The latest release by The Athenaeum Press of Coastal Carolina University, The Wealth of Nothing: Rural Southern Life through the Lens of William Van Auken Greene, features the photographs, poetry and portraits created by a one-armed, itinerant photographer who lived and worked in Aynor and western Horry County in the 1930s and 1940s. A release celebration for the book will be held Friday March 27 from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Horry County Museum.

William Van Auken Greene was born in 1866 in Minnesota, traveled to West Virginia and eventually settled in Aynor. His photographs of school classes, family gatherings, tobacco harvesting and other local events offer an irreplaceable record of the life of a rural community in a specific place and time. Thirty years after Greene's death in 1952, more than 2,000 of his negatives were rescued and donated to the Horry County Museum.

The release celebration will feature a brief talk on the history of William Van Auken Greene and the Aynor community by CCU history professor Eldred "Wink" Prince Jr., who wrote the book's introduction. Horry County Museum Director Walter Hill will speak about the importance of the Greene collection to the museum. Coastal Carolina University students who researched, designed, photographed and edited the project will also speak about their experiences with this innovative publishing process.

The project is the latest release from The Athenaeum Press of Coastal Carolina University, a university publishing lab now in its third year. Students from history, digital media, English, photography and design developed and produced the project in collaboration with faculty from CCU and the staff of the Horry County Museum. This publication represents the second in its chapbook series on little-known regional stories, and follows My Life with Mickey by Jane Spillane, in which Mickey Spillane's widow shares stories about their lives together in Murrells Inlet, S.C.

Copies of the project will be available for purchase on site, with members of the project team available for book signing.