TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Bill Olsen and Nancy Eimers will read from their poetry work on Thursday, Feb. 21, at 7:30 p.m. in Morgan Auditorium, as part of this year’s Bankhead Visiting Writers Series at The University of Alabama. The event is free and open to the public.

Olsen is the author of “The Hand of God and a Few Bright Flowers,” which was a National Poetry Series Selection, “Vision of a Storm Cloud” and “Trouble Lights,” which is his most recent book of poems. He has received a number of awards including a Nation/Discovery Award and fellowships from Breadloaf and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches at Western Michigan University and in the M.F.A. program at Vermont College. Olsen is a Visiting Coal Royalty Chairholder in Poetry for the spring semester at UA and will co-teach a weeklong course with Eimers.

Eimers is a Visiting Coal Royalty Chairholder in Poetry for the spring semester at UA. Her most recent book of poems is “No Moon,” which won the Verna Emery Prize from Purdue University. She is also the author of a book of poems titled “Destroying Angel.” She has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as a 1998 Whiting Writers Award. She teaches at Western Michigan University and in the M.F.A. program at Vermont College.

The Bankhead Visiting Writers Series is made possible by an endowment from the Bankhead Foundation, the University of Alabama Program in Creative Writing, the department of English, and the College of Arts and Sciences. For more information, please contact the creative writing program at 205/348-0766.