Morgan is the author of eight books and numerous essays and poems. His latest book, Boone: A Biography, won the 2007 Kentucky Literary Award for nonfiction at the 10th annual Southern Kentucky Book Fest.

“Boone” was a top 10 selection in a critic’s favorite books of 2007 by Washington Post columnist Jonathan Yardley. “Robert Morgan carefully separates legend from reality in the life of the country’s most famous frontiersman,” Yardley noted.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill honored Morgan with its 2008 Thomas Wolfe Prize and Lecture in memory of one its most famous alumni, Thomas Clayton Wolfe (class of 1920). Established in 1999 with an endowed gift to the department of English, the program recognizes contemporary writers with distinguished bodies of work.

“Boone” was also selected as the 2008 title for “Together We Read,” the annual community-based reading project of western North Carolina.

Morgan’s other works include The Strange Attractor, a collection of 93 poems spanning 35 years; Brave Enemies, This Rock, Gap Creek, The Balm of Gilead Tree (10 short stories), The Truest Pleasure and The Hinterlands.

Registration for the program, which includes dinner, is $15 and $7 for students. Reservations must be made by March 9 and can be made online at www.emu.edu/langlit/writersread/reservations or by calling the language and literature department at 540-432-4368.

The department will hold its second Writers Read program of fall semester 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11 in Martin Chapel of the seminary building.

New York Times best-selling novelist and award-winning poet Robert Morgan will read from his writings at the dinner meeting.

One of Morgan’s best-known works, “Gap Creek,” was selected for the Southern Book Critics Circle award for fiction, 2000, and chosen as a “notable book” by the New York Times. It was also an Oprah Book Club selection and named “Book of the Year” for 2000 by the Appalachian Writers Association.

His fiction includes “The Mountains Won’t Remember Us,” “The Balm of Gilead Tree: New and Selected Stories” and “The Truest Pleasure,” listed by “Publisher’s Weekly” as one of the most notable books of 1995.

Morgan has received several NEA grants and Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships and was given the James G. Hanes Poetry Prize by the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

The author’s most recent works include a novel, “Brave Enemies,” and “The Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems.”

Morgan is currently Kappa Alpha professor of English at Cornell University.

Admission to the program, which includes dinner, is $10. Students with I.D. will be admitted for $5. Advance reservations should be made by noon, Nov. 5, by calling the 91¶ÌÊÓƵ box office at 540-432-4582.