English Publications & Events
As an English major, you’ll develop critical thinking, writing and reading skills – skills that are vital to success in any profession and to being an engaged and informed citizen.
Check back regularly for the latest English Department updates, news and announcements.
Omnium
Omnium: The Undergraduate Research Journal at North Carolina Wesleyan University supports student writing across all disciplines and fields at NCWU. Housed in the Department of English, Omnium invites students of all majors and disciplines to submit their best work for the chance to see their writing published.
For more information, send an email to the editor, Dr. Doreen Thierauf.
The Decree
The Decree, North Carolina Wesleyan University’s student newspaper, was founded in 1960 and serves both the College community and the Rocky Mount area at large.
Students wishing to gain experience in writing, editing, layout, photography, cartooning or management are encouraged to become involved in the production of the student newspaper. In addition to reporting on campus events; profiling students, faculty and staff and following the vibrant local sports scene, The Decree regularly features creative writing, including fiction, poetry and personal essays by students and other members of the College community.
For more information, contact Dr. Bill Grattan.
Visiting Writers' Series
The Visiting Writers’ Series has been an integral part of the cultural and intellectual life of North Carolina Wesleyan University since the 1960s. Each year, the College invites writers to read from their work and to meet with students.
Past visiting writers have included Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott, North Carolina Poets Laureate Joseph Bathanti and Shelby Stephenson, as well as the recipients of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, Reynolds Price and Justin Cronin, respectively. Other visitors to the program have had their work anthologized in Best American Short Stories and Essays, O. Henry Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, and The Pushcart Prize: The Best of the Small Presses, including Allan Gurganus, Karen Bender, Steve Almond, Wendy Brenner, Stuart Dybek and Charles Baxter.
The Visiting Writers’ Series often features writers from North Carolina and from the Black Mountain School and is supported by the Eleanor Hoyt Smith Memorial Reading Fund.
The Eleanor Hoyt Smith Memorial Reading
The family and friends of Eleanor Hoyt Smith wish to honor her memory by staging a memorial reading every other year as part of North Carolina Wesleyan’s Visiting Writers’ Series. Smith, the mother of Professor Emeritus Leverett T. Smith, Jr., the director of the Series between 1976 and 1992, spent the last seven years of her life as an informal member of the College community, interesting herself primarily in the College’s Pearsall Library and in the Visiting Writers’ Series.
Past Participants:
- Karen Bender
- Quinn Dalton
- Kaye Gibbons
- Allen Gurganus
- Stuart Dybek
- John McNally
- Brady Udall
- Bill Morgan
- Justin Cronin
- Wendy Brenner
- Julianna Baggott
- Haven Kimmel
- Daniel Wallace
- Charles Baxter
- Mark Edmundson
- Joseph Bathanti