The Auburn Writers Conference will meet for its third-annual event later this month centering on writing identity and voice bringing regional authors and community together for panels and participatory workshops.
The conference titled "The Winding Road: Travel, Identity and the Search for Voice," will be held in The Hotel at Auburn University & Dixon Conference Center Oct. 12-13.
The conference gathers emerging and established authors from the University and community offering a relaxing atmosphere for open conversation about a wide range of writing genres such as fiction, literary fiction, young adult works, poetry and nonfiction.
The schedule for Oct. 12 includes small-group workshops led by the conference's featured authors.
Dinner will be served accompanied by a performance from singer-songwriter Margaret Chapman.
Saturday's schedule includes speakers, panels, the keynote address and lunch with poetry by Keetje Kuipers, assistant professor at Auburn.
The keynote speaker is Judith Ortiz Cofer, Franklin professor of English and creative writing at the University of Georgia.
Introducing Ortiz Cofer will be Nick Taylor, an internationally renowned writer and former president of the Writer's Guild.
The workshops will focus on a variety of topics related to the theme with emphasis on personal voice, identity and character development.
"We'll have some different workshops on finding your voice as a writer, finding a voice for your characters," said Maiben Beard, outreach associate for the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities.
"We have some on looking at plot and a lot on identity, identity as author or your character's identity, one on self publishing, one on editing and collaboration and writing from a character's place."
The conference's comfortable setting and informality will add to the unique quality of the conference.
"It's lunch. It's entertainment. It's network," said Chantel Avecedo, associate professor at Auburn and alumni writer in-residence.
"And the writers are really good about not bunching up together. They try to sit with students, with other attendees. It's a once a lifetime thing, especially for undergrads, to get sit at a table with The New York Times best selling authors."
Early registries were able to submit works to be previewed at the conference.
The works were reviewed by Acevedo and Patricia Foster, speaker and Breeden scholar from the University of Iowa.
"What was great about last year, the invited writers were sitting in on those rooms and listening and giving feedback to those who have not yet published," said Acevedo.
It is a chance for writers to learn something, make friends and get the support they need in their writing, according to Beard.
"It's always nice to see people who don't really know each other come in and form this community of writers," Beard said.
"I think it's really important as a writer. You probably feel alone sometimes. People come in and they form these groups. They are coming from all over the Southeast, a lot of them are students or grad students, but a lot of them are people out the community who maybe working on a book or have always wanted to be a write, but never made that step."
Registration is open to the public. Online registration is available through the universities website and the deadline is Oct. 5.
"It embraces a lot of different interests," said Jay Lamar, director of Pebble Hill Center for the Arts & Humanities.
"If there is a theme overall, it is opening your arms and saying come whoever you are and whatever you're doing and find your place in this."
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