WKCTC's Amelia Martens Shares Her Poetry in Kentucky and Ohio

Paducah, KY (10/24/2017) — West Kentucky Community and Technical College's Amelia Martens recently shared poetry from her most recent book The Spoons in the Grass are There To Dig a Moat with writing groups in Kentucky and Ohio.

Martens, a Paducah resident and first-year experience instructor at WKCTC, was invited in early October to participate in the Kentucky Great Writers Series at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington and to meet with students and give a reading at the University of Cincinnati Clermont. Martens is one of four authors invited to participate in the university's 2017-18 Poetry Series.

The Kentucky Great Writers (KGW) Series connects authors to readers and writers in an intimate, open-mic atmosphere, with featured author sharing 15-20 minutes from a work of their choice. After the readings, the audience is given the opportunity to purchase and have books signed by the authors.

"It was a great honor to be included in the Carnegie Center's Kentucky Great Writers Series alongside writers whose work I have long admired. I appreciated these opportunities to read my work and talk poetry with students and community members," said Martens.

She also participated in a book reading event during the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Creative Cities of Craft and Folk Art visit to Paducah in late September.

In addition to The Spoons in the Grass are There to Dig a Moat, Martens is the author of three published chapbooks: Purgatory, Clatter and A Series of Faults. Martens' work, published between 2012 and 2016, has earned support from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, the Kentucky Arts Council and Rivendell Writers' Colony. She met her husband, Britton, in the Indiana University Master of Fine Arts program; together they have created the Rivertown Reading Series, WKCTC's Exit 7: A Journal of Literature and Art, and two beautiful daughters. Britton Shurley, who is also a published author, works at WKCTC as well.

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West Kentucky Community and Technical College (WKCTC) has been recognized four consecutive times by The Aspen Institute as an Aspen Prize Top 10 Community College and twice as a Finalist with Distinction for providing students with strong job training and continuing higher education opportunity, for achieving high completion and transfer rates, and for providing strong employment results for its graduates.

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