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  • Publications (documents)
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  • Western Carolina University
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  • HL_WesternCarolinian_2014-04-11_Vol79_No11_CampusLife_B02

B2 Julie Reis Contributing Writer ~. Western Carolina Uni- Wcsoit & s Literary festival ds an event that brings to- eohes local as well as in- ternational authors, with the hope that those in at- . tendance come away with -a better understanding, if : not love, of literature. - This year the authors : = included Luis Alberto > Urrea, Ron Houchin and .. Linda Hogan, among oth- ters. These authors spe- -tcialize in fiction, nonfic- tion and poetry. Luis Alberto Urrea is a nonfiction, fiction and = ee author who was born in Tijuana, Mexico. His fourteen works in- clude his first book, non- fiction, Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border for > which he won the Chris- : > topher Award. be Urrea, with wife and > daughter in attendance, gave a monologue about his life in relation to the _ works that he produced. . The monologue in- _cluded the reason that - he did not look Mexican, because his grandmother had been Irish and as a result Urreas dad looked > Trish, what inspired his books, including having been a relief worker in Ti- > Juana and how he ended - up getting into graduate . school by writing a let- . ter to a former professor - about getting a job as a * janitor. He also mentioned how his grandmother almost ' smuggled a parrot over the border in her cleav- as ae ee ieee age and his mother hav- ing been a nurse in World War II. In his monologue, as he was relating his first experiences with a type- writer and of realizing that his favorite musi- cians, like Jim Morrison, wrote books, he empha- sized the importance of todays writing medi- ums, citing fan-fiction as an outlet and outing his daughter for her fan-fic- tion at the same time. - While it is disappoint- ing that Urrea did not sample his work, he did let his audience in on the secret that life influences can play a big part in how and what a person writes. In future books he plans to write about his mothers involvement in World War II, as well as continuing with his pri- mary theme, the Latino experience. If you would like to learn more about Luis Al- berto Urrea and his work, you can check out his per- sonal website at: www.lu- isurrea.com/ . Ron Houchin is a Vir- ginia native with a pas- sion for poetry. While this is his main focus, he does have a collection of short stories Tales out of School, one work that he presented on Tues- day, From which he read Chaos and the Larger Order, a personal tale in which his clothes fall off due to their having come in contact with chemicals released during a mal- function at the town fac- tory. lt gan snowed THE WESTERN CAROLINIAN CAMPUS LIFE _ Literary Festival opens with famous ap tnors on the day of the accident, and his grandmother sent him out of the house in clothes that she had left on the clothesline during the chemical snow. . He also read the title poem from his poetry anthol- ogy The Man who Sawed us in Half, which is about being put in the box used for the magic trick of saw- ing a person in half. Ron Houchin describes his poetry and short sto- ries as being something .that is 95 percent true, and 98 percent of it actu- ally happened to me. When it comes to the composition of poetry, he remarked that you have to be in love with the world, but with the short story you dont have to be in love with the world. At the end of his pre- sentation he was talking about nature and how he would love to explore the body farm at the Univer- sity of Tennessee, Knox- ville, when Catherine Carter informed him; We have one! Before becoming the author of seven works including Tales out of School, and his new po- etry anthology The Man who Sawed us in Half, he taught at a public school for thirty years. For more information on Ron Houchin Please visit Salmonpoetry.com. He also has pieces on The Daily Verse and other publishing sites. Linda Hogan isa Chick- asaw Indian Author, and she is the inaugural Writer-in-Residence for the Chickasaw Nation in ings that emphasized the Oklahoma. : The genres she covers : include fiction, nonfic- tion, essay, poetry, and performance pieces. Her many works in- clude two poetry antholo- gies, an essay collection and fiction works. : Hogan considers _her- self an environmentalist and that is where the in- spiration and content for Dwellings originates. After sayingafew words in memory of Conley and reading her poem The Way In in his honor, Hogan focused on writ- Chickasaw culture, and included reading from excerpts of her yet-to- be published works. She read the pieces Gen- tling the Human and Body by the Body. While reading the pieces she went into nar- ratives about the Trail | of Tears and the