Registration
9:00 a.m.-9:50 a.m.
Student Center Lobby, 2nd floor.
Check in at the welcome desk. Grab your conference program and tote bag. Coffee, tea, and light snacks will be provided.
John Lewis Writing Grant Winner Reading
With Dominque Feloss, Wytinsea Jones, and Alafia Nicole Sessions
10:00 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
A 201 Ballroom.
This year’s recipients of the prestigious John Lewis Writing Grants will read from their work. Help us congratulate them and celebrate the legacy of the iconic civil rights leader John Lewis. We thank the Georgia Council for the Arts for generously supporting these important grants.
“In My Feelings”: Flash Fiction Through Our Senses
A workshop with Ra’Niqua Lee
11:00 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
Room A 215.
Visceral writing is engaging writing. This is a generative flash fiction workshop that encourages new and experienced writers to tune into the senses as a primary source of knowledge. From our senses, we will seek the stories our bodies have been trying to tell. We will spend the hour digging into some recently published flash fiction, and then we will draft our own vibrant and compelling flash stories. “What makes it fiction is the nature of the imaginative act: my reliance on the image–on the remains–in addition to recollection, to yield up a kind of a truth. By "image," of course, I don't mean "symbol"; I simply mean "picture" and the feelings that accompany the picture” (Toni Morrison, “The Site of Memory”).
Screenwriting Is a Team Sport: Writing with
Your Future Cast and Crew in Mind
Panel discussion with Katerina Eichenberger, Madison Hatfield, and Abijeet Achar
11:00 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
Room 216.
You’re writing your script, but then what? In this panel, we’ll talk about the screenwriting process and the value of relationships. We’ll also dive into how to take the next steps to produce your project, why short films are meaningful, and other tips to make a career in this industry.
LGBTQIA+ Literary Success Grant Winners Reading
With Sal Woessner, Megan Xing, and Ari Quan
11:00 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
A 201 Ballroom.
This year’s recipients of the 2nd annual LGBTQIA+ Literary Success grants will read from their work. Help us congratulate them and celebrate this esteemed achievement. These grants are now more important than ever, and we thank the Alliance for Full Acceptance for generously supporting them.
This workshop invites writers to consider the dialogue between painting and poetry. We will explore the similarities of the two creative processes and look at gestural mark-making, composition, tension, and physicality in painting—and apply those to poetry. No painting experience is necessary. The focus is on dynamic process, discovery, and expanding poetic practice beyond the linearity of the page.
A Reading by Tony Grooms
12:00 p.m.-12:50 p.m.
A 201 Ballroom.
A fiction and poetry reading, focusing on new work, by the legendary author and co-founder of the Georgia Writers Association, Anthony Grooms.
Creative Resistance: Writing, Art, and Activism
for Trans Liberation
Panel discussion with Alexis Stratton, Adam Polaski, Liz Williams, and Van Bailey
12:00 p.m.-12:50 p.m.
Room A 216.
This panel explores the intersection of art and activism at the frontlines of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Alexis Stratton and Adam Polaski, coauthors of Trans Kids, Our Kids: Stories and Resources from the Frontlines of the Movement for Transgender Youth and collaborators at the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE), will discuss the process of creating narratives that bear public witness and are “first drafts of history”--in other words, telling the urgent stories of LGBTQ+ communities even as they are unfolding. They will be joined by two other collaborators: Liz Williams, their cover designer, co-editor, and the Creative Director of CSE’s Southern Equality Studios, and Van Bailey, CSE’s Trans Youth Emergency Project Patient Navigator. With a focus on the responsibility of artists and activists—and artists as activists—the panelists will reflect on how their collective work amplifies the voices of fellow LGBTQ+ Southerners, mobilizes community members, and documents developing stories of our time.
Lunch
1:00 p.m.-1:50 p.m.
A 201 Ballroom.
Eat, drink, be merry.
A talk on the evolution of Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, from a true crime podcast into an acclaimed limited series, and how working across different media can help us grow as storytellers.
Creative Writing in the Age of Generative AI
A panel discussion with Kurt Milberger, Jeanne Law, and Jeff Greene
3:00 p.m.-3:50 p.m.
Room A 216.
This session will consider the pitfalls and pleasures, if any, of generative AI for creative writers. Offering skeptical and enthusiastic perspectives, panelists will demonstrate how AI has been used in a variety of fields and discuss questions related to generative AI.
