For Immediate Release
Contact: Wendy Hinton
Director of Advancement Communications
King’s College
(570) 208-8130
wendyhinton@kings.edu
April 6, 2021 – King’s College will welcome author Vicki Mayk in April, the second of two Visiting Writers for the 2020-2021 academic year, as part of an annual program sponsored by the College’s English Department. As part of her virtual residency, Mayk will work with King’s students in conjunction with the Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop in an online learning environment. Mayk will also hold a free, virtual reading of her work focusing on her first non-fiction book, Growing Up On The Gridiron. The reading will be open to the public and conducted over Zoom on Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 7:30 p.m. with a Q&A session to follow.
Growing Up On The Gridiron chronicles the story of a young football player named Owen Thomas, a 6- foot-2 240-pound beloved defensive end at Penn who was voted one of the Quakers’ captains. Although never diagnosed with a concussion, Thomas suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE, and tragically took his own life at 21 years old. The book also follows the story of Dr. Ann McKee, the Boston University-based neuropathologist who bucked conventional wisdom and the football establishment, as she studied Owen’s brain and its larger significance.
A passionate storyteller originally from Pittsburgh, Pa., Mayk began her career as a reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Courier News in Bridgewater, N.J., and later served as the editor of three university magazines. Mayk teaches adult writing workshops and is a writing coach, freelance writer, and communications consultant. She earned her Master of Fine Arts, Creative Writing, Nonfiction Concentration, from Wilkes University.
For more information or to request access to the Zoom meeting, please contact Jennifer Judge Yonkoski, assistant technical professor of English, at jenniferyonkoski@kings.edu or 570-208-5900, ext. 5487.