Allen Wier

Connor Society program features Allen Wier

Distinguished author and University of Tennessee at Knoxville English professor Allen Wier will present the Connor Society’s second program of the year on September 27 in the UTC Fine Arts Center.

Wier will address two groups on campus Monday, September 27:

• At 3 p.m. Wier will be reading from his work in the Flag Room of the Guerry Center. The program is shaped for the UTC Honor’s Program, however the event is open to all.
• At 7 p.m. Wier will deliver his remarks during the Connor Society’s program in the Roland Hayes Concert Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

The Connor Society was established last year to celebrate the life of George Connor, an enormously influential individual on and off the UTC campus in his roles as teacher, administrator and civic leader.

A reception honoring Wier, the author of the novels A Place for Outlaws, Departing as Air and Blanco, and celebrating Connor’s life will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Patten House on the UTC campus. UTC Interim Chancellor Fred Obear will host the occasion. Former Mayor Gene Roberts and former Chattanooga Times columnist Bill Casteel will present readings from Connor’s writings.

Cost for the reception is $25, with all proceeds going to the Connor Society for future programs. Individuals who would like to attend the reception are asked to mail a check payable to The Connor Society to 732 Cherry Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402.

Wier holds the Hodges’ Chair for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He has also taught at Carnegie-Mellon University, Hollins College and the University of Texas.

A short story writer and essayist, Wier is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and has been featured at sessions of the Chattanooga Conference on Southern Literature. In 1997 he received one of the Fellowship’s most prestigious awards, the Robert Penn Warren Award recognizing an outstanding young Southern writer of fiction.

Wier is also recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Dobie-Paisan Fellowship from the University of Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters.

The UTK professor was featured on the cover of the spring 2004 issue of the UT Alumnus magazine.

Wier recently completed a novel about the Comanche wars in Texas, Cloud of Witnesses, as well as a literary thriller novel, Skin for Skin. He is completing a volume of new and selected short stories.

Author and theologian Frederick Buechner spoke at the first Connor Society event of the year in April.