MOUNT VERNON - “Book of Days,” a tale of murder in small-town Missouri, opens Friday, Oct. 8, in Kimmel Theatre at Cornell College.

The production is directed by Cornell theater professor Mark Hunter, director of the Riverside Theatre Shakespeare Festival each summer in Iowa City.

Performances continue Oct. 9, 14, 15 and 16. All performances begin at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for students, seniors and youth. Reserve tickets at (319) 895-4293.

“Book of Days,” winner of the Best Play Award from the American Theater Critics Association, is set in writer Lanford Wilson’s home state. Fictional Dublin, Mo., is dominated by a cheese plant, a fundamentalist church and a community theater. When the owner of the cheese plant dies mysteriously in a hunting accident, his bookkeeper suspects murder. Cast as Joan of Arc in a local production of George Bernard Shaw’s “St. Joan,” bookkeeper Ruth takes on the attributes of her fictional character and launches a one-woman campaign to see justice done amid small-town jealousies, greed and lies.

“ ‘Book of Days’ manages to combine Wilson’s signature character-based whimsy with an atypically strong narrative book and politically charged underpinnings,” said Variety magazine. The Detroit Free Press calls “Book of Days” “lively storytelling by one of our best playwrights.”

MOUNT VERNON — Robert Dana, Cornell professor of English and poet-in-residence emeritus, has been selected Iowa’s new Poet Laureate.

During his two-year appointment he will serve as the state’s symbolic leader of poetry, reading poems at official Iowa public events at the invitation of the governor and developing a signature project to advance public appreciation for poetry.

Dana is scheduled to do a book signing during Cornell’s homecoming, on Saturday, Oct. 9, from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the bookstore in The Commons. Also on hand will be Cornell authors Charles Milhauser and Richard Thomas. Following the book signing, the English department will host a reception for Dana from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in South Hall.

Dana taught at Cornell from 1954-94. He received $20,000 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships in 1985 and 1993; the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award for Poetry in 1989, given by New York University to honor a promising young poet or a gifted poet whose work has been largely unrecognized; and the Rainer Maria Rilke Prize for Poetry. His book, “Starting Out for the Difficult World,” was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. He has written 13 books of poetry, the most recent, “The Morning of the Red Admirals,” published this year.

A Massachusetts native, Dana discovered his love for writing poetry during quiet stretches as a U.S. Navy radio operator during World War II. Back in Boston, he sold his watch and raincoat for one-way bus fare to Des Moines, where he became the first in his family to attend college. He enrolled at Drake University on the GI Bill and supported himself as a sportswriter for the Des Moines Register. Later, he honed his art at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, graduating with a master’s degree in 1954. When he joined Cornell, he was the youngest (age 25) tenure-track professor hired by the college at the time. He has served as distinguished guest at five American universities and Stockholm University.

MOUNT VERNON — Wood-fired ceramic works by five Cornell College alumni will be featured in an exhibit, “Cornell Alumni Woodfire,” Sept. 12 through Nov. 7 in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery of McWethy Hall on campus.

An artists’ reception will be held in the gallery Sept. 18 from 4 to 6 p.m., in conjunction with the International Woodfire Conference at Coe College, which is organized by Cornell graduate Gary Hootman from Sept. 15 to 18. A second reception will be held in the gallery during Cornell’s homecoming, Oct. 9 from 3 to 5 p.m.

The Peter Paul Luce Gallery is free and open to the public. Regular hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Besides Hootman, a 1986 Cornell graduate, other alumni exhibiting functional and sculptural works are Leila Denecke (1972), Barbara Reinhart (1976), Takusuke Kawasaki (1992) and Joe Cole (2000).

Hootman earned master’s degrees in ceramics from the University of Iowa and has a studio in Swisher. He works exclusively in stoneware, with forms that range from delicate tea bowls to large outdoor sculptures. He has exhibited in Australia, South Korea and Japan and throughout the United States.

Denecke has earned a number of honors, including a 1984 Rotary Foundation International Fellowship to study at the Tekisui Museum of Art, Ceramic Art Research Institute, in Ashiya, Japan; a 1991 commission to design a monument for a new municipal library in Ibaraki City, Japan; a McKnight Foundation Residency grant in 1998; a 2001 Artist-In-Residence award in Seto, Aichi-ken, Japan; and a 2004 McKnight Artist Fellowship. A former pottery instructor at the Minneapolis Museum of Art, she lives in Minnesota.

Reinhart has exhibited her work throughout the Midwest and in New Mexico, most recently in a two-person show at Minneapolis’ Northern Clay Center and a solo exhibit at the DeLuce Gallery of Northwest Missouri State University. She has earned the Frederick Layton Fellowship Award and the Frederick Layton Special Achievement Award, plus a Travel Fund Grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board. She is an assistant professor of art at the University of Wisconsin in Waukesha.

Kawasaki holds a master’s degree from the University of Iowa. He has worked closely with his father, Chitaro Kawasaki, chair of the ceramics department at Kyoto Seika University in Kyoto, Japan, and the venerated Japanese potter Shiho Kanzaki. Kawasaki has a studio in Shigaraki, one of the oldest pottery centers in Japan.

Cole spent two years as apprentice for Mark Hewitt in Pittsboro, N.C., and then helped construct a pottery and kiln with another former Hewitt apprentice. Cole lives in Seagrove, N.C., where he makes pots for various area potteries.