2015 Other Words Conference Schedule
Thursday, Nov. 5th
6:00 p.m. Early Registration
Rotunda, Ponce Hall
7:15 pm Welcome, Jim Wilson, FLAC President
Solarium, Ponce Hall
7:30 pm YellowJacket’s 10th Anniversary Reading
Gregory Byrd, Michael Hettich, Phyllis McEwen, Peter Meinke, Liz Robbins, Mary Jane Ryals, and James E. Tokley, Sr. Reception to follow.
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Friday, Nov. 6th
7:30 am Book fair set-up. Registration open
Rotunda, Ponce Hall
Refreshments and Coffee
President’s Dining Room, Ponce Hall & Gamache-Koger Theater
8:45-10:00 am We Built This City: Creating a Literary Community Cole Bellamy, Heather Jones, Tiffany Razzano, Jim Wilson
In addition to the importance of building a literary community for collaboration and cross-promotion, panelists will address funding, curating, locating venues, and marketing.
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Justice in the Lyrics of Bruce Springsteen
Roxanne Harde, June Sawyer, Irwin Streight
This panel focuses on the qualities that make Springsteen’s writing singular even as we acknowledge that his work is part of an ongoing continuum.
Flagler Room, Ponce Hall
Of Fictive Music: Music as Form and Subject in Poetry and Prose
Rilla Askew, Martine Bellen, Camille Goodison, Constance Squires
Squires, Bellen, and Askew explore the permeable, fruitful relationship between music and writing. Goodison discusses how the improvisational elements in traditional black music are replicated in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.
Gamache-Koger Theater
10:15 - 11:30 Sponsored Reading: Five Points: A Journal of Literature & Art
Wyn Cooper, Andrea Rogers, Megan Sexton
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Music from the Other Side of the Fence: American Music and Poetry
Glenn Freeman, Anthony Immergluck, Richard Terrill, Jane Varley
Panelists will read from their own work that takes music as its subject and will discuss ways in which poets both assimilate and resist the music itself. How is it different to write about music and to create a poetry that is music?
Flagler Room, Ponce Hall
The Incendiary Art of Confession: Women, Song, and Self-Exposure
Suzannah Gilman, Lisa L. Kirchner, Susan Lilley, Tiffany Razzano, Katherine Riegel, Lisa Lanser Rose
The writers at The Gloria Sirens blog discuss the risks and rewards of confessional poetry, prose, and song. They confront the challenges self-exposure poses to women, especially when to expose, when to conceal, when (and how) to tell an honest lie.
Gamache-Koger Theater
11:45-1:00 p.m. Workshops (Registration fee required)
Philip Deaver. Fiction Workshop
To get started on a story, dive into the dark and forge ahead. Be brave. Follow the logic of the sentences and make a story of it. A story "idea" never ends up being the story you write anyway, and so charge into the dark. One sentence after another will lead to a story you've long wanted to write.
Kenneth Hart. Poetry Workshop
Howard Nemerov once defined the poet as "the weak criminal whose confession implicates the others." Do our own poems "implicate the others" (the culture, perhaps), or merely confess? We'll look at the poet's "toolbox"—the basic (and nor so basic) elements of craft that poets ought to know deeply, the way a carpenter knows how and when to use a handsaw or a plane or a knife. We'll examine examples of powerful poems and generate words on the page, and discuss a poem that you have written.
Bob Kunzinger. Nonfiction Workshop
We will focus on “flash non-fiction.” We will attempt to find the balance between a quick anecdote anda short piece withsome “take away” and discuss the difference between prose poetry and flash non-fiction. We will combine personal experience, memoir, and observation with theme while avoiding pretentious. The prompts focus on the “scene” instead of the “scenario.”
1:15-2:30 p.m. Sponsored Reading: Anhinga Press
Earl S. Braggs, Christine Poreba, Robin Beth Schaer
Solarium, Ponce Hall
This is Pop? On Poetry and Songwriting
Wyn Cooper, Andrea Rogers, Megan Sexton, M. L. Williams
Why are so few songlyricsworth reading?Why aren't there more hit poems?A tiny space exists in which a fine poem can become apop masterpiece. We discuss the intersection of music and poetry and how to balance accessibility anddanger.
