Guest writers Martín Espada, Rubén Martinez and 1999 Agnes Scott College graduate Gillian Lee-Fong-Farris bring a blend of Latin and Caribbean influences to the 2008 Agnes Scott College Writers Festival March 27-28, 2008.

Poet, essayist, editor and translator Martín Espada is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he teaches creative writing and the work of Pablo Neruda.

Espada has published 13 books. His eighth collection of poems, "The Republic of Poetry", was published by Norton in October 2006. Of this new collection, Samuel Hazo writes: "Espada unites in these poems the fierce allegiances of Latin American poetry to freedom and glory with the democratic tradition of Whitman, and the result is a poetry of fire and passionate intelligence."

Espada's last book, "Alabanza: New and Selected Poems," 1982-2002 (Norton 2003), received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was named an American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. An earlier collection, "Imagine the Angels of Bread" (Norton 1996), won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s, The Nation, and The Best American Poetry. He has also published a collection of essays, "Zapata’s Disciple" (South End, 1998); edited two anthologies, "Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination" from Curbstone Press (Curbstone, 1994) and "El Coro: A Chorus of Latino and Latina Poetry" (University of Massachusetts, 1997) and released an audiobook of poetry on CD, called "Now the Dead will Dance the Mambo" (Leapfrog, 2004).

Rubén Martínez is an award-winning journalist, author and musician. He joined the University of Houston Creative Writing Program as an associate professor in 2002, leading both graduate and undergraduate workshops in non-fiction as well as developing “modern thought” courses that deal with mixed-genre writing, public intellectualism, post-colonial literature and diaspora.

His essays, opinions and reportage have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, Salon, Village Voice, The Nation, Spin, Sojourners, and Mother Jones, among others. As a political commentator, he has appeared on ABC's Nightline and Politically Incorrect, PBS's Frontline, NPR’s All Things Considered, and on CNN. He is an associate editor for Pacific News Service and is a former news editor of the L.A. Weekly.

He has received a Lannan Foundation fellowship, a Loeb Fellowship from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, a Freedom of Information Award from the ACLU, a Greater Press Club of Los Angeles Award of Excellence and an Emmy Award for hosting PBS-affiliate KCET-TV’s Life & Times.

As a musician, Martínez has been featured on albums by Concrete Blonde, Los Illegals, the Roches and he is currently at work on a solo album. He is the author of "The New Americans" (The New Press, 2004); "Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail" (Picador, 2002), "Eastside Stories" (with Joseph Rodriguez, Powerhouse Books, 1998) "The Other Side: Notes from the New L.A., Mexico City and Beyond" (Vintage, 1993)

Novelist Gillian Lee-Fong-Farris returned to her Jamaican roots to find the setting for her novels. Born in Jamaica, she moved to the United States at age 15. She lived in New York and Atlanta for many years. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Agnes Scott College and went on to teach English to middle schoolers in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Her book celebrates a multi-culturalism that Lee-Fong-Farris herself embodies. She's the granddaughter of a man from China and a woman from Africa.

She began writing at a young age-publishing poetry in her school newspaper and writing comic books, plays and movie scripts she kept hidden away in her closet. It was only after graduating, marrying and having four daughters that she published her first novel Tembe, a September 2006 release in Absey & Co.'s Writer's and Young Writer's Series. In this coming-of-age story, Lee-Fong-Farris manages to "infuse it with a fast-paced freshness that is saturated with wisdom," according to one reviewer.

The Agnes Scott College Writers' Festival has been held annually since 1972. Its purpose is to bring nationally acclaimed writers to campus in an atmosphere of community with student writers from the colleges and universities of Georgia. While on campus, distinguished guests give public readings, award prizes in the festival's statewide literary competition and conduct workshops for finalists in the competition.

The Writers' Festival competition is open to anyone currently enrolled in a college or university in the state of Georgia. The works selected as finalist entries in the competition. Final decisions are made by the visiting writers during the Festival, and a prize of $500 is given to the winner in each contest category.

Scheduled 2008 Writers Festival events are free and open to the public including:

Thursday, March 27
4 p.m. – Rubén Martinez reading, Winter Theater, Dana Fine Arts Center
8 p.m. -- Martín Espada reading, Gaines Chapel, Presser Hall

Friday, March 28
10 a.m. -- Gillian Lee-Fong Farris reading

The Writers' Festival is made possible by the James T. Kirk and Ella Rather Kirk Fund.