The Ferrum College English program is hosting a reading by Cameron MacKenzie titled “Mythic Revolution: Pancho Villa and Historical Fiction” on September 25, 2018 from 4:30-5:30 p.m. on the main floor of the Stanley Library in the LeAP Studio. The event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the reading, provided by Ferrum College’s Dining Services.
“I am not the revolution…I am the instrument of another hand.” So does Francisco “Pancho” Villa begin the tale of his journey from thief to warlord to the revolutionary leader of northern Mexico. By turns a confession and an act of seduction, The Beginning of His Excellent and Eventful Career chronicles a country remaking itself through blood and violence, giving shape to the boy who would dare to step from anonymity into power through the inexorable force of his will.
Cameron MacKenzie’s work has appeared in Able Muse, The Rumpus, SubStance and The Michigan Quarterly Review, among other journals. His collection of essays, Badiou and American Modernist Poetics, was published in August 2018 by Palgrave Macmillan. He teaches English at Ferrum College and reviews books for Roanoke Review. His novel, The Beginning of His Excellent and Eventful Career, chronicling the rise to power of Pancho Villa, was published in March 2018 by MadHat Press.
MacKenzie’s description of his creative writing and research process will include primary resources, presentation slides, and excerpted readings from the novel.