Flagler Room, Ponce Hall
Training Our Ears: Hearing the Music in Free Verse. Is Free Verse Ever Truly Free?
Jen Karetnick, M. B. McLatchey, Catherine Prescott
We will explore how free verse employs some of poetry’s most ancient and ancestral elements of song. With a lens on theory as well as craft, we discuss examples of free verse from canonical and contemporary poets, the use of musical techniques, and how to employ these techniques.
Gamache-Koger Theater
Music and Lyrics and Poetry and Prose
John Fleming, Christine Lasek, Katherine Riegel, Karissa Womack
Four writers read from their music-inspired poetry and prose and discuss the influence of music and lyrics. We offer our methods for getting inspired and show how music can serve as both a raw source of creativity and a steadying influence on form, structure, and tone.
Crisp-Ellert Art Museum
2:45-4:00 p.m. Sponsored Reading: Gargoyle Magazine and Clash By Night
Stacy Barton, Lola Haskins, Erin Hoover, Gerry LaFemina, Richard Peabody, Gregg Wilhelm, M. L. Williams
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Shape-Shifting and Blurred Lines: Five Writers Look at Genre-Leaping for Fun and Profit
Jocelyn Bartkevicius, Philip F. Deaver, Susan Lilley, David James Poissant, Pat Rushin
A novella gets new life as a screenplay. A failed poem finds success as a micro-essay. A short story grows into a novel. A poem becomes a song. In our era of blurred genre lines, writers can liberate their own material into new forms.
Flagler Room, Ponce Hall
From French New Wave to Zombies to TV Detectives: The Media as Muse
Carol Lynne Knight,Sean Sexton, James Snodgrass, Diane Wakoski
How can we harness what inspires us in film/TV and render it in our own voice? We examine our relationship to these media as poets. Four poets will offer their take on how they approach writing poems triggered by their own unique media experiences.
Gamache-Koger Theater
4:15-5:30 p.m. Other Words Faculty Reading
Philip Deaver, Kenneth Hart, Bob Kunzinger
Solarium, Ponce Hall
5:30 p.m. Book Fair and Registration Close for Evening
7:30 p.m. Featured Readers: Erin Belieu and Jacki Lyden
Solarium, Ponce Hall
9:30 p.m.Open Mic, Hosted by David Axelrod
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Saturday, Nov. 7th
7:30 am Registration and Book Fair open (note new location)
Flagler Room, Ponce Hall
Coffee and Refreshments
Flagler Room, Ponce Hall & Gamache-Koger Theater
8:45-10:00 am It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: How Five Writers Became Cartoonists
Colleen Kolba, Annalise Mabe, TJ Murray, Andrea Panzeca, Claire Stephens
Five cartoonists discuss their process of creating comics, especially in converting from prose or poetry to comics. We explore the similarities and differences between the mediums and the limitations, freedoms, and impact cartooning has on our work.
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Inspired Lyrics vs. Poetry: Poets on Songwriting & The Poetic Difference
Erin Belieu, Keith Kopka, Laura Minor, Alex QuinlanMusical lyrics and poetic writing are often placed in opposition to each other. However, songwriters have long turned to poetry for inspiration, and, in doing so, have created songs that transcend the traditional boundaries between literary writing and lyricism.
Gamache-Koger Theater
Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation: Generating New Work through Unexpected Prompts
Rachel Fogarty, Tanya Grae,Michele Parker Randall
Prompts given and/or handed out are useful for any genre. Bring paper, pen/pencil, or laptop, and leave with notes, beginnings, and new ideas.You won’t be pressured to share. Take advantage of a brief time of creative energy, no pressure, and see what the day brings.
Student Center 213
10:15-11:30 Sponsored Reading: University of Tampa Press
Michael Hettich, Peter Meinke
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Cadence: The Music Inside the Poetic Line
Kenneth Hart, M. L. Williams, Lisa Zimmerman
Poetry composed in other languages often sounds musical and lilting, compared to poetry in English. Even so, poets writing in English do bring cadence to lines of poetry. Four poets explore their favorite poems and how they makemusic in their work.
