  |
|
|
|
Index Interviews: Ellis Paul Jill McCorkle Build-A-Song Part VI: Tips For Tunesmiths Web Resources for Developing Characters Upcoming Events Calendar Return to This Issue's Index Return to Homepage Subscribe
|
|
A Report on the Southern Women
By Jan McDaniel
|
 |
The Dream House, a hill-top retreat built by students for their beloved teacher, is surrounded by the countryside she loved. With open arms she welcomed visitors here as she spent her entire life building what is now a respected institution of higher learning. She is buried on the campus near the main chapel.
Do they remember Martha? The answer is yes. Today's graduating classes carry lighted candles in her honor during their processionals. It is said that her protective presence still guides.
What kind of conference takes place in such a setting? In addition to the scholarly papers and networking opportunities traditionally expected, this conference highlights new talent by incorporating an Emerging Writers Competition into each conference year and presenting work by the winning writers on the events schedule.
An enthusiastic Director, Emily Wright works with co-directors Katherine Powell and James Watkins to create something special for attending writers and scholars. Along with current Writer-in-Residence June Spence, the staff planned an outstanding slate of sessions, speakers, panel discussions, and ground-breaking entertainment this year. The roster was packed with talent:
Spence herself received the Willa Cather Award in 1995 for an early manuscript of her short story collection Missing Women and Others (1998). In 1999 she received the Mary Ruffin Poole Award for First Work of Fiction from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Society and is presently working on a novel.
Lee Smith, featured speaker, is the author of nine novels and two short story collections and has received eight major writing awards, including the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Award (1995-97), the Robert Penn Warren Prize for Fiction (1991) and the O. Henry Award (1979 and 1981). She is professor emeritus at North Carolina University.
Nikki Giovanni, poet, writer, lecturer, activist, and educator has been named woman of the year by three different magazines and has received numerous honorary doctorates and awards, including the Langston Hughes Award and the NAACP Image Award for Love Poems. She is currently a professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Musicians and singer-songwriters Matraca Berg and Marshall Chapman, made this conference much more than a literary event. Berg, a Nashville-based musician, has written songs for some of the biggest names in country music. In 1997 she won the CMA Record of the Year Award for "Strawberry Wine," recorded by Deana Carter. Chapman, a native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, is a songwriter whose recordings span two decades. She has recently collaborated with Berg, Lee Smith, and Jill McCorkle on the musical titled Good Ol' Girls which was presented in an evening performance during the conference. The musical, an adaptation based on characters in some of Lee Smith's novels, is Broadway-bound and lots of rip-roaring fun! More information can be found on Chapman's website at www.tallgirl.com.
Though Jill McCorkle was unavoidably detained in Boston (where she teaches writing at Harvard University and Bennington College), an interview with her is available in this issue of The Internet Writing Journal. Another glitch left interviewer Rose Mary McGee short an interviewee when illness kept Sally Fitzgerald at home. McGee carried on by presenting some of her taped conversations with Fitzgerald who is the editor of The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor and Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose of Flannery O'Connor, as well as the author of numerous articles and reviews.
Despite such obstacles, and a little rain, the conference offered high spots such as luncheon speakers, Mary Louise Weaks and Carolyn Perry. These talented collaborators, both professors of English, have edited works of their own. From Rockford College in Illinois, Weaks co-edited Talking with Robert Penn Warren before joining Perry (Westminster College, Missouri, editor of The Dolphin Reader) in a massive undertaking titled Southern Women's Writing: Colonial to Contemporary. The duo will pair up again to complete the forthcoming History of Southern Women's Literature.
The variety of presentations was endless at this year's conference. Children's book author George Ella Lyon, who presented thoughts on her poems, essays and novels as well as her picture books, is a multi-talented, award-winning native of Kentucky and a fascinating speaker. Editor and author Peggy Prenshaw, of Louisiana State University, is a distinguished Eudora Welty scholar. Her work as editor and reviewer added yet another dimension to the three-day conference.
 |
Brenda Marie Osbey has authored four volumes of poetry, the most recent of which--All Saints: New & Selected Poems (1997) received the American Book Award in 1998. She is a native of New Orleans and has written essays on her hometown for The American Voice, the Georgia Review, BrightLeaf, and Creative Nonfiction.
Writer, teacher, musician, and editor Susan Ketchin (author of The Christ-Haunted Landscape: Faith and Doubt in Southern Fiction as well as many reviews, articles, and essays) teaches at Duke University and is presently working on a book about the role of traditional music in southern literature. Her in-depth interview is scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of The Internet Writing Journal.
From this brief look at those who shared their work and their lives for three days in northwest Georgia, it is easy to see how important this relatively new conference has become. In a few short years (since 1994) Berry College has established its conference as a cultural center of southern studies in literature.
While earlier conferences here brought such names as Dori Sanders, Shay Youngblood, Mary Hood, Janice Daugharty, Ellen Douglas, and Virginia Lanier, to name a few, it is the future that beckons and challenges readers and writers alike and allows us to look forward to what is to come in 2002.
Bringing together the best authors and scholars of the region, the Southern Women Writers Conference remembers the oral traditions of the past, sets the stage for the study of an often overlooked segment of great American literature, and opens the way for the creative accomplishments of the future.
This year's conference is over. In the end, papers were presented, books were signed, contacts were made and inspiration garnered. Among the sounds and memories taken from the place, a rich tapestry by anyone's standards, it is the voices--all of the voices--which linger.
Links for further information:
-
Berry College Home Page
-
Matraca Berg
-
Lee Smith -- Latest News: Good Ol' Girls
-
Marshall Chapman
-
Nikki Giovanni
-
Lorraine Johnson-Coleman
-
KYLIT -- A site devoted to Kentucky Writers
- Lee Smith
**About Jan McDaniel
Jan McDaniel is a writer from the southeastern United States,
|
As Founder and Director of Weekly Writer, a promotion-oriented writing group, she keeps busy with a variety of writing-related tasks. She also enjoys interviewing authors, reviewing children's books and marketing several manuscripts of her own. She may be reached via email at Chance800@aol.com