Giving Voice: a Festival of Writing and the Arts: Feb. 11-12, 2010

On February 11-12, 2010, John Brown University will celebrate writing and the arts through readings, workshops, and informal gatherings during the university’s annual Giving Voice: A Festival of Writing and the Arts.  The keynote writer will be poet Andrew Hudgins, professor of creative writing at Ohio State University who has published several books of poetry, including The Glass Hammer and Babylon Revisited.  Our fiction writer will be Leif Enger, author of the best-selling novel Peace Like a River.  In the area of creative non-fiction, our guest writer will be Sari Fordham, who teaches creative writing at La Sierra University.  Singer and songwriter Traci Letellier will offer workshops in song-writing.  Paul Smith, Director of Choral Music at John Brown University, will offer special workshops integrating select high school choristers with the JBU Cathedral Choir.  In addition, workshops will be offered in Readers Theater and the visual arts.

JBU wants to give high school students in the region an opportunity to see, hear, and participate in one of our greatest gifts—creativity—to become involved in writing and the arts, by understanding better how these art forms work and by actively participating in artistic production.  On Friday, February 12th, twenty workshops will be offered specifically for high school students.  The day’s finale will be a celebration performance by students from all of the workshop areas—choral music, poetry, fiction, readers theater, and visual art.  The day will begin at 9:30 and end at 2:15, allowing most students to come and go from their home schools on a normal schedule.  It promises to be another exciting day of giving voice to the artist in each of us.

So save the dates—February 11-12—and plan on joining us for what promises to be a great festival of writing and the arts in 2010. You can check out the schedule, the guest writers, the workshops, and some of the pictures of last year’s festival, and then begin making plans for next year. We hope to see you there.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts