TJ Jarrett answers student questions at the Writer’s Festival at Lee University
Lee University held its annual Writer’s Festival featuring the works of special guests TJ Jarrett, Lisa Neely and Erin Tocknell, along with Lee professors Dr. Kevin Brown, Stacey Isom, and Dr. William Kelley Woolfitt. The event was hosted by the Department of Language and Literature and featured a variety of creative writing genres, including fiction, poetry and playwriting.
"I really enjoyed the Writer’s Festival,” said Porsche Bradley, a senior English writing major. “It’s great to see an array of writers and hear their works and different experiences. You really get a taste of how varied the writing world is and how alive it is.”
The event began with Ms. Jarrett, a poet, writer, and software developer from Nashville, Tennessee, reading selections from her poetry collections “Ain’t No Grave” and “Zion.” Her recent work has been published or is forthcoming in Poetry, African American Review, Boston Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, DIAGRAM, Third Coast, VQR, West Branch, and others. She read a variety of poems, including “How to Speak to the Dead,” “Lazarus,” “Theodore Bilbo Attends My Sick Bed,” and “Meridian, MS 1964: They Moaned So Much They Called It Song,” a poem which is part of a series in “Zion” about the history of Meridian, Mississippi.
“I came to writing when I finally had something to say,” said Ms. Jarrett. “‘Zion’ is about learning that there is hope even when it feels hopeless and that it’s possible to love a place that won’t love you back.”
The festival continued with Dr. Brown and Dr. Woolfitt.
Dr. Woolfitt, assistant professor of creative writing, read from a short story titled “Idiot Boys,” which he describes as “a story about a bad-tempered and disgraced schoolteacher whose convictions are shaken when she finds herself teaching in a special education classroom.” He has published two books of poetry, “Beauty Strip” and the forthcoming “Charles of the Desert.” His work has appeared in Shenandoah, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Threepenny Review, Notre Dame Review, New Ohio Review, The Cincinnati Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Ninth letter, and elsewhere.
Dr. Brown, professor of English, read from his newest collection “Liturgical Calendar: Poems,” in which he uses the holy days and saint days of the liturgical calendar in a metaphorical way to comment on everyday life. Among others, he read a poem titled “The First Sunday of Advent.” Brown is the author of three books of poetry: “Liturgical Calendar: Poems,” “A Lexicon of Lost Words” (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry), and “Exit Lines.” He has also published a memoir titled “Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again.”
The festival continued with Ms. Tocknell’s reading. As a nonfiction writer from Chattanooga, her essays have been published in The Southern Review, Creative Nonfiction, The Tampa Review, and Proximity Magazine. Her essay collection “Confederate Streets” earned the Social Justice and Equity in Creative Nonfiction Award. She read a variety of nonfiction pieces, including a selection about researching her childhood church and discovering the church’s involvement with the Civil Rights Movement.
“I’m really obsessed with community and the power we have to communicate with each other,” said Ms. Tocknell, during Thursday’s reading. “I like to write about community and what’s underneath.”
The festival concluded on Friday with the staged reading of Isom’s work alongside guest director Neely in the Dixon Center. Ms. Isom’s work has been seen or won awards at the Barter Theatre, the Playwright’s Theatre, Pittsburgh New Works Festival, L.A. First Stage, 3rd Course: Theatre, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, EstroGenius Xtended (Manhattan Theatre Source), and others.
"We only attempt a staged reading every two or three years because of the number of people it requires,” said Ms. Isom. “But when we do, there’s a rich environment of theatre artists on campus for a couple of weeks, including a guest director, actors, and a lighting designer. Of course, as a playwright, it’s fun for me to expose students to the collaborative process that goes into developing a new play.”
Ms. Neely participates in theatre as a director, actor, teacher, and researcher. Her work ranges from contemporary plays to Greek classics and from mime to new play development. She received the best director award from Portfolio magazine of Hampton Roads, Virginia for her production of “Medea.”
Lee’s Writer’s Festival was established to promote the appreciation of published authors and to allow writing students to interact with professional writers.
"The Writer's Festival this year demonstrated a lot of depth and diversity,” said Ms. Isom. “We had four major genres represented—poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and playwriting—so it accomplished one of our goals, which is to expose students to a wide variety of ways to engage the world as a writer.”
For more information about the Writer’s Festival or Lee’s Department of Language and Literature, call 614-8210.