Carey Scott Wilkerson Tribute
A panel with Beth Gylys, Jessica Lindberg, Josh Martin, and William Walsh
3:00 p.m.-3:50 p.m.
Dogwood Room.
This is panel will celebrate the life and work of the poet, librettist, and Columbus State University Creative Writing Professor, Carey Scott Wilkerson. Members of the panel will read poems and discuss Scott's impact on their lives and on the literary community of Georgia.
The Art of Imagery: Bringing Prose to Life
A workshop with Garrard Conley
3:00 p.m.-3:50 p.m.
Room A 215.
Great prose lives in the body as much as the mind. In this generative workshop, we will explore how precise imagery and sensory details can transform writing from flat to immersive. Participants will analyze exemplary passages from contemporary and classic literature to examine how successful writers use sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell to deepen emotional resonance and narrative tension. Through guided exercises, we’ll practice crafting vivid scenes that engage the reader’s senses and create fully realized worlds. Whether you're writing fiction, nonfiction, or memoir, this workshop will help you develop your descriptive muscle and leave with new tools to invigorate your drafts. Open to writers of all levels.
How to Capitalize on Your Character's Core Wounds, Fears, and Dreams
A workshop with Jeanine Englert
4:00 p.m.-4:50 p.m.
Room A 215.
This workshop will help you explore your writing process and how to capitalize on the major facets of your characters. Even though it’s a little messy, if you continue to poke and prod at your characters as you explore their core wounds, fears, and dreams they will always surprise you and your readers no matter what genre of fiction you write. This workshop is for beginning and intermediate writers but may also serve as a refresher for more seasoned writers. It is an interactive workshop, and attendees are encouraged to participate and ask questions about characters from their own works in progress.
Publishing & Editing: From the Inside
A panel discussion with Anna Sandy Elrod, Nellie Cox, and Dustin Brookshire
4:00 p.m.-4:50 p.m.
Room A 216.
Join a group of editors to discuss the world of publishing literary journals, anthologies, and books--from reading through the slush pile to choosing cover art to fielding angry email replies to rejections. They'll tell you what makes them tick and what definitely doesn't. This panel is for anyone interested in the process publishing, whether that's as an editor or a writer or both.
Writing Crime in the South
A reading and book talk with Snowden Wright
4:00 p.m.-4:50 p.m.
Dogwood Room.
Jay Gatsby, bootlegger. To Kill a Mockingbird, courtroom drama. The tropes of crime fiction can be found in even the most highly regarded novels. In this session, Snowden Wright, author most recently of The Queen City Detective Agency, will read from his work and discuss what any writer, regardless of their genre, can steal from crime fiction.
All the (Writing) World’s a Stage: How Contemporary Playwriting Transforms Writing in All Genres
A workshop with Aaron Levy
5:00 p.m.-5:50 p.m.
Room A 215.
This participatory craft talk/workshop will introduce the process a playwright goes through to write a scene with dialogue that “cooks” all BEFORE the actors ask questions like, “…what’s my motivation…?” In addition to looking at the contemporary theatre market and its intersection with other literary markets, this session will examine the anatomy of well-structured scenes, and how doing so will transfer and transform your own writing in other genres.
Metaphor, like foraging, invites us into a deeper relationship with the world—one that is attentive, transformative, and curious. In this workshop, we’ll explore metaphor as an act of foraging, learning how to gather language from the landscapes we move through, prepare it for the page, and store it for future use. Through guided exercises, discussion, and generative writing prompts, we’ll practice our ability to recognize the metaphors that shape meaning in our work. While the focus will be on narrative nonfiction, the techniques we explore will be useful across genres.
Come ready to explore, to write, and to look at language—and the world—through a forager’s eyes. Please bring a notebook. All levels of experience welcome.
KSU Faculty Poetry (and Memoir) Roundup
A reading with Will Carter, Christopher Martin, and Kristin Rajan
5:00 p.m.-5:50 p.m.
Dogwood Room.
Join Will Carter, author of Getting Better, Kristin Rajan, author of Shadows, Valerie A. Smith, author of Back to Alabama, and Christopher Martin, author of Firmament for a lively reading from their recently published books.
Q & A and book signing to follow.