ARKATEXT LITERARY FESTIVAL
- When: Wednesday, March 2, 2011, time TBA
- Where: various locations--see long description
- Cost: Free
- Age limit: Not available
- Categories: Community, Literary
ARKATEXT LITERARY FESTIVAL SET FOR MARCH 1-4
By Will Hehemann
College of Fine Arts and Communication Media Office
CONWAY — The University of Central Arkansas Department of Writing will host the annual literary festival ArkaText March 1-4. The festival celebrates Arkansas’s literary voice as well as student writers from UCA.
All ArkaText events are free and open to the public.
“This year, there will be the added features of a student-faculty exchange with the University of Kansas, as well as the release party for the Toad Suck Review,” said Terry Wright, professor of writing.
Toad Suck Review is the reincarnation of the Exquisite Corpse Annual literary journal.
“ArkaText has the virtue of being a refreshing mix of the literary arts,” Wright said. “I think students enjoy the diversity — readings from their peers and from the faculty, as well as talks by professionally-established creative writers.
“All of the events draw crowds, but the event that consistently draws the biggest crowd is the student readings.”
The festival will kick off on Tuesday, March 1 with a UCA faculty reading from 1:40 to 2:40 p.m. in Thompson Hall’s Grand Foyer. The reading will feature Shelle Stormoe, Sandy Rankin, John Vanderslice and Deb Moore.
On Wednesday, March 2 at 11 a.m. in Thompson Hall’s Grand Foyer, Hendrix College Writer in Residence Tyrone Jaeger will speak about the art of capitalizing on writing residencies, profiting from literary awards and being a 21st-century hipster committed to fiction. At 2 p.m., Jaeger will read prose.
On Thursday, March 3, at 3 p.m. in the Grand Foyer, creative writing majors from UCA will join forces with undergraduates from the University of Kansas for a student exchange of poetry, fiction, and innovative discourse.
On Thursday, March 3, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at Conway Country Club, faculty from the Department of Writing at UCA will team up with faculty from the Department of English at KU. Authors include fiction writer Adam Desnoyers from KU, poet Megan Kaminski from KU, and UCA’s poet/digital artist Terry Wright.
The festival will conclude Friday, March 4, at 8 p.m. on the Michelangelo’s rooftop with a launch party for the Toad Suck Review. Live music and libations will commemorate Arkansas’ newest cutting-edge literary journal.
Featured readers at the Michelangelo’s celebration include novelist Kevin Brockmeier, poet Marck Beggs and Arkansas Times journalist Bernard Reed.
The Conway Country Club is located at 555 N. Country Club Rd. Michelangelo’s is located just off Toad Suck Square in downtown Conway at 1117 West Oak St.
For more information about the ArkaText festival, contact Wright at (501) 450-5108 or terryw@uca.edu.
