The right brain rejoiced for writers at the Auburn Writers Conference last weekend when the regional literary community gathered in a warm and open exchange of writing communication.
The conference accommodated 150 authors and guests at the Hotel at Auburn University & Dixon Conference Center Friday, Oct. 12 and Saturday, Oct. 13.
Led by founder Chantel Avecedo, associate professor at Auburn and Jay Lamar, director of Pebble Hill Center for the Arts & Humanities, this year was the third annual conference.
Judith Ortiz Cofer presented her keynote address to a captivated audience Saturday morning, discussing her personal journey from a Puerto Rican family onto pursuing her literary identity.
The conference acted as backdrop for new writers, in-progress writers and established writers to share and grow with each other and in their craft.
The conference, titled 'The Winding Road,' placed emphasis on a writer's sense of "travel, identity and the search for voice," which were represented in Cofer's speech.
"I have this mission in my life that if people want me to come somewhere, it's because they feel that I can contribute to their ideas about literature, so I always pay attention to the theme of the conferences," Cofer said. "So quite a while ago I started thinking in terms of 'what in my work can I use to put together a sort of a collage based on the journey and the winding road?'"
The conference was comprised of an arrangement of activities and workshops to appeal to lovers of all genres.
"I thought that organizing it that there were a variety of activities available not just one reading after another, but a reading followed by a conversation or panel or a social event," Cofer said. "It gave people a chance to interact at all different levels. I think even after just two intense days people went from being an audience to a community of writers because they shared a lot of experiences."
Allen Berry, a Ph. D. student at Southern Mississippi and veteran attendee, saw the conference as a "warm kind of friendly atmosphere."
"I talked to some people here who are in the business," Berry said. "It's a great thing. I think it really helps out, to rub elbows with fellow writers, just talk about the craft."
Teaching and learning became synonymous as undergraduates mingled with writing elite. Speakers like the singer-songwriter Marshall Chapman, who had the whole conference laughing, poet Keetje Kuipers and readings by Robin O'Bryant and Patricia Foster were crowd favorites.
For students like senior English creative writing major Janelle Green and Emily Shank, senior creative writing and French major, the conference was a new approach to professors and networking.
"Meeting the authors and being able to talk about your work, what you do, get the specifics of your type of poetry and your type of fiction that you write, why you write it, just talk to people who understand and get pointers from teachers, authors, writers, etc.," said Green.
^There should never be this many commas in a sentence
For Shank, professors are now more approachable, and her conference interactions resulted in a potential writers group.
"I wanted to meet people who are as serious as I like to tell myself I am, you know, coming out of class," said Shank. "I wanted to really start immersing myself in what I actually need to do; what the actual process is. I was really hoping that some of these workshops would be very challenging, and some of them were."
For local resident Jackie Pierre, the conference's ambiance was her favorite part.
"Everyone is delightfully open, coming from a military background, its nothing I've really experienced before," Pierre said. "I feel like I fit in a lot more with this group of people. And everyone is so different yet were all the same."
Author-led workshops were included in the conference.
"This has just been fantastic," said Kuipers, poet and assistant professor at Auburn. "This is my first year participating in the conference, so I didn't really know what to expect. In the workshop I led yesterday people were so willing to jump into the exercise and enthusiastic about sharing their work that came out of those exercises. It was really tremendous. It was wonderful to see the caliber of work that was coming from these participants.
Kuipers said leading these workshops and exercises had her hurrying home so that she could write her own poems.
"I think it went great," said Lamar. "There was a great energy here; a lot of shared interests that I think will be beneficial even after the conference is over."
According to Lamar, next year's theme will be about the intersection of the arts and writing and literature, including songwriting and a range of types. ?
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