Writers Week comes early

Writers came together last week to discuss and celebrate the art of writing during UNCW's annual Writers Week, a creative writing symposium.

"Writers Week was a wonderful experience. It's amazing to see undergraduate writers, graduate writers and writers from the community come together under one roof and talk about issues that affect us all," creative writing professor and coordinator of the event Rebecca Lee said.

This year, the department brought in writers such as poet Oni Buchanan, screenwriter/director Stanley Colbert, author/journalist Ted Delaney and author Marianne Gingher. These writers read and held various workshops Nov. 3 through Nov. 7.

Writers Week always has a main event, which focuses on a single author. The Keynote Reading this year happened Wednesday night and featured the famous poet Jack Myers.

Myers is a writer in residence at UNCW this year. He has won countless literary awards, including holding the title, Poet Laureate of Texas in 2003, as well as earning the Violet Crown Award from the Writers League of Texas. Myers has also published 17 books of poetry.

Myers began by thanking the Creative Writing Department and complimenting UNCW on their facilities and their "beautiful, wonderful program." He then introduced himself by saying, "I make poems." Myers commented that this could sound "so trivial," Introducing yourself as a poet is, "like, 'Hello, I make doilies.'"

For the reading, Myers read about 20 poems. Some notable ones were "Hairy Legs and Ugly Women's Feet," "Smoke Break," Visitation Rites" and "String Theory." A reoccurring theme in Myers' poems seemed to revolve around his personal observations of the world.

Some of the UNCW faculty participated as well, including MFA students. Monday, creative writing professor and poet, Lavonne Adams and MFA student, Daniel Terry discussed publishing poetry. Adams is currently in the process of having a book of poetry being published, while Terry has just had his first book of poetry published. The event started with both poets reading two of their poems.

Adams and Terry were asked various questions about the poetry publishing industry. The question of how long it took them to find a publisher was raised. Adams commented that it took about three years of submitting it, and finally on the 54th submission, it was accepted for publishing. Terry was more fortunate in the process, due to it only taking him four months to find a willing publisher.

Terry attended UNCW for undergraduate studies in creative writing, resulting in a B.F.A. He has continued his education here at UNCW to get his M.F.A. in creative writing. While he is published mainly as a poet, Terry also dabbles in fiction. However, he prefers poetry, because he said he has a better "attention span" for it.

Terry has attended several Writers Weeks throughout the years. He believes that Writers Week is a very important event on the UNCW campus; "Writing is the thing that we're all remembered for as a society," Terry said.

"I think Writers Week is one time that the writers within the academy and the writers in the community can come together and share their common aspiration-to communicate carefully and beautifully," Lee said.