Over 40 and Female Agency: Panel featuring Tammy Bird, Marina DelVecchio, and Valerie Nieman
Over 40 and Female Agency: Panel featuring Tammy Bird, Marina DelVecchio, and Valerie Nieman
Tuesday 5/21, 7pm
Each over 40 and college-level educators, Tammy Bird, Marina DelVecchio, and Valerie Nieman are also published writers who have created strong female protagonists with agency and voice in their work. In her psychological thriller Sandman, Tammy Bird introduces us to Katia, an EMT with a dark past, as she inserts herself into the search for a serial killer wreaking havoc in Buxton Beach, NC. In Dear Jane, Marina DelVecchio shows us the power of literature by creating Kit Kat, a teen protagonist who learns to save herself by writing letters to her favorite literary character Jane Eyre. Finally, in Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse, prolific writer Valerie Nieman reveals the story and strength of Dinah, an Appalachian orphan girl who joins the carnival through a collection of poems on love, loss, and survival.
Tammy Bird, the author of Sandman, lives in Wendell, North Carolina and works as Chair for English, Humanities, and Foreign Languages at Johnston Community College. Her greatest passion is storytelling with a purpose. As such, the most important part of the writing process for her is the development of characters who represent the under-represented.
Author of Dear Jane, Marina DelVecchio is a professor of literature and women's studies at Durham Technical Community College. Her work can be found online at Ms. Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Tishman Review, Her Circle Ezine, and The New Agenda.
Valerie Nieman is a professor of English at North Carolina A&T State University and the author of Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse. A former journalist and farmer in West Virginia, she is the author of three novels, as well as collections of poetry and short fiction. She is a graduate of West Virginia University, and she received an MFA from Queens University.
