Poet Marcel Fable Price to Visit Kalamazoo Valley as a part of Valley's Visiting Writers Series

Award-winning poet Marcel Fable Price will visit Kalamazoo Valley Community College for a two-day series of events Oct. 20 and Oct. 22 as part of the college's Visiting Writers series.

On Monday, Oct. 20, Price will lead a morning craft talk at 10 a.m. followed by a reading at 2:15 p.m. in Room 4250 at Valley's Texas Township Campus. Wednesday, Oct. 22 he will host a hands-on writing workshop open to students, faculty and staff in Room 2540 at Valley's Texas Township Campus from 1 - 2:30 p.m.

Price says he hopes this is an event that will inspire students at Kalamazoo Valley.

"I didn't have the ability to take the higher education journey. When I started my journey as a creative professional, there was so much I accomplished I didn't think was possible," said Price. "I want to show people that things like that are possible here. We don't have to look at the ceiling that has been put before us. We can live and thrive in Kalamazoo and create world changing ideas."

Attendees will take part in guided writing exercises designed to spark creativity and build community through storytelling. The workshop focuses on discovering your unique voice, refining your work and using performance to inspire change.

"If we're truly going to bring people together, we need to dig into the uncomfortable parts of ourselves where there might be commonalities with people that don't look like ourselves, and that's really what this is about. Getting people to navigate discomfort, to sit in the ugly, laugh together and cry together," said Price.

The Visiting Writers series, coordinated by English instructor Julie Stotz-Ghosh, Ph.D., offers students and community members the opportunity to engage with professional writers and hear their work firsthand.

Price is the author of New American Monarch and a nationally touring spoken word artist. His work often explores themes of identity, grief and resilience, transforming personal testimony into art. Most recently, his creative nonfiction appeared in Hindsight, published by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The event on Oct. 20 is free and open to the public. The event on Oct. 22 is free and open to Valley students and faculty.