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FMU hosted the annual Pee Dee Poetry and Fiction Festival from Nov. 9 through Nov. 10 in the Cauthen Educational Media Center.
The poetry and fiction festival provided students a chance to meet different successful authors and learn about the writing process that comes with it. Four writers attended the event, sharing with attendees their experiences and how they got into writing.
Students also had the chance to purchase the discussed works at the festival and have them signed by the authors.
Tina Clark, a poet, showed off her poetry collection “I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood,” about the struggles of being an African American in the South. Clark has won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize and she is also a teacher at the Sewanee School of Letters in Sewanee, TN. Clark came to the poetry and fiction festival to share with students her knowledge of poetry and writing.
Another writer was playwright Jon Tuttle, who also serves as a professor of English and director of the Honors Program at FMU. Tuttle has published numerous plays including “Two South Carolina Plays” and “The Trustus Collection.”
On top of writing the plays, Tuttle has also directed and edited several plays. He has received many awards for his writings, such as the Founders Award and the Lifetime Service Award from the South Carolina Theater Association.
Author Deesha Philyaw also presented several of her works such as “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” and “The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman.” Philyaw said she was a stay-at-home mom before becoming a writer, but her passion for writing drove her to publish these works.
Currently, her award-winning book “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” is reportedly in the works to become a series on the MAX streaming service, with American actress Tessa Thompson attached to produce the series.
Grady Hendrix, a horror-comedy writer, also attended. He is the author of numerous popular books of that genre, such as “Final Girl Support Group,” “How to Sell a Haunted House” and “The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying a Vampire.”
Hendrix said that before becoming a writer, he wanted to be a director. He did a lot of jobs writing non-fiction as a freelancer before he got into writing horror novels. His book “My Best Friend’s Exorcism” has been named a New York Times bestseller and was even adapted into a movie in 2022. On top of writing, he also hosts a vampire-themed podcast.
Along with meeting these authors, attendees could also practice their own writing with help from the staff of both the Writing Center and Snow Island Review. The festival was designed this way to not only promote the craft of writing but to encourage students to get creative and motivate them to write.