Princemere Writers Series Invites Poet to Campus

By: Taylor Bradford

Editor-in-chief

January Gill O’Neil, winner of the 2015 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence for her book Misery Islands, will be reading a collection of her poetry at Gordon College as a part of the Princemere Writers Series on Nov. 7.

O’Neil received her Bachelor of Arts from Old Dominion University and a Masters of Fine Arts from New York University.

She is the author of award winning book Misery Islands (2014) and Underlife (2009). Both were published under CavanKerry Press.

O’Neil serves on the Associated Writers and Writing Program’s board of directors and is a professor of English at Salem University.

In her book, Misery Islands, O’Neil is faced with navigating through hardships of marriage and finding love in the midst of misery.

O’Neil writes, “We were never of one body /You said wind. I said water/And whatever connected us has all but disappeared/ I was the reedy weeds clinging to the bottom edge of everything/I was the red algae rotting on the shore in the summer heat/I was the stinging salty air, the air around your tongue.”

O’Neil’s talk is scheduled to begin at 7:30pm in room 138 of the Barrington Centre for the Arts.