WEST PLAINS, Mo.—Officials with the Garnett Library at Missouri State University-West Plains hosted a reading and book signing event for local author and Professor of English Dr. Craig Albin and his poetry collection “Axe, Fire, Mule” on April 24, at the library.
The book, a collection of poems set in the Ozarks was released that day by Golden Antelope Press. It received several favorable advanced reviews.
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
The book is “an impressive rendering of a unique place and the people who inhabit it, told in language that is as fresh and inviting as a mountain stream,” said Robert Hamblin, author of “Crossroads: Poems of a Mississippi Childhood.”
“In ‘Axe, Fire, Mule,’ Albin delivers unflinching portraits of physical and emotional landscapes marked by the joys and injuries of everyday living,” said Phil Howerton, author of “The History of Tree Roots.”
Albin was born and reared in West Plains and earned a Doctor of Arts in English from the University of Mississippi.
He has taught for many years at Missouri State-West Plains, where he founded “Elder Mountain: A Journal of Ozarks Studies.”
HE RECEIVED THE MISSOURI AUTHOR AWARD
In 2017 he received the Missouri Author Award in Fiction from the Missouri Library Association for his story collection “Hard Toward Home” (Press 53, 2016).
His stories, poems, and reviews have appeared in a number of periodicals, including “Arkansas Review,” “Cape Rock,” “Georgia Review,” “Harvard Review,” “Natural Bridge” and “Slant.”
Copies of “Axe, Fire, Mule” will be available for purchase at the event, and refreshments will be served. For more information, call 417-255-7945.