unsuc- : cessful birth of a horse. | She described the Trail | of Tears as an act of col- | onists who were look-. ing for souls to be saved, : rather than as bodies to: be exported to Oklahoma. | Hogan states, Thats : the first time that I have : ever seen a horse cry. : Hogans awards and: honors. include Okla-. homa Book Award, the. Colorado Book Award, | a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow- : ship, and a Guggen-. heim Fellowship, among | many other awards. If you would like more : information on Linda Hogan and her work please visit her website. Christian Henderson Staff Writer On April 4, the week- "long Spring Literary Fes- tival concluded with a showcase of talent from -our own Western Caro- lina University students. . After a week of famous authors standing on the same stage sharing their acclaimed work, it was - quite a task to conclude . the event. However, our -, students rose to the chal- - lenge. and proved their own literary skill and : budding talent. -. Starting off the event was slam poetry writer . Josh Pugh, who began . with a stirring poem about the awesomeness that is Casey Haynes, . the intern for the Liter- _ ary Festival who invited these student talents. _ Pugh went on to comment on Haynes ability to spit - out a sonnet on the spot, and numerous other com- plements. _ The next person to speak was another stu- dent poet, Summer Brath- wate. She commented that she was quite ner- vous, but the audience - seemed to really enjoy ' her return to the spoken word. Well I was really ner- vous but Casey Hanes is a . really good friend of mine and he asked me to do it so I said, well let me see _ if I can dig up something that I have. I was really excited because I haven't performed in a long time and its really good to be ' out here with some of our leading poets on campus, to just get back into the feel of it, said Brathwate. Megan Mericle came to the stage next, changing . the pace with two non-fic- tion pieces about her trav- els while she was study- ing abroad. Kasey Privette, an audi- ence member, said of Mer- icles work, Pigeons and Picasso was ol en: It was really good and it drew me in and I kind of forgot she speaking even, it just completely drew me in. I really like prose be- cause thats what I used to write before I got into po- etry. She was interesting and she was very differ- ent from all of the others. It was nice. The next writer, Rebec- ca Saltzman, read a piece of fiction titled Shiva for Aunt Ruby. . As Saltzman explained to the audience, a Shiva is a traditional ceremony in the Jewish faith that mourns the loss of a loved one. Saltzman was ner- vous before she went on, noting that she did not like public speaking when asked about her experi- ence during the event. Saltzman said, Casey invited me, and Ive never actually done anything like this before so.. was pretty exciting it was pretty nerve wracking. I just took something I wrote for class and used that. But while she was speaking, Haynes was quick to cut in to let her know she had done an amazing job. Sam Fox, who had also performed earlier in the Literary Festival during the Distinguished Poets event came up next and read some of his other pieces. Many of his poems for this performance had bib- lical references, and he challenged the audience to think of the stories he was referring to. These poems included Judas Lived in our Basement and King Midass Day Off. Zack Smith, another poet followed with po- etry that was a bit lighter such as Mountains and Sandy Tacos, which had the audience cracking up. Afterwards, his de- scription of why he wrote Panis ae tesa much "DO you want to advertise with : The Western : Carolinian? ab The 2014 Annual spring rey Festival Be ye same tenehore Why do I write poetry? Be- cause beer, cigarettes and therapy are too expen- sive. The next speaker to the stage was Mary Chris- tensen, who had been a volunteer at the Literary Festival. She read a poem titled Winter Weather, and afterwards she described her draw to as art of po- etry. Tve been whitne poet- ry since the fourth grade. I. am not good at talking so poetry and writing is how I get stuff out, said Christensen. Finally, the event con- cluded with a piece from Casey Haynes, as he read his work of fiction Bal- listic Movement. Afterwards, he hand- ed the floor over to Pam Duncan to conclude the weeklong event that they had both worked so hard on for so many months. Afterwards, Haynes Photo Submitted by Literary Festival : included REACH of Macon County, April 11, 2014 Day of Service: _ Women s History Day Photo Submitted by WCU Service Learning Facebook Christian Henderson Staff Writer On the morning of March 29, a few sleepy Cata- mounts rolled out their beds and braved the rainy ' weather in order to go out in their community to participate in the Womens History Month Day of ' Service. Even though the weather was dismal Jen- nifer