Native American Heritage Month is in November, but it will be celebrated early at Marshall University with a reading by a National Book Award nominated author for the A.E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series Tuesday, Oct. 22.

“I’m excited to have a native author talk about the history of native peoples in the United States and North America,” said Marshall professor Cody Lumpkin, who has been with the Visiting Writers Series since fall 2018, about the author, David Treuer. 

Treuer is the author of multiple published works. His most recent, “The Heartbeat of The Wounded Knee,” is a nominee for the National Book Award for Nonfiction. 

The reading will take place at 7 p.m. in Corbly Hall room 105. It is free and open to the public. 

Lumpkin said he is also excited for this reading because it could appeal to different disciplines.

“Treuer got his Ph.D. in anthropology, but he teaches creative writing,” Lumpkin said. “His latest book has aspects of history, anthropology, sociology, literature to it, so there’s a lot. I feel like it’s a kind of work that covers a lot of different bases.”

Lumpkin spoke of how he heard Treuer on a podcast talking about how the history of America includes the history of natives.

“I think it’s important because I listened to a recent podcast that David Treuer (was on), a little bit of one,” Lumpkin said, “and he said you can’t fully understand the history of America without understanding the history of native peoples and how they were during the white settlement, or resettlement, of America.”

The A.E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series also has a Marshall faculty reading planned for 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5 in the Shawkey Room of the Memorial Student Center to celebrate recent creative writing publications of Marshall’s faculty and staff.

Lumpkin said the Visiting Writers Series is meant to showcase the writing of both international and local authors. 

“We want to expose students to authors who are from different parts of the country and that have different subject matter and mindsets that they may not see in their everyday lives that I think are important and relevant and worth discussing,” Lumpkin said. “Also, we want to have writers from the general region to show that there are authors coming out of West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Central Appalachia.” 

Summer Jewell can be contacted at [email protected].