41st Annual Writers' Festival
March 29-30, 2012
A Creative Tradition
This year, the 41st Annual Agnes Scott Writers' Festival will continue to live up to the standards it has set as Georgia's oldest continuously running writers' festival. The college has welcomed such guests as Margaret Atwood, Junot Diaz, Jamaica Kincaid, John Updike and Julia Alvarez to our campus. This year, the festival will welcome three exciting guests to campus at the end of March: Joy Harjo, Benjamin Percy, and Jacqueline Pardue Goldfinger '00.
2012 Schedule
Tuesday, March 27
Agnes Scott student Writers' Festival finalists read their works
(sponsored by the Center for Writing and Speaking)
Luchsinger Fireplace Lounge
4:00-5:30 p.m.
Thursday, March 29
Reading by Benjamin Percy
Winter Theatre
4:00 p.m.
Benjamin Percy has been said to be "unafraid of story, plot, and writes of plain lives in crisis without blinking,[...] the rhythms of his sentences ever taking us more deeply inside."
Percy currently teaches at the Iowa State University M.F.A. program and is the author of two novels,
Red Moon (forthcoming from Grand Central / Hachette in 2012) and
The Wilding, as well as two books of short stories,
Refresh, Refresh and
The Language of Elk.
In an interview with
Publisher's Weekly, he stated that he "never dreamed he'd be a writer." But write he does, as he talks about his approach to writing with
Ben Evans. In addition to teaching at ISU's MFA program, he also teaches at the Low-Residency program at Pacific University where he continues to inspire students, as seen in
The Oregonian.
Benjamin Percy reception and book signing
The Dalton Gallery
5:00 p.m.
Reading by Joy Harjo
Gaines Chapel, Presser Hall
8:00 p.m.
For tickets, call 404 471-6430
Joy Harjo was born into Native American and Canadian ancestry and her work is highly autobiographical.
Harjo has won such honors as the Josephine Miles Poetry Award, the William Carlos Williams Award and the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award. She continues to be influenced by her Muskogee Creek heritage and once commented, "I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to all the sources that I am: to all past and future ancestors, to my home country, to all places that I touch down on and that are myself, to all voices, all women, all of my tribe, all earth and beyond that to all beginning and endings."
As a result of her passion for art and expression, many of her poems have been put to
music and she continues to make music with her band,
Poetic Justice. From one of her many collections of poetry, "
Deer Dancer" further emphasizes her attention to nature.
Joy Harjo reception
Rebekah Scott Hall
9:30 p.m.
Friday, March 30
Reading by Jacqueline Pardue Goldfinger '00
Winter Theatre
1:00 p.m.
Jacqueline Pardue Goldfinger is an alumna of Agnes Scott from the class of 2000 as well as a dramaturg and award-winning playwright/screenwriter.
Goldfinger's works are centered on comedy, gender issues, race and sexuality. As she
herself puts it, "[my] work is inspired by the Southern Gothic style... However I also believe it's important to move beyond the plantation aesthetic... while maintaining a distinct and vibrant Southern identity." Her works are being
produced and performed in Philadelphia, New York and Raleigh as well as other places across the country.
She has won such distinctions as Playwrights Theatre's National Play for the 21st Century Competition, Ohio Independents Film Festival Screenplay Competition and Film Industry Network Screenplay Competition. Samples of her plays are available on her website through
Playscripts.Her session will feature current students performing monologues personally selected by the author for the Writers' Festival.
Jacqueline Pardue Goldfinger reception and book signing
Dalton Gallery
2:00 p.m.
* Photo of Benjamin Percy © Jennifer May