FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WHAT: Festival of Words 2019 WHEN: Nov. 1 and 2 WHERE: Grand Coteau and surrounding area CONTACT: Martha Garner, fowmartha@gmail.com or 337-804-2482
The Festival of Words celebrates another year with three amazing authors and two days of memorable events! The festival will take place Friday and Saturday, November 1 and 2 in Grand Coteau. This year includes nationally recognized authors: Novelist Yuri Hererra, Spoken Word Poet Donney Rose, and Poet Tyler Robert Sheldon. Festival events include: creative writing workshops in community centers and public schools, a community stage for open mic, “Drive-by Poetry” in grocery stores, boutiques and restaurants--and many opportunities for people to interact with featured, nationally acclaimed authors.
The Friday night event takes place at Chicory’s Café in Grand Coteau featuring a poetry presentation by Tyler Robert Sheldon, a dynamic spoken word performance by Donney Rose and Yuri Herrera reads from his award-winning fiction. On Saturday, Drive-by Poetry performers will recite poems in Grand Coteau and Sunset businesses. Meanwhile, at the Thensted Center there will be an open mic and multiple creative writing workshops, which are open to the public, as well as a blackpot cook off. For more information, check out festivalofwords.org or contact Martha Garner at (337) 804-2482 or fowmartha@gmail.com.
The
Festival of Words is supported in part by a Grant from the Louisiana
Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of
Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana
State Arts Council as administered by the Acadiana Center for the
Arts.
The festival also receives support from the
St. Landry Parish Tourism Commission. The Festival of Words appreciates partnerships with Acadiana Writing Project, Lyrically Inclined, Nunu’s and many volunteers and sponsors. ______________________________________________________________________ AUTHORS
Yuri
Herrera
(Actopan, Hidalgo, Mexico, 1970). received his BA in Political
Science at UNAM, his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of
Texas at El Paso, and his Ph.D. at the University of California at
Berkeley. His first novel Kingdom
Cons won
the Binational Young Novel Award in 2003 and received the ""Other
Voices, Other Viewpoints" prize for the best novel published in
Spanish in 2008; his second novel, Signs
Preceding the End of the World, was a finalist
of the Romulo Gallegos Prize. He published in 2013 The
Transmigration of Bodies;
the three novels have been translated into multiple languages,
including English, by the British publisher And Other Stories.
Donney
Rose
is a poet, teaching artist, creative consultant, and community
activist from Baton Rouge. He holds a BS in Marketing from Southern
University and A & M College. He is also the Chief Operating
Officer of Black Out Loud Conference, LLC which hosted its first
three-day conference in Baton Rouge in August 2018. Donney has
authored two books – The
Crying Buck
, an acclaimed chapbook of poetry that delves into Black masculinity
and vulnerability through a critical lens, and Black
Out Loud
, a collection of prose-style poetic interpretations of Black History
Month 2017. His work as a performance poet/writer has been featured
in a variety of publications, including Atlanta
Black Star
, Blavit
, Button
Poetry
, All
Def Digital
, Slam
Find
, [225
Magazine]
, Drunk
In A Midnight Choir
, and Nicholls
State University's Gris-Gris literary journal
. Donney also contributed two articles to the St.
James Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Culture, 1st Edition
(St. James Press, February 2018). Tyler Robert Sheldon’s five poetry collections include Driving Together (Meadowlark Books, 2018) and Consolation Prize (Finishing Line Press, 2018). He is Editor-in-Chief of MockingHeart Review, and his poetry, fiction, artwork, and criticism have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Pleiades, The Tulane Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and other venues. A Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of the Charles E. Walton Essay Award, he is an MFA candidate at McNeese State University, and in the Fall of 2019 he will pursue his PhD in English at Louisiana State University. View his work at TylerRobertSheldon.com. SCHEDULE Festival of Words 2019
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 Artists: Yuri Herrera, Donney Rose & Tyler Robert Sheldon Event: Literary presentation + Q & A and Book/CD signing Time: 6:30 — 9:00 p.m. Location: Chicory’s Coffee & Cafe, 219 E Martin Luther King Dr. Grand Coteau, Louisiana
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 Unless otherwise stated, all events on this date take place at The Thensted Center, 268 Church St., Grand Coteau, LA 70541.
Presenters: Bruce Coen and Friends Event: “Drive-by Poetry” Time: 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Location: MLK Dr., Grand Coteau in cafes and gift shops, and on the streets
Host: Alex “PoeticSoul” Johnson Event: Community Stage Open Mic Time: 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Event: Awards Ceremony for Youth of Creative Writing Contest Time: 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Event: Drive-by Poetry with Authors at Electric Magnolia, 202 Martin L King Road Time: 12 p.m.—1 p.m.
WORKSHOPS Artist: Donney Rose Event: Workshop "There is Poetry in Everything" Time: 9:15 a.m. to 11:10 a.m.
Artist: Yuri Herrera Event: Fiction Workshop "Points of View: Writing in the Margins" Time: 1:00 p.m. to 2:50 p.m.
Artist: Tyler Robert Sheldon Event: “Building Confidence in Creative Writing: Poetry and Flash Fiction" Time: 3:00 p.m. to 4:50 p.m.
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