Marshall University’s annual A.E. Stringer Visiting Writers Series will begin tomorrow, Wednesday Sept. 16. Raji Hassib and Dr. Rachael Peckham will kick off the Writers Harvest literary reading at 8 p.m. in the Marshall University Foundation Hall.

The reading is part of a national literary event to support local food banks in line with National Hunger Action Month.

Hassib, now a Charleston, West Virginia resident, was born and raised in Egypt and moved to the United States at 23 years old. She holds a Masters of Arts degree in creative writing from Marshall and her short fiction has appeared in multiple magazines. Her debut novel, In the Language of Miracles, was recently reviewed in The New York Times.

Peckham, an associate professor of English at Marshall, holds a Ph.D. in creative writing from Ohio University. She is the past winner of the Robert Watson Poetry Award at Spring Garden Press and was a finalist in the 2014 National Poetry Series Competition.

Attendees are asked to bring 2-3 nonperishable food items to the reading for donation to the Facing Hunger food bank.

For further information on Writers Harvest or the Stringer Series, students can contact Dr. Carrie Oeding in Marshall’s English department by phone at 304-696-2423 or by email at [email protected].

Ashley Sodosky can be contacted at [email protected].