Catawba College’s Writer-in-Residence, Dr. Janice Fuller, will celebrate her upcoming retirement at the end of this academic year with a reading of her poetry at 7 p.m., Thursday, April 6, in Tom Smith Auditorium in Ketner Hall on campus.  

The reading is free and open to members of the campus community and the community at large, and will be followed by a reception in the Ketner Hall atrium.

Fuller, who has taught at Catawba for 36 years and has served as Writer-in-Residence for almost two decades, has published four collections of poetry, as well as poems in a wide variety of magazines and journals.  Her collection of titles includes “Archeology is a Destructive Science,” “Sex Education,” “Séance,” and “On the Bevel.”

As part of the celebration of Fuller’s career at Catawba, one of her former students and a fellow poet, 1999 alumnus Ty Stumpf, will also read from and officially launch his new chapbook, “Suburban Burn.”  “Suburban Burn” is available from Main Street Rag Publishing Co.

Stumpf is chair of the humanities department at Central Carolina Community College. At Catawba, he was the Whitener Award recipient in his graduating class, and went on to earn his master of arts degree in English and creative writing from N.C. State University.  

A member-at-large of the N.C. Poetry Society, his poems have appeared in Passages North, Nashville Review, Harpur Palate, Prime Number Magazine and other journals.  Married to wife Bianka, a 2000 Catawba alumna, the Stumpfs are parents of a son and a daughter.