Cooper, the Assistant Director of the Ser- vice Learning Center was happy with the results. Maybe there werent as many people as they anticipated but the people who did come out really came to work hard, said Cooper. Volunteers who participated in this event could choose between six different events on OrgSync, some of which concentrated on the theme of doing service that centered around women in honor of Womens History Month. The organizations that were a part of this event the Clean Slate Coalition, Habitat for Humanity, Veci- nos, and the Appalachian Womens Museum. Students were able to choose from a wide range of projects from these organizations that ranged from staying on campus and helping to set up. the showing of Girl Rising to helping paint the. new Habitat for Humanity ReStore thrift store. The Day of Service page on OrgSync showed that the event was completely full by the time the day rolled around, however, by the time the volunteers got ready to leave it seemed that not everyone who signed up had actually come, as Cooper explains. The turnout was not as good on this one as it is on a lot of them, I think the rain might have kept some people away. I haven't gotten the numbers on one of the projects yet but I think they had about 15 people at that project, but for the other five projects we had about 25 between them all, said Cooper. Though the number of people who came out . to participate in the projects were not as high as the Service Learning Center expected, the event was still successful thanks to the dedi- cation of the participants that did come out. T know that we were expecting to have some more people so that was a little bit disappointing but as I _ heard at the Habitat Thrift Store project, they just) _ kept going on and on about how wonderful the vol- ecnHncHias on ha avhuie experience of intern- ing at the Literary Fes- . tival and what his plans | were after a long weeks | work, The whole experi- ence has been amazing, theres been a lot of work; : like making sure things and people were where | they needed to be, being around for the events and | helping coordinate the. other volunteers. But it was great, the : volunteers were awesome, they were here, lively and ready to help out with: anything? And as some- : one who wants to be a cre- | ative writer himself, be- | ing able to.come and visit : and hang out with all the. authors was so absolutely | awesome. Its been a long | week, a busy week but. very rewarding, and once : I get everything cleaned | up I plan on going home | and playing some video | games and unwinding, said Haynes. " unteers were and how they just worked so hard and - allthat. All the feedback that I have gotten has been ' really positive; so maybe there werent as many people as they anticipated but the people who did come out really came to work hard, said Cooper. At the end of the day, it seemed that even though the : turnout was not what they had hoped, Cooper was sat- isfied with the results and saw once again why the Days of Service are such a great thing for WCUs campus. T am always pleased with the Days of Service be- - cause it gives people a really easy opportunity to go out and do something. We'll get a lot of students who : mightnot have had the opportunity todo service before so thats always exciting just to see people who maybe : comeintoa project feeling a bit of trepidation, you know : they dont know quite what to expect, they dont know if its something that theyre going to enjoy or if they will do a good job at it. And almost every time, every- one comes out of it saying, Oh, this is great. I feel like I just contributed a lot to my community, said Cooper. If students have any further questions about the Day of Service, the Service Learning Cen- ter, or how they can get involved in your com- munity, they can contact Jennifer Cooper at ja- - cooper@email.wcu.edu or go by the Service _ Learning Center, which is located in Belk room 273. EMAIL lodom@westerncarolinian.com

The Western Carolinian is Western Carolina University's student-run newspaper. The paper was published as the Cullowhee Yodel from 1924 to 1931 before changing its name to The Western Carolinian in 1933.

• Creator
  • Western Carolina University
• Format
  • Publications (documents)
  • Text
• Type
  • Text
• Date
  • Date original: 2014-04-11
• Extent
  • Dimension: 22.75" x 11.5"
  • Pages: 12
• Subject - Topic
  • College student newspapers and periodicals
  • Cullowhee (N.C.) -- Newspapers
  • Universities and colleges -- North Carolina -- Cullowhee -- Newspapers
  • Western Carolina University -- Periodicals
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • Cullowhee (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Students Newspapers Collection
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_2014-04-11_Vol79_No11
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library