17 March 2006

Thomas Rain Crowe to give reading at Longwood

Thomas Rain Crowe – poet, prose writer, translator, editor, recording artist and environmental activist – will give a reading Monday, April 3, at p.m. in Longwood University’s Wygal Auditorium.

Crowe, who lives in the Smoky Mountains in southwestern North Carolina, where he grew up, is the author of 12 original and translated works. His award-winning memoir Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods, based on the four years during which he lived a rustic existence in a mountain cabin, has been called a “contemporary twist on Walden Pond.”

One of the San Francisco-area poets in the 1970s known as the “Baby Beats,” he was editor of Beatitude magazine and Beatitude Press. Since returning to North Carolina in 1979 he was a founding editor of Katuah Journal: A Bioregional Journal of the Southern Appalachians, formed a spoken-word and music band called the Boatrockers, and founded New Native Press and Fern Hill Records, the latter a recording label devoted exclusively to the collaboration of poetry and music.

As an editor and publisher, Crowe has been, in his words, a “champion for writers writing in marginalized languages,” including Celtic, Native American and other languages. He currently writes features and columns on culture, community and the environment for the weekly newspaper Smoky Mountain News. His appearance is part of the Longwood Authors Series.