Masha Hamilton	Tuesday, October 13, 2009, Currell College Auditorium, 6:00 pm Masha Hamilton is the author of four acclaimed novels, most recently 31 Hours (2009), an Indie Choice pick by independent booksellers, which Publisher's Weekly> called "gorgeous and complex." Hamilton is also the founder of two world literacy programs: the Camel Book Drive, begun in 2007 to supply a camel-borne library in northeastern Kenya, and the Afghan Women's Writing Project, begun in 2009 to foster creative and intellectual exchange between Afghan women writers and American women authors and teachers. As a journalist, she has worked for the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times and others, reporting from the Middle East, Russia, Africa and Afghanistan.
Billy Collins Photo by Steven Kovich	Thursday, October 15, 2009, Business School Auditorium, 6:00 pm Award winning poet and former Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy Collins has published several collections of poetry, including Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, Picnic, Lightning, Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New & Selected Poems, Nine Horses, The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems, a collection of haiku, She Was Just Seventeen, and most recently, Ballistics. His honors include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation, in addition to being awarded the following prizes: the Oscar Blumenthal Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize, the Frederick Bock Prize, and the Levinson Prize - all awarded by Poetry magazine. In October 2004, Collins was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Poetry Foundation's Mark Twain Award for humorous poetry. Billy Collins served as the United States Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003 and as New York State Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York.
Kwame Dawes	Tuesday, October 20, 2009, Currell College Auditorium, 6:00 pm Kwame Dawes is the author of thirteen books of poetry and many books of fiction, non-fiction and drama. His collection, Hope's Hospice (Peepal Tree), was released in May 2009. His awards include the Forward Poetry Prize, the Hurston/ Wright Legacy Award, the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Poetry Business Award. In 2009 Dawes was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors and in 2008 he was awarded the the Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Governors Awards for the Arts. Dawes holds Jamaica's Silver Musgrave Medal for the Arts. He is Distinguished Poet in Residence at the University of South Carolina where he directs the SC Poetry Initiative and the University of South Carolina Arts Institute. Kwame Dawes is also the programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival that takes place each May in Jamaica.

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