Joy Harjo was born into Native American and Canadian ancestry and her work is highly autobiographical. Harjo has won such honors as the Josephine Miles Poetry Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, and the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award. She continues to be influenced by her Muskogee Creek heritage and once commented, “I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to all the sources that I am: to all past and future ancestors, to my home country, to all places that I touch down on and that are myself, to all voices, all women, all of my tribe, all people, all earth, and beyond that to all beginnings and endings,” in an article for Poetry Foundation. As a result of her passion for art and expression, many of her poems have been put to music and she continues to make music with her band Poetic Justice. From one of her many collections of poetry, “Deer Dancer” further emphasizes her attention to nature. Her works are available for purchase through Amazon. Joy Harjo will be reading at Agnes Scott College on March 29, 2012 at 8 p.m. and she will be teaching a 2-week workshop at Agnes Scott College prior to the Writers’ Festival.

Benjamin Percy has been said to be “unafraid of story, plot, and writes of plain lives in crisis without blinking,[…] the rhythms of his sentences ever taking us more deeply inside.” Percy currently teaches at the Iowa State University MFA program and is the author of two novels, Red Moon (forthcoming from Grand Central / Hachette in 2012), The Wilding, and two books of short stories, Refresh, Refresh and The Language of Elk. In an interview with Publishers’ Weekly, he stated that he “never dreamed he’d be a writer.” But write he does, as he talks about his approach to writing with Ben Evans. In addition to teaching at ISU’s MFA program, he also teaches at the Low-Residency program at Pacific University where he continues to inspire students, as seen in The Oregonian. Benjamin Percy will be reading at Agnes Scott College on March 29, 2012 at 4 p.m.

Jacqueline Pardue Goldfinger is an alumna of Agnes Scott College from the class of 2000 as well as a dramaturg and award-winning playwright/screenwriter.  Goldfinger’s works are centered on comedy, gender issues, race, and sexuality and she has produced a great number of works. As she herself puts it, “[her] work is inspired by the Southern Gothic style…However, I also believe that it’s important to move beyond the plantation aesthetic…while maintaining a distinct and vibrant Southern identity.” Her works are being produced and performed in Philadelphia, New York, and Raleigh, as well as other places across the country. She has won such distinctions as Playwrights Theatre’s National Play for the 21^st Century Competition, Ohio Independent Film Festival Screenplay Competition, and Film Industry Network Screenplay Competition. Samples of her plays are available on her website through Playscripts. Jacquline Pardue Goldfinger will be reading at Agnes Scott College on March 30, 2012 at 1:00 p.m.

We hope we’ll see you at these events come March!

Don’t forget that the WF Contest deadline is tomorrow December 1, 2011!

Contest Rules
Contest rules appear below. Entries not following these rules will not be considered. For more information, please contact Rachel Trousdale, associate professor of English, at rtrousdale@agnesscott.edu.

This contest is open to anyone currently enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate program in a college or university in the state of Georgia.

• Works submitted may have been previously published in campus newspapers or campus literary magazines.
• Finalist entries will appear in the Festival magazine; authors retain all rights to their work and may publish them elsewhere after the competition.
• All submissions should be in 12pt. Times New Roman font.
• Entrants may submit materials in multiple genres up to the following number of submissions:
  • Five poems (maximum of 10 pages total)
  • Two essays (double-spaced, maximum of 5,000 words for each essay)
  • Two stories (double-spaced, maximum of 5,000 words for each story)
  • Two one-act plays (Samurl French format, max. of thirty pages for each one-act play)

All entries should be submitted electronically. Send entries as separate, Word-compatible documents to writersfestival@agnesscott.edu. In the e-mail, include the author’s name, address, phone number, school, contest categories entered, and the titles and genres of all works. Deadline is Thursday, December 1, 2011.

SUBMIT SUBMIT SUBMIT!!!

Photo credit: benjaminpercy.com

Benjamin Percy is the author of “The Wilding,” “Refresh, Refresh,” and “The Language of Elk.” Most of his fiction is set in Oregon, where he grew up, and when talking about this as his setting he said, “I close my eyes and naturally go there. That’s my stage. I’ll always have that tether. It’s there every day when I write.”

In Publishers’ Weekly, Percy confides that he never dreamed he’d be a writer. Check out some of his work at The Paris Review!

Photo credit: poetryfoundation.org

Joy Harjo is an American poet and musician, who is influenced by her Native American heritage, feminist and social concerns, and her background in the arts.

She once commented,

 “I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to all the sources that I am: to all past and future ancestors, to my home country, to all places that I touch down on and that are myself, to all voices, all women, all of my tribe, all people, all earth, and beyond that to all beginnings and endings. In a strange kind of sense [writing] frees me to believe in myself, to be able to speak, to have voice, because I have to; it is my survival.”

Some of her poems have been set to music, and she herself performs with her band Poetic Justice. Check out one of her poems on Poets.org!

This year, joining us on campus will be Joy Harjo, Benjamin Percy, and Jacqueline Pardue Goldfinger for the 41st Annual Agnes Scott College Writers’ Festival! We’re so excited to have these amazing writers on campus with us come March 2012 and we’re already getting the buzz going around campus. Look out for some information on each of these writers in the coming days!