Gamache-Koger Theater
The Phenomenological Muse, Lyrical Transformations
Earl S. Braggs, Suzanne Heagy, Carrie Shipers, Patricia Waters
Music may soothe the savage breast, but it can also incite, provoke, and inspire an imaginative response. Four writers discuss their songwriter muses and the role music plays in their creative process.
Student Center 213
11:45 - 1:00 Workshops (Registration fee required)
Terri Witek.Poetry Workshop
For writers and artists in any genre, this generative workshop invites participants to interact with the current show and develop new work.
Jarod Roselló. Graphic Novel Workshop
Attendees of this workshop will create a short comic. As an art form, comics have long made real what is considered impossible or improbable. Comics is a site of alterity, welcoming the cartoonish, the monstrous, and the disruptive. We will construct narratives that exist outside the possible. No drawing skills required, only an active imagination.
Jocelyn Bartkevicius. Creative Nonfiction Workshop
As Cheryl Strayed said, “Behind every good essay there’s an author with a savage desire to know more about what is already known.” We will dig into memory for the secrets and stories hidden in what we think we already know. We’ll use writing exercises and passages from published essays as ways to explore and shape pieces of the past into compelling narratives.
1:15-2:30 p.m. Sponsored Reading: YellowJacket Press
Wendy Buffington, Melissa Carroll, Ryan Cheng, Nyssa Hanger, Jeff Karon, Susan Lilley, Katherine Riegel, Laura Sobbott Ross, Gianna Russo, Meryl Stratford, Kate Sweeney, Michael Trammell, and Aliesa Zoecklein
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Transubstantiation: Prose, Poems, Performance, Songs
Rick Campbell, Donna Decker, Bob Kunzinger, Dean Newman
Maybe it’s evolution, maybe devolution; this panel looks at music and lyrics as they appear in specific works of prose and poetry, at the “performance poem” as poem and song, and at the way a songwriter “changes” a poem to transform it into a song.
Gamache-Koger Theater
Listening to Your Characters: How to Use Music to Enhance Their Reality
Linda Heuring, Kevin Lichty, Alison Ruth
Ruth and Heuring ask, when a character turns on the radio, how does the music define age, ethnicity, country, region, and era? Lichty demonstrates how writers can break the mental blocks embedded in language, opening up possibilities to move the story forward. Warning: this interactive panel may require homework.
Student Center 213
2:45-4:00 Sponsored Reading: Kestrel: A Journal of Literature and Art
Suzanne Heagy, Linda Heuring, Ilyse Kusnetz,Donna J. Long, Alison Ruth, Carrie Shipers, Helen Wallace
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Poetry as Performance
Ann Wood Fuller, Lola Haskins, Ann Browning Masters
Poets read from their work, perform poems set to music, and explore the musical and linguistic history of St.Augustine, where people sang in colloquialisms, regionalisms, varying accents, dialects, and now-archaic usages.
Gamache-Koger Theater
Otras Palabras
Silvia Curbelo, Mia Leonin, Carlos Ochoa
A discussion examining the Latino voice in the literary canon, the contemporary Latino voice in poetry and music today, and the cultural origins of the Latino/Hispanic experience in Florida. Panelists will read and perform their work to music.
Student Center 213
4:15-5:30 Other Words Faculty Reading
Jocelyn Bartkevicius, Jarod Roselló, Terri Witek
Solarium, Ponce Hall
5:30 p.m.Book Fair closes Flagler Room, Ponce Hall
5:40 – 7:15 Reception: Sponsored by the Florida Literary Arts
Coalition
Solarium, Ponce Hall
7:30 p.m. Featured Readers:Ed Ward interviewed by Wyn
Cooper
Solarium, Ponce Hall
Conference Participants
Rilla Askew is the author of four novels and a book of stories. She’s a PEN/Faulkner finalist, recipient of the American Book Award, Western Heritage Award, Oklahoma Book Award, and a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Tin House, World Literature Today, Nimrod, Transatlantica, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. Her latest novel is Kind of Kin, published by Ecco Press.
