The Center City Literary Festival as Civic Engagement — In what has become an annual event, the Center City Literary Festival will take place on Saturday, April 14, at UNC Charlotte Center City, 320 E. 9th Street. Co-sponsored by the English Department and UNC Charlotte Center City, this festival is divided into two parts. The day-time part is intended for children and their families and will run from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The evening part is intended for adults and will run from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Both parts of the festival are free and open to the public.
The part for children will feature appearances by children’s authors, creative activities, a live puppet show, and a dance performance by Dances of India. Among the children’s authors who will participate are Tia Capers, Janaka Lewis, and Lisa Klein.
The part for adults will feature appearances by five writers, an opening reception, poetry and fiction readings, and a book signing. The writers who will participate are Jill McCorkle, Gary Jackson, Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, Paula Martinac, and Siobhán Campbell.
The organization of the Center City Literary Festival is a collaborative effort, but three people have played especially important roles in planning for this event: Bryn Chancellor, Janaka Lewis, and Angie Williams. Without the the hard work of these three members of the English Department, there would be no Center City Literary Festival. An example of the preparatory work that has gone into planning this event is a recent blog post that Bryn wrote for the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts. Here is the link: https://www.charlottelit.org/blog/chancellor-uncc-literary-festival/.
The Center City Literary Festival is an example of how the English Department contributes to UNC Charlotte’s “Civic Action Plan.” As stated in the published report that came out earlier this spring, “The Civic Action Plan is a sustainable and long-term approach to fully activate the University’s mission to address the unique needs of the Charlotte area.” Please find here, the final draft of UNC Charlotte’s Civic Action Plan from the Office of Academic Affairs. Among the needs mentioned in this plan are the Charlotte region’s cultural needs. The English Department is especially well suited to address the cultural needs of our region. The Center City Literary Festival is one of the ways in which we are already demonstrating our on-going commitment to civic engagement.
Welcome Siobhán Campbell — Poet and critic Siobhán Campbell is joining the English department this April as the 2018 Kingston Visiting Writer. Campbell is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Heat Signature, and the co-editor of Eavan Boland: Inside History, a book of essays on the work of Eavan Boland. She has received awards in the National Poetry Competition and the Troubadour International Competition and is the recipient of an Arts Council award and the Templar Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared regularly in the literary journals of the US and the UK/Ireland, including Poetry, The Hopkins Review, Agenda, and Magma Poetry. This April, Campbell will teach Advanced Creative Writing and read her work at the Center City Literary Festival on April 14.
Kudos — As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department. Here is the latest news:
Desiree Brown, one of our undergraduate students, has been accepted to NYU’s MFA program.
Paula Martinac is a 2017 Foreword INDIES Finalist for LGBT Fiction. Foreword Reviews is a journal devoted to reviewing books from independent and university presses. She was also the guest speaker at the March meeting of the Charlotte Writers’ Club. Her talk was titled “Writing Diverse Characters in Fiction.”
Kirk Melnikoff attended the Shakespeare Association of America meeting in Los Angeles, California, where he presented his paper “‘[T]il some household cares mee tye’: Isabella Whitney, Richard Jones, and Luckless Authorship” in the seminar “Women, Gender, and Book History.”
Juan Meneses recently presented a paper titled “Post-Politics and the Valences of Literary Critique” at the Association of Comparative Literature Conference held at UCLA.
Liz Miller recently presented a paper titled “A History-in-Person Approach to Teacher Dispositions and Practices: Orienting to the Personal as Sociocultural Phenomena” at the American Association of Applied Linguistics conference held in Chicago. A few days later, she presented another paper at the TESOL convention, also held in Chicago. This second paper was titled “A Critical Approach to Understanding Language Competence.”
Grace Ocasio recently gave a poetry reading as part of Mitchell Community College’s Spring Literary Festival.
Upcoming Events and Deadlines — Here is information about upcoming events:
April 7 — The English Department and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library are co-sponsoring a screening of Sounder at the Francis Auditorium in the Main Library (310 N. Tryon Street) on Saturday, April 7, at 2:00 p.m. This event is supported by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council.
April 10 — The English Department will be hosting Leslie Howsam, one of the most renowned historians of the book in North America, to give an open talk titled: “Book History: a Niche for Nerds, or Essential Knowledge?” on April 10th at 4:00 pm in the Atkins Library (Halton Room).
Quirky Quiz Question — Does anybody know the name of the new park that is situated between UNC Charlotte Center City and ImaginOn?
Last week’s answer: Phyliss Wheatley
Julian’s Mason was a widely recognized authority on an early African American poet. What is the name of this poet?