POTSDAM -- Dr. James Hall, an assistant professor in SUNY Potsdam's Department of English and Communication, is set to receive the 2011 George Garrett New Writing Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

Hall will accept the award during the Chattanooga Arts & Education Council's (AEC) Conference on Southern Literature, on April 14 in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Hall is the author of "Now You're the Enemy," a book of poems, which won the University of Arkansas Press Poetry Series Prize. The collection explores themes of loss, the intersections of grief and desire, and the ways politics and culture shape selfhood. Throughout the book of poems, he examines the charged, archetypal figure of the mother in contemporary society and tempered in autobiographical impulse with a slightly surreal aesthetic.

Poems from "Now You're the Enemy" have appeared in numerous journals including TriQuarterly, Boston Review, American Poetry Review and American Letters and Commentary. Since its release in 2008, the collection has garnered awards from the Lambda Literary Organization, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Texas Institute of Letters.

In addition, Hall has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, the Sewanee Writer's Conference and the University of Arizona Poetry Center. He has been a member of the SUNY Potsdam faculty since 2008.

For more information about the conference, visit www.southernlitconference.org