UNCA’s Writers at Home reading series continues at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 18, at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, 55 Haywood St., downtown Asheville with readings by Richard Schmidt and Ann Turkle. Writers at Home is part of the Great Smokies Writing Program, a consortium of the Western North Carolina writers’ community and UNC Asheville’s Creative Writing Program. The program is free and open to the public.

Schmidt’s first novel, "The Aerialist," won the Sewanee Writer’s Conference Prize and was chosen for the Barnes and Noble "Discover Great New Writers" series. His story "Leaving Venice, Florida" was awarded first prize in the 1997 "Mississippi Review" short story contest and was anthologized in "New Short Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 1999." He has also published stories in "The Marlboro Review," "Flyaway," "Puerto del Sol" and "Flying Horse Magazine." He is a graduate of the Warren Wilson masters of fine arts program for writers and is currently a Joan Beebe Graduate Teaching Fellow there. He previously taught at the College of Charleston.

Turkle is director of undergraduate writing at Warren Wilson College where she teaches creative nonfiction. A graduate of the College’s masters of fine arts program for writers, she also holds a Ph.D. from Florida State. Although trained as a fiction writer, Turkle has found that poetry and nonfiction fit her life more neatly. She has published both in a number of small journals.

For more information, call UNCA’s Literature and Language Department at 828/251-6411.