Professor Jill Sessoms will discuss the life and works of Southern author Jill McCorkle in the presentation titled "Southern Illusions, Southern Realities: The Works of Jill McCorkle" on Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Burroughs and Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach. McCorkle is scheduled to visit the CCU campus March 6 for a public reading.

McCorkle is the author of eight works of fiction, including her most recent book, "Creatures of Habit," a collection of 12 short stories set in a fictional town in North Carolina. She lives in Chapel Hill and teaches at UNC.

Sessom's talk is part "Up for Discussion," a series of presentations by Coastal English faculty held at the museum on a variety of topics.

Sessoms earned a bachelor's degree in English from Atlanta Christian College, a master's degree in English from North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. in composition and rhetoric from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is a past chair of the Department of English and Journalism at Coastal.