David B. Axelrod, Suffolk County, Long Island’s Poet Laureate from 2007-2009, is publisher of Writers Ink Press. He has published in hundreds of magazines and anthologies, as well as twenty-one books of poetry, the newest of which is Rusting. He is the recipient of three Fulbright Awards and is the first official Fulbright Poet-in-Residence in the People’s Republic of China. He is also recipient of the Florida Book Award Gold Medal for nonfiction as co-author and editor of Merlin Stone Remembered.
Jocelyn Bartkevicius teaches in the MFA program at the University of Central Florida and was a long-standing editor of The Florida Review. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Hudson Review, The Missouri Review, The Bellingham Review, The Iowa Review, Fourth Genre, TriQuarterly, and Sweet, and has received The Annie Dillard Award in the Essay, The Missouri Review Prize, and the Iowa Woman Essay Award. She is working on a collection of essays about war, genocide, and mass deportation in Lithuania.
Stacy Barton is the author of the novella Lily Harp, the poetry chapbook, Like Summer Grass, and the short story collection, Surviving Nashville. Her work has appeared in various literary journals including Gargoyle, Best of Potomac Review, Real South, and Southern Women’s Review. Stacy is also the author of a picture book, plays, and animated short films; she is a freelance show writer for entertainment companies such as Disney, SeaWorld, Ringling Bros. and others.
Erin Belieu’s most recent book, Slant Six, won the 2014 Florida Book Award. She’s the author of three other award-winning poetry collections, Infanta, One Above and One Below, and Black Box. Her poems have appeared inThe Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Slate, Nerve, The Yale Review, TriQuarterly, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Tin House, and The New York Times. Belieu co-founded the influential organization VIDA: Women In Literary Arts whose mission is "to explore critical and cultural perceptions of writing by women through meaningful conversation and the exchange of ideas among existing and emerging literary communities."
Cole Bellamy is a writer and educator from Tampa, Florida. He is the author of three collections of poetry, Lancelotâ’s Blues, The Mermaid Postcard, and American Museum. His writing has appeared in The Louisville Review, Switched-On Gutenberg, Moonshot, Penumbra, Wordier Than Thou, and the Sandhill Review, among others. He teaches a series of community writing workshops through the Tampa Free Skool, and is the founder of Lucha Libro Tampa Bay, a live competitive writing event. He teaches English and Creative Writing at St. Leo University.
Martine Bellen (martinebellen.com) is the author of nine collections of poetry, including This Amazing Cage of Light: New and Selected (Spuyten Duyvil); The Vulnerability of Order (Copper Canyon); and Tales of Murasaki (Sun & Moon), winner of the National Poetry Series. She has written the libretto for Ovidiana (composer, Greenbaum), Ah! Opera No-Opera (with David Rosenboom), which premiered at REDCAT ( and Moon in the Mirror (composer, Dembski). Bellen has received numerous grants, including one from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a residency from the Rockefeller Foundation. Bellen is a contributing editor of Conjunctions.
Jeff Bens directs the undergraduate creative writing program at Manhattanville College. He is author of the novelAlbert, Himselfand director of the award-winning documentary film,Fatman's. His short fiction and essays are published widely. Jeff has served on film festival juries around the world including the 2011 Slamdance feature film jury. He was a founding faculty of the School of Filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Earl Sherman Braggs is a Herman H. Battle and UC Foundation Professor of English at the University of TN at Chattanooga. His teaching awards include two SGA Outstanding Teaching Awards and a UTNAA Outstanding Professor of the Year Award. He is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Hat Dancer Blue (winner of the Anhinga Poetry Prize), Younger Than Neil and In Which Language Do I Keep Silent: New and Selected. Literary prizes include the Jack Kerouac International Literary Prize, the James Jones Frist Novel Contest (finalist), the Cleveland State Poetry Prize (unable to accept because the same manuscript won the Anhinga Prize) and the Gloucester County Poetry Prize. His latest collections of poetry are Syntactical Arrangements of a Twisted Wind and Oliver’s Breakfast in America (a book length poetry novella).