The Writers' Forum at St. Andrews Presbyterian College, which includes 10 guest readers and several "open mic" opportunities during the spring semester, is under way.

Free and open to the public, forums begin at 8 p.m. in Orange Main Lounge unless otherwise noted.

St. Andrews will present the Ethel Fortner and Sam Ragan Awards Thursday. The pair of winners will join a long list of winners of these awards that recognize contributions to the arts not only through an individual's own work, but also through the support of the arts community.

Novelist Abigail DeWitt will be featured at the March 17 forum. She has published two novels, "Lili" and "Dogs." She has also had short stories published in The Carolina Quarterly, Salamander and The Journal.

A recipient of a Michener Fellowship and a Tyrone Guthrie Residency Fellowship, she earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and her masters of fine arts degree from the Iowa Writers Workshop.

She has taught creative writing at the Harvard Summer School, the Duke Writers Workshop, Appalachian State University and the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She has also been the visiting writer-in-residence at Lenoir-Rhyne University.

She currently leads private workshops and works one-on-one with students around the country. She resides in western North Carolina with her husband and daughter.

Poet Jeff Beam follows March 24. A native of Kannapolis, Beam has been published widely and given more than 350 readings, lectures and panel discussions throughout North Carolina, Virginia, Canada and Italy. For 12 years he directed, produced and starred in a highly popular program for the Friends of the Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill titled "Winter Stories for Children of All Ages."

He has received numerous and awards and grants, including an American Library association Stonewall Award nomination, two Pushcart nominations, an IPPY Ten Best Books Award, an Audie Award, an AIGA 50 Best Book Award, a North Carolina Writers Network Blumenthal Writer and Reader Award, among others.

On March 31, St. Andrews welcomes poet, writer and teacher Scott Owens, from Hickory. His published collections include "The Fractured World," "Book of Days," "Deceptively Like a Sound" and "The Persistence of Faith."

He has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net Award. He serves as a co-editor for Wild Goose Poetry Review and is the author of Musings, a weekly poetry column in Outlook. He is also a member of the Poetry Council of North Carolina and the manager of the Sam Ragan Poetry Competition.

Phil Ratchford, the 2011 Alan Bunn Memorial Chapbook Award winner, will take center stage at the forum on April 7. Ratchford, a senior from Gastonia, will have his manuscript, "Evening Song," published by the St. Andrews College Press this spring.

The spring forum will conclude with the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poets Series featuring Becky Gould Gibson and student poets Rachel Carroll, Bryant Ferrell and Valerie Macon.

Gibson is a professor Emeritus of English and women's studies at Guilford College. She has published five collections of poetry: "Need Fire," "Aphrodite's Daughter," "Holding Ground," "First Life" and "Off-Road Meditations."

Additional open mics are set for March 10 and April 7

Anyone needing more information about the Writers' Forum, creative writing at St. Andrews or the St. Andrews College Press can call (910) 277-5310 or e-mail press@sapc.edu.