Western Carolina’s 17 Annual Spring Literary Festival starts Thursday, March 21 and features a variety of voices of literary writers from the Appalachian region and beyond.
What began as a visiting writer’s series has grown over the years into a week-long festival of fiction writers, nonfiction writers, essayists, and poets sharing their work with the students and Western Carolina community.
The festival is free and open to the public and is a Degree Plus event for students. All events are in the University Center in the afternoon and you can see the full schedule here.
This year’s festival starts with a visit from Cristina Henríquez who is the author of The Book of Unknown Americans, a heart-breaking story about immigrants making it in United States. This novel was chosen as the book for this year’s WCU One Book Program which intends to engage first-year students and promote community and conversation not only incoming freshman but the entire campus.
Henríquez’s talk is connected to this year’s campus wide theme of “defining America.” Though the festival itself does not have a specific theme, Festival Director and WCU professor, Pamela Duncan says the festival makes a point to invite writers whose work can speak to the campus theme.
In addition, the festival features many Appalachian writers as well as Affrilachian poet Ricardo Nazario-Colon. “Affrilachia” is a term coined by local poet Frank X Walker and refers to multicultural writers in the Appalachian region.
The inclusion of local Appalachian writers in the festival is something Duncan believes is important.
“I always try to have an Appalachian writer, at least one… because we’re in Appalachia. We should represent ourselves,” said Duncan.
In addition to local writers, Duncan tries to appeal to the Western students and expand their knowledge and appreciation of authors.
“Most students who I’ve talked to in the past who go in not knowing what to expect… come back and say, ‘oh, I really enjoyed that. I didn’t know what to expect but I enjoyed that.’ … I hope students will give it a chance and they might end up enjoying it and they might end up discovering an author they might not have discovered otherwise,” said Duncan.
For senior English major Natalie Davis hearing new authors and different stories is one of the great things about the festival.
“It’s always the authors that you don’t hear a lot about… and you’re getting exposure to different voices,” she said.
In addition to a reading, writers will discuss with the audience their own writing process as well as take questions from the audience and sign books.
For those interested in film, the festival will also feature a screening of Hillbilly, a film made by Appalachian filmmakers that aims to confront depictions of Appalachia in mainstream media.
The festival will close Thursday March 28 with keynote speaker Marilynne Robinson who is an American novelist and essayist. Robinson has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 for her book Gilead as well as the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction among other awards. Duncan says Robinson is a powerful writer and that her speech will be one students won’t want to miss.
“She speaks truth to power. Not in a confrontational way, but in her writing. I encourage students to come out and see her,” said Duncan.
Many more talented writers will be featured at this year’s festival, so join us for the 17 Annual Spring Literary Festival to hear their powerful voices.
