ST. THOMAS - Two accomplished and talented writers will be joining the University of the Virgin Islands faculty and offering several new courses to students for the spring semester.

Jamaican author Opal Palmer Adisa has joined UVI's teaching staff and Doug Larche will be the artistic director and playwright-in-residence at the university.

Adisa will be a part-time instructor and the editor of The Caribbean Writer, UVI's anthology of Caribbean literature.

She is the author of 14 books, and her poetry and other writings have been published in more than 200 publications. According to a UVI release, she describes herself as an accomplished storyteller in the Afro-Caribbean tradition.

Born in Jamaica, Adisa earned a bachelor's degree from Hunter College of The City University of New York, obtained two master's degrees from San Francisco State University and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. By then, she already had published four books.

She also studied in Egypt under a Fulbright Institute Bi-National fellowship and in Brazil at the Sacatar Institute.

Her first book, a children's story called "Pina: The Many-Eyed Fruit," was published in 1986, followed by "Bake Face and other Guava Stories" that same year. A poetry collection titled "Traveling Women" was published in 1989. In 1992, Adisa produced her second book of poetry, "Tamarind and Mango Women."

In 1995, The Daily News awarded her its prize for best poems. The following year she won the Canute A. Brodhurst Prize for Best Story for "The Brethren" and repeated that honor in 2004, winning best prize for "Conscious Is the Same as Do Right."

In the late 1990s she was appointed to the Caribbean Writer's Advisor Editorial Board where she served for close to a decade.

Adisa was a professor of creative writing, literature and diversity studies at the California College of the Arts and has also worked as a motivational speaker and as a broadcaster on Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley, Calif.

UVI also is getting a new artistic director for the Little Theater in Larche, who will hold the title of playwright-in-residence at the university.

Larche is a prolific playwright whose works are frequently staged. He is also a Senior American Fulbright Scholar and winner of several playwriting gold medals. Last spring, Larche wrote a play about a famous 18th century abolitionist, called "Truth on Trial: The Ballad of Sojourner Truth," performed as part of UVI's Little Theatre production at Pistarckle Theater on St. Thomas.

Larche earned a master's of fine arts degree in playwriting as a Norman Felton Fellow at the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop. He obtained a Ph.D. from Indiana University. He did three post-doctoral residencies in dramatic writing, screenwriting and dramaturgy from Yale, Harvard and Oxford University in England.Β 

He was the founding artistic director of The Prairie Playwright Workshop and Festival of Original Drama at Grand View College, The Bards on the Bay Northwoods Playwrights Festival and the Workshop at Theatre on the Bay of the University of Wisconsin, Marinette.

This year, Larche plans to include works from students taking part in the spring playwriting class in a playwrights festival called "Bards on the Beach: Playwrights in Paradise."

According to a UVI press release, the UVI playwright-in-residence says he is looking forward to seeing what his class will produce.

"I am very excited to hear the many Caribbean and other voices that will be brought to this common table - personal, historical, cultural, political, ethical - from folk tradition to magic realism to cutting edge issues and relationships - and the interplay of art forms, genres and media," he said in a prepared statement.

In three new courses, offered by Larche and Adisa, UVI students will explore different writing genres, encourage one another in the creative process and learn about flash fiction - a succinct form of storytelling that is popular in Latin and South America.

The new courses taught by Adisa include Introduction to Creative Writing and Intermediate Fiction Writing. Playwriting, taught by Larche, began Oct. 26 and continues through Jan. 4.

Late registration takes place Jan. 7 and 8. Online registration extends through Jan. 5.Β Both of Adisa's classes will be conducted by video teleconference between St. Thomas and St. Croix.

For more information contact David Gould, chairman of the UVI Humanities Department at 692-4143.