Hoping to start a new annual event in the region, the South Arkansas Community College Library will host its first ever South Arkansas Literary Festival this week.
Set for Friday and Saturday at the El Dorado Conference Center, the two-day event will feature sessions by nearly 20 different speakers on topics from exploring the creative process to working with publishers. Live readings also are scheduled.
Philip Shackelford, library director, said the Literary Festival will be free to attendees, in hopes of really attracting a crowd from the region as well as carrying out part of the college’s stated charge in its strategic plan - to become a recognized resource of cultural activities.
“This is a wonderful example of that,” Shackelford said. “That the college and the community can really come together to celebrate literature, but also the people that enjoy reading it. … It’s good for us, but it’s also for the community.”
He said the state library association also has contributed to help the college keep the event free.
When asked how the idea to start a Literary Festival was formed, Shackelford said the credit really goes to another SouthArk employee: Jennifer Baine.
Baine said it was more than one year ago, when they were in a meeting and discussing ways to become more of a cultural resource when she started thinking about literary events in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Little Rock.
“With all the events that we have here regarding other things, with the (Murphy Arts District) and other things … We need a literature (event),” Baine said. “That would fit in with the Festivals and Events and it would tie us all together.”
Plus, she said, it would provide a platform to showcase the many authors who live and work in South Arkansas, including Dr. Steve Smart, Adrianne M. Toney, Ken Bridges, Elanena White, Keith Hurst and Niki Smith. By featuring authors and groups from the surrounding areas of Union County, Baine said, the event will pull more people into El Dorado.
“Now it’s all kind of coming together,” Baine said.
Since that first meeting, Shackelford said the entire staff of the SouthArk library has been working hard on ever aspect of the festival to make it a fun event for everyone. In addition to the panels, presentations and speakers, the festival will feature many vendors exhibits and a live cooking demo at lunch on Saturday with the chef of the Griffin Restaurant, John E. Peters III. There also will be door prizes and opportunities to purchase books by many of the featured authors.
“There’s going to be a wide variety of different things, including musical performances,” Shackelford said. “It doesn’t matter what you enjoy, there’s going to be something for everyone.”
Shackelford said all of the local and regional authors have been offered vendor space to allow them to not only sell their books but to interact with readers throughout the festival.
On Friday, the event will open at 3 p.m. and the keynote address at 6 p.m. will be given by Ace Collins, who has written more than 80 books for 25 different publishers and sold more than 2.5 million copies. In2015, his book “The Color of Justice” was the suspense winner in the Christy Awards, which seek to recognize excellence in Christian fiction.
On Saturday, the event will open at 8:30 a.m. and go until 7 p.m., with the keynote address at 5 p.m. being given by Travis Langley, a psychology professor who co-authored analyses of works such as Batman, Wonder Woman, “Star Trek,” “Star Wars” and “The Walking Dead,” among others.
For more information or to see a full schedule of events for the two-day Literary Festival, visit southark.libguides.com.
Madeleine Leroux can be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected].