the world. We’re especially excited that he is taking the opportunity to meet with our students and talk about the craft of writing with them.”

Sanders will also visit Dr. Rachel Reneslacis’ Religious Rhetoric and Spiritual Quest class on Feb. 24, and will have lunch with the Creation Care Club, sponsored by Lee faculty Dr. Katherine Carlson.

Future Writer’s Festival events include author Denise Giardina in March, and Lee faculty Brown, Stacey Isom Campbell, and Dr. Will Woolfitt in April.

For more information on Lee’s Writer’s Festival, please email Brown at [email protected] or call 423-614-8320.