The deadline for submissions to the West Virginia Center for the Book and the Appalachian Heritage Writers Project’s Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Frank X Walker Volume VI is October 15. The volume will be a collection of Appalachian stories, essays, poetry, memoir, and photographic art, which will focus on the region and celebrate the poetic art and storytelling of Frank X Walker, Kentucky Poet Laureate and winner of Shepherd’s 2013 Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award.

Walker is the director of the African American and Africana Studies Program at the University of Kentucky. He is recipient of an Al Smith Fellowship, the 2006 Thomas D. Clark Literary Award for Excellence, the Lannan Literary Fellowship, the Lillian Smith Book Award for The Journey of York, and will receive the Appalachian Heritage Writers Award from the West Virginia Humanities Council and Shepherd University on September 26 at 8 p.m. in Erma Ora Byrd Hall. Walker will be in the Eastern Panhandle serving as the 2013 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence at Shepherd Sept. 23-28.

Walker’s writing will form the centerpiece of the sixth volume of the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, which will highlight, among other subjects, diversity in Appalachia. He will serve as editorial advisor to the anthology project and select the winners of the 2013 West Virginia Fiction Competition, which will be announced in September. For information about Frank X Walker’s writing, visit www.shepherd.edu/ahwirweb/walker/.

The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Frank X Walker Volume VI follows the Adriana Trignini Volume I, the Silas House Volume II, the Bobbie Ann Mason Volume III, the Ron Rash Volume IV, and the Gretchen Moran Laskas Volume V. The anthology is funded by the West Virginia Center for the Book and Shepherd University Foundation.

For information about submissions, visit www.shepherd.edu/ahwirweb/anthology/. Submissions should be e-mailed to Dr. Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt, anthology managing editor, at sshurbut@shepherd.edu by Oct. 15.