Clarksville, Ark. --- Do tales of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy enthrall you? Are you interested in meeting real writers and listening to them discuss and read from their work? Are you a fan of Redgunk, Mississippi, and its strange denizens, creations of our own Dr. William Eakin?
If the answer to any of those questions is yes, February is your lucky month. On Friday night, Feb. 4, and Saturday morning, Feb. 5, Dr. Eakin and Ginny Sain will host the U of O’s first Redgunk Festival. Members of Imagicopter, a writers’ co-op devoted to strange fiction, will gather in the Walton Fine Arts building to read and discuss their works.
In addition to Dr. Eakin, eight writers will participate in the conference. Attendees include H. David Blalock, Andy B. Childress, A. Christopher Drown, Roland Mann, Herika R. Raymer, and Stephen Zimmer.
“This group is made up of small press genre writers, of which I am one” said Dr. Eakin. “They are traveling around networking, and so I said, ‘Why not come to Arkansas to do it?’ The purpose of the conference is to draw in those students interested in writing. Anyone interested is encouraged to come learn how to improve their work, and to meet and network with professional authors who are actually selling work.”
The event begins on Friday night with “A Night of Fantasy, Science fiction, and Horror.” Four authors will read excerpts from their work from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. All eight authors will be on hand afterwards, and guests are encouraged to talk visit the authors’ tables in the Walton Fine Arts building lobby, where the authors will be selling signed copies of their books.
At approximately 9:00 p.m. on Friday, in the Walton Fine Arts LL-7 classroom, there will be a screening of the film Swordbearer, based on H. David Blalock’s novel of the same name. Film director Steven Zimmer will be present for a discussion on screenwriting following the film screening.
On Saturday morning, from 10:00 a.m. to noon, there will be two writers’ workshops running twice and concurrently, so that a guests may attend either or both in any order. Each will be one hour long. One session will be “Graphic Story Telling” led by Roland Mann, while the other session will be led by A. Christopher Drown, and will be entitled “Writers and Professional Presentation of Their Work.” All Saturday sessions will be held in the Black Box Theater in the university’s Walton Fine Arts building.
The weekend events are all free and open to the public. For further information, please call Ginny Sain at (479) 979-1346.
Topics: Community Events