NACOGDOCHES, Texas - Students who participated in the 2015 and 2016 Barrio Writers workshops at Stephen F. Austin State University are hosting a reading of their published works at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14, at the Nacogdoches High School Library, located at 4310 Appleby Sand Road.

"I am looking forward to hearing the participants read their original creative works," said Dr. Heather Olson Beal, SFA associate professor of secondary education, who has coordinated the Barrio Writers program the past two summers.

This free event is open to the public, and light refreshments will be served.

"I am especially looking forward to each 2015 Barrio Writers participant receiving his or her two contributor copies of the anthology in which the participant's work is published," Beal added. "I can't wait to get the books into their hands."

Barrio Writers is a free, weeklong summer writing program held at SFA for students age 13 to 21. It is a collaboration between SFA's James I. Perkins College of Education and the Nacogdoches Independent School District.

University faculty and staff members serve as writing advisers leading the workshop in which participants read books, poems and song lyrics before discussing them as a group and free writing.

"The program benefits include having opportunities to read creative works from writers of color, improving writing skills, interacting with engaged youth from our area and having one or more of the written pieces published in an anthology that includes writing from all the Barrio Writers chapters across the nation," Beal said.

For more information, contact sfabarriowriters@gmail.com.