Mike Hamer was profiled in the November issue of New Mobility.  Barry Corbet writes, "Mike Hamer, 54, made music most of his life until he became a C5-6 quad. Dead end? Not so. He was back onstage in two months out of rehab.  Music is a supplementary income.  Hamer teaches English and a songwriting course at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.  Born in Vermont, he first came to Greenville as a VISTA volunteer.  He was injured right after a six month tour in Nicaragua as a volunteer with Witness for Peace."

On November 14, 2002, the Writers Reading Series of Eastern North Carolina hosted Janet McAdams.  Her collection of poetry, The Island of Lost Luggage (U of Arizona P, 2000), won the 1999 Native Authors First Book Award and the American Book Award in 2001.  Of mixed Scottish, Irish, and Creek ancestry, Janet McAdams grew up in Alabama and presently teaches Native American literature and Creative Writing at the University of Oklahoma.

Creative Writing graduate students, Mike McClanahan, Bridget Hemenway, and Jennifer McQueen, read their work to an enthusiatic crowd at Barnes & Noble, Thursday, November 7 at 7 p.m.  "Live at 5 News" on Channel 7 with Linda Shore reported the event and interviewed the writers.

Graduate teaching assistant  Jason Myers recalls what it was like to walk into the classroom for the very first time.  He gets it right in "The Teaching Experience."

On October 30, Reginald Watson helped promote the idea of a North Carolina monument to honor the African American Experience at the Safe Haven Site on Nash Street, Greenville.  State representative Marian McLawhorn and Congressional representative-elect Frank Ballance were in attendance.  Ballance, 60, succeeded Eva Clayton, a Democrat who represented the 1st Congressional District for ten years.

On November 13, Brendan Galvin read from his work for faculty and students.  Among the poems Galvin read were: "A Cold Bell Ringing in the East," which was published in Tar River Poetry; "My Frost Dream," an amusing poem about the late poet and his influence; "May Day," a poem written for his wife ("it takes two of something to make anything"); and "Byrum Between the Headphones," a funny poem about people who comb the beaches with metal detectors and the treasures they are likely to find.  A new book of his poems, Place Keepers, will be available this fall from Louisiana State University Press.

Mary Carroll-Hackett and Brett Hursey read from their work on December 4 at 7 p.m. at the Greenville Museum of Art.  A good-sized gathering braved the bad weather to listen to this last event of the Writers Reading Series of Eastern North Carolina in the year 2002. Hursey read form his published work: Some Assemby Required (Virtualbookworm P, 2002)  and his forthcoming Dead White Male (Books Unbound, 2003).  Carroll-Hackett read her prize-winning story "Life-line."