An exciting slate of writers and performing artists will be part of the 2015 Whittier College Writers Festival. The festival runs from April 14 through April 16. The Writers Festival is sponsored in part by the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts, the Center for Collaborations with the Arts, and the Department of English Language and Literature.
Tuesday, April 14
1:30 - 3:00 p.m.
Whittier Faculty Readings
Location: Wardman Library
Participants: Tony Barnstone, Jennifer Holmes, Tess Taylor, Kate Durbin, Scott Creley
3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Working from Source Texts: Digital Poetics and Uncreative Writing
Location: Wardman Library
Panelists: Marjorie Perloff, Kate Durbin, and Tony Barnstone
Moderator: Andrea Rehn
How creative writers manipulate the historical text in the digital age (cento, whiteout, cut-up, "writing through," found and readymade texts, patchwork, experimental translation, etc.) Is such writing "uncreative" or creative in a different way? How?
7:00 - 7:30 p.m.
Cynthia Hogue Reading
Location: Robinson Theater, Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts
7:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Marjorie Perloff Lecture: “Conceptual Poetry and the Question of Emotion”
Location: Robinson Theater, Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts
8:30 - 8:45 p.m.
Hogue and Perloff Q&A
Location: Robinson Theater, Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts
Wednesday, April 15
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Craft Talk with Louie Pérez of Los Lobos
Location: Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts
7:30 p.m.
Music of the Wolves: An Evening with Louie Pérez and David Hidalgo
Location: Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts
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Thursday, April 16
1:30 - 3:00 p.m.
Panel: The Ethics of Documentary Poetics
Location: Wardman Library
Panelists: Cynthia Hogue, Geoffrey Brock, Tony Barnstone, Tess Taylor
Moderator: Natale Zappia
What responsibilities do you take on when you wear someone else's skin, let their voice ventriloquize through you? Do we have the right to tell someone else's story for them?
3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Panel: Acts of God: Writing about Catastrophe
Location: Wardman Library
Panelists: Brian Turner, Tony Barnstone
Moderator: Laura McEnaney
How do you write about the big subjects: war, holocaust, environmental disaster, the atom bomb, and disastrous weather events? What responsibilities does the writer take on when acting as historian, or the historian take on when writing for others?
7:00 - 7:30 p.m.
Brian Turner Reading
Location: Robinson Theater, Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts
7:30 - 8:00 p.m.
Geoffrey Brock Reading
Location: Robinson Theater, Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts
8:00 - 8:15 p.m.
Turner and Brock Q&A
Location: Robinson Theater, Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts
