Northeast Alabama Community College (NACC) will host its Arts & Humanities Speakers’ Forum on Thursday, March 19, 2026, bringing featured authors to campus for a day of conversation centered on literature.

This year’s forum, titled Fiction on the Edge: Crime, Culture, and the Human Heart, will feature writers Wiley Cash, Ron Rash, and Saul A. Lelchuk.

The forum will begin with a general session from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Tom Bevill Lyceum, featuring presentations, a conversation with Don Noble, and a book signing. A reception, master class, and additional book signing with the authors will follow from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the English Building.

Mrs. Joan Reeves, Division Chair of English & Fine Arts at NACC and organizer of the Speakers’ Forum, said, “Ron Rash returns to us as a writer whose work continues to challenge and resonate. Wiley Cash is a writer I have wanted to share with my students since I first read his work, and Saul Lelchuk creates characters who stay with the reader long after the final page. Together, they represent fiction on the edge, where risk, memory, and imagination meet.”

Wiley Cash is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of four novels, including A Land More Kind Than Home, This Dark Road to Mercy, The Last Ballad, and When Ghosts Come Home. He is the host of the Our State Book Club podcast and teaches fiction writing at UNC-Asheville. Cash is the 2025 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state’s highest civilian honor.

Ron Rash is a New York Times bestselling author of novels, short fiction, and poetry. His works include Serena, Saints at the River, Above the Waterfall, The World Made Straight, and his most recent best-seller The Caretaker. Rash has received numerous literary honors, including the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and his books have been published in more than 20 countries. He teaches at Western Carolina University.

Saul A. Lelchuk is the author of the acclaimed Nikki Griffin crime series, which debuted with Save Me From Dangerous Men, a USA Today Best Book and a Kirkus Best Mystery/Thriller of 2019. His novels have been translated internationally and optioned for film and television. Lelchuk teaches graduate creative writing at Dartmouth College.

Books by each author will be available for purchase during the event through Sigma Kappa Delta, the English honor society.

“The Speakers’ Forum is recognized as one of the best ones in the South,” stated NACC President Dr. David Campbell. “Mrs. Reeves, her staff, and students do an outstanding job in organizing and producing this event. We at Northeast are very proud that we have such a highly respected literary event like this on campus.”

Mrs. Reeves reflected on the history and significance of the forum at NACC. “Dr. Campbell showed great vision when he created this forum in 1993, and we are very fortunate to have been able to have brought such exemplary writers to NACC over the last thirty years,” Reeves said. “I believe that providing opportunities like this for our students is extremely valuable.”

For more information, contact Mrs. Joan Reeves at reevesj@nacc.edu or 256-638-4418, ext. 2231.