“So, when I go through those inevitable shadowlands, the quiet slopes of alone or in those places where we haven’t shakened Selma, Birmingham or Little Rock from our bones and we proceed to press present day struggles upon old bones.” (Excerpt from “Peace Be Still” )
“Peace Be Still” is just one of the many poems that will be shared by Glenis Redmond. She and several other authors, poets and writers will flood the stages and auditoriums of Western Carolina University with readings, recitations, performances and excerpts. Western Carolina University beckons a list of accomplished authors of all types to Western North Carolina for its 10th Annual Spring Literary Festival from March 18-22.
Starting off this year’s literary festival on Sunday will be Glenis Redmond. She is a Kennedy Center Teaching poet that travels almost half of the year to spread her poetry verbally around the world. She is North Carolina bound to bring her award winning poetry and performances to the public of Western Carolina. Redmond captures her audience by the art of spoken word more often than in her publications. Her most recent book released is “Under the Sun”. She is a member of North Carolina Humanities Council Board and has been published in “Black Arts Quarterly,” “Bum Rush the Page: Def Poetry Jam,” and “Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance,” amongst several more.
One of our very own Western Carolina University’s faculty members and critically acclaimed authors, Ron Rash, will be attending and sharing his works as well. He is a well-known poet, a novelist, a short story writer and a native to the South. His novel “Serena”, that was released in 2008 and set in Western North Carolina, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award, and is currently being made into a movie starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence that will be released in 2014. His most recent novel, “The Cove”, will hit the bookshelves in April of this year.
The audience will have a chance to hear the poet and writer, Nick Flynn. An earlier memoir of his, “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City,” received the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and was recently made into a film called, “Being Flynn,” in which he was the executive producer and artistic collaborator, starring Robert De Niro, Paul Deno and Julianne Moore due to come out this year. Flynn has published several other books and his latest, “The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands” is a book of poems that correlates with his previous memoir, “The Ticking is the Bomb”.
This literary festival is an annual gathering that showcases Western Carolina’s talent and clout from within our campus as well outside. It will have a myriad of other featured writers to fill the stage that include: Shirlette Ammons, Darnell Arnoult, Mary Adams, Joseph Bathanti, Catherine Carter, Rebecca Hardin-Thrift, Jon Pineda, David Joy, Deidre Elliott and Stefan Merrill Block.
The events will be free and open to the public. You can find the full schedule here.
