University to host acclaimed novelist David Armand

The Nilsen Visiting Writers Program and Southeast Missouri State University Press will host American novelist David Armand from Tuesday through Friday for a public reading of his work and visits to various classes and venues to speak with students about being a writer.

Armand will deliver a reading and answer audience questions at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the University's Crisp Hall Room 125 at 725 N. Pacific St. in Cape Girardeau. The reading will be followed by a book-signing. The event is free to the public.

His first novel, "The Pugilist's Wife," won the George Garrett Fiction Prize and listed by the New Orleans Times-Picayune alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson ("Gilead") as one of five "hot read[s]" in March 2012.

"Harlow," his second novel, is described by The Dallas Morning News as "set in Louisiana's backwoods, this dark, tense, well-written coming-of-age novel offers gritty echoes of Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner." He recently finished his third novel.

Armand was born and raised in Louisiana. He has worked as a drywall hanger, a draftsman and as a press operator in a flag printing factory. He now teaches at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he serves as associate editor for Louisiana Literature Press.

Recipients of the 2014-2015 Nilsen Scholarships were Brittany Colbert, Alex Hughes, Erin Miller and Clare Paniccia. (Submitted)

The Dorothy and Wedel Nilsen Endowment for Writers began its first year of programming in July; the $271,000 endowment provides for a trio of events at Southeast.

In addition to the Nilsen Visiting Writer Program, it funds the Nilsen Scholarships for master of English in professional writing with scholarships for graduate students, and the national Nilsen Prize for a first novel, which awards $2,000, publication, and distribution to a top-notch, full-length book manuscript.

The scholarships were designed by Wedel Nilsen to support and encourage Southeast Missouri State University graduate student writers.

The 2014-2015 recipients of the Dorothy and Wedel Nilsen Scholarships for candidates in the master of English -- professional writing program are second-year graduate students Brittany Colbert of Troy, Missouri; Alex Hughes of Columbia, Illinois; Erin Miller of Cape Girardeau; and Clare Paniccia, of Albany, New York.

In 2012, Wedel Nilsen initiated the Nilsen Prize for a First Novel, managed by Southeast's University Press, as a tribute to his wife, Dorothy, and provided for its continuance through the endowment. The annual Nilsen Prize is for American writers who have not published a novel. It awards $2,000 to the author plus publication and distribution of the winning manuscript. The Nilsen Prize for a First Novel, in its third year, has recently selected the manuscript "Academy Gothic" by J.T. Hill of Greensboro, North Carolina, which will be published in 2015. The 2014 Nilsen winner, "Failing the Trapeze" by Seattle University professor Susan Meyers, was released Sept. 1.