News Release
Contact
Laurie E. Bick-Jensen
Director,
Public Relations
320 DuPont Highway
New Castle, DE
19720
(302) 295-1164
laurie.e.bick@wilmu.edu
Wilmington University Library and College of Arts and Sciences Present New Culture and Arts Lecture Series
Series kicks-off with Billie Travalini, award-winning author of "Blood Sisters."
Wilmington University College of Arts and Sciences presents author Billie Travalini reading from her current memoir, Blood Sisters, at 1:00 p.m. in the Pratt Student Center on Saturday, September 27th.
Admission to this event is free and plenty of parking will be available.
This series, a partnership between Library and Student Life, will present local writers, historians, visual artists and filmmakers as speakers at various times through the year as a means of introducing students to this area's vibrant artistic and cultural collective.
Travalini, a native Delawarean, is a recipient of a 2014 Governor's Award for the Arts. Her fifth book, Blood Sisters, won the Lewis Clark Discovery Prize and was a finalist for the Bakeless Literary Prize and James Jones Award. Her poetry and writing has been published in Another Chicago Magazine; Revue Review; The Moth; Writers on Writing: The Art of the Short Story; The Journal of Caribbean Literatures; Gargoyle and others. Her other books include No Place Like: An Anthology of Southern Delaware Poetry and Prose (2012); Teaching Troubled Youth: A Practical Pedagogical Approach (2008); Wilmington Center Center: fifty years of Community (2007); and On The Mason-Dixon Line: An Anthology of Contemporary Delaware Writers (co-edited with Fleda Brown, 2008).
A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Travalini graduated magna cum laude with her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Delaware. She received her Master of Arts in literature and creative writing from Temple University. A recipient of professional fellowships in poetry and fiction from the Delaware Division of the Arts, Travalini is also a professor at Wilmington University, co-founder the Lewes Creative Writers’ Conference and is a popular presenter and workshop leader.
Travalini sits on the board of the Southern New Castle County Communities Coalition (SN4C) and has been a longtime advocate for at-risk children and the mentally ill. She is currently working on a collection of short stories entitled Independence Day, in addition to writing Sunshine, a sequel to Blood Sisters, at her home in Wilmington, Delaware.
About Wilmington University
Wilmington University is a private, nonprofit institution committed to providing flexible, career-oriented, traditional and online associate, undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree programs. Ranked as the second fastest growing nonprofit university in America 2002 - 2012 by The Almanac of The Chronicle of Higher Education, affordable tuition, academic excellence and individualized attention are hallmarks of the University that enable greater student success in their chosen careers. For more information, contact Wilmington University at 302-356-INFO (4636), via email at infocenter@wilmu.edu, or visit our website at www.wilmu.edu.
