Poet Shara Lessley gives public Reading March 26

Shara Lessley, author of the poetry compilation Two-Headed Nightingale, will give a public reading at Randolph College on March 26th at 8 p.m. in the Alice Ashley Jack Room as part of the Visiting Writer Series.

Lessley, the Anne Spencer Poet in Residence, will be at Randolph for four weeks. In addition to giving the public reading this Wednesday, she will teach a class with a focus on writing and poetry.

Photo by Lisa Beth Anderson

Lessley is a poet and teacher with a bachelor’s degree in dance and English from the University of California, Irvine and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Maryland. She sees a connection between the two disciplines.

“My training as a dancer influences the way I see syntax and the line. Elongation, contraction. Rhythm. Musicality. I'm very interested in the sentence as a muscle the poet flexes and points, in order to control pacing and speed,” Lessley said.

Lessley has been drawn to poetry since she was nine. “When I was nine, I encountered Dickinson's ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,’ and was completely gobsmacked,” she said. “Of course, I didn’t understand the poem fully, but I was overwhelmed by its weirdness, its mystery and music. It made me want to parade and stomp around in Dickinson's ’Boots of Lead’—a high mark of praise for a third grader, I suppose.”

Lessley draws her current inspiration for her poetry from her experience living in Amman, Jordan the past three years, a region she describes as “complex and rich.”

Among her other accomplishments, Lessley is also a former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University and the 2014 Mary Wood Fellow at Washington College.  Her work has been featured in The Rumpus Poetry Anthology and The Ecopoetry Anthology.

Lessley is Randolph College’s first Anne Spencer Poet in Residence. While the College has hosted poets and other writers for years, this position in the Visiting Writer Series was recently renamed to honor Anne Spencer, a Harlem Renaissance poet who lived not far from the College.

Writer and actor teaching at Randolph hopes to inspire playwrights

According to playwright Adam Pasen, a play is never finished until it is performed. So when he gives a public reading at Randolph College next week, he plans to include a performance.

He also is challenging his playwriting students at Randolph to prepare scripts that are ready for the stage by March.

“I’m here to teach an appreciation of forms, and hopefully inspire some new writers to start doing some of their own works,” he said. “I hope they'll want to write some plays of their own.”

Pasen, the Randolph Writer-in-Residence for the spring 2014 semester, wrote his first play in eighth grade. A spy parody called James Bonbon, it won a contest to become the school play. After that, he was hooked. He has had plays produced or workshopped by American Theater Company, the Kennedy Center, and the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival. One of his 10-minute plays is included in the 2011-2012 edition of Best American Short Plays.

Although he has found success in writing, he admitted that the process is somewhat difficult for him because he would rather be performing.  “I’m so much of an actor that every second I’m writing, I wish I was on stage instead,” he said. “But I also love playwriting, because I get to create the types of roles on stage that I would like to play.”

Pasen has played roles including the title character in the classic play Tartuffe, Edmund in Shakespeare’s King Lear, and Curly in Oklahoma. “I love playing villains, because it’s a nice departure from being the pathologically nice guy that I am,” he said.

Pasen will present a public reading of his work at 8 p.m. on February 5 in the Alice Ashley Jack Room in Smith Memorial Hall. The event is free and open to the public. Pasen will have actors read two of his 10-minute plays as well as a scene from his full-length play Tea with Edie and Fitz, which imagines authors Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald meeting for tea.

While at Randolph, Pasen is teaching Exploring the Creative Process, a one-quarter class that he has transformed into a playwriting workshop. After a week of classes and one assignment, he was pleasantly surprised by his students’ attitude and ability, he said.

“They are happy to be there, and they’re remarkably knowledgeable and talented,” he said. “Their two-page skits showed a lot of promise, so I’m excited to see what they can do over the quarter.”

He plans to organize a showcase where the student writers’ short plays will be produced. “Because plays are meant to be performed, I think it completes the playwriting experience to see some of the work up on its feet,” Pasen said.

Visiting writer positions named for Pearl S. Buck and Anne Spencer

Randolph College has renamed two of aspects of its Visiting Writers program in honor two authors with ties to the College and Lynchburg: Anne Spencer and Pearl S. Buck, a member of the Class of 1914.

Laura-Gray Street, an English professor and coordinator of Randolph’s creative writing program, announced the new names yesterday during an event celebrating the centennial anniversary of Buck’s graduation from the College. “Both women were from small towns and small colleges, and they produced very powerful writing and changed the world in significant ways,” Street said. “This acknowledges our debt to these writers, and it honors their connections with the College.”

Buck graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in 1914 and later won the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature. She authored more than 100 books, stories, and essays, including many that helped bridge cultural gaps between China and the west.

Anne Spencer, a well-known Harlem Renaissance poet and civil rights activist, lived in Lynchburg with her husband, who delivered mail to the College. She also occasionally met with students from R-MWC at her home. Through a formal partnership, the College and the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum work together to provide educational opportunities to students.

Street said it is fitting to honor these women. “These are authors who we hold up as examples for our own writers here,” Street said. “Anne Spencer was an important civil rights activist and did a lot in the community. Pearl Buck’s writing takes you into the experience of another culture and immerses you in it in a way that helps you understand things that are very different than your own lives and experiences.”

The College hosts several writers each year for four-week sessions during which they focus on writing, teach a class, and give public readings. Clifford Garstang, a fiction writer who is at Randolph this fall and will give a public reading tonight, is the first official Pearl S. Buck Writer-in-Residence. Last month, Garstang won the Library of Virginia 2013 Literary Award for Fiction for his novel What the Zhang Boys Know, which tells the story of a Chinese family living in America.

Shara Lessley, a widely published poet and author of Two-Headed Nightingale, will be the first Anne Spencer Poet-in-Residence and will give a public reading on March 26, 2014.

The College’s emerging writer position, which brings a writer who has not yet published a full-length book, has been renamed the Randolph Writer-in-Residence.

The Randolph College Visiting Writer Series is supported by The Carolyn Wilkerson Bell ’65 Visiting Scholar Fund, which was created and endowed through the generosity of the Maier Foundation, Inc. in 1976. The Foundation inaugurated the Visiting Scholar Program in order to encourage excellence in the composition of English prose and poetry at the College.

Prize-winning poet begins Visiting Writer series on Wednesday

Just last week, Patricia Smith won the award for writing the best poetry book published in 2012. This week, Smith will be reading some of that prize-winning poetry at Randolph College.

Smith will open Randolph’s 2013-2014 Visiting Writer Series with a public reading at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Jack Lounge in Smith Memorial Hall.

“Patricia Smith is a force of nature, as a writer, as a teacher, as a performer,” said Laura-Gray Street, an English professor and the director of the Visiting Writer Series. “Her mojo is artistic precision and profundity with a Motown jive, making her the perfect opener for the fall Visiting Writers Series.”

Smith is the author of six books of poetry, including Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, which won the Lenore Marshall Prize last week. She is the most successful poet in the history of the National Poetry Slam, winning that poetry performance contest four times.

The Randolph College English department also will take some time Wednesday to celebrate the College’s partnership with the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum. Shaun Spencer-Hester, the granddaughter of Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer and president of the museum, will attend the event.

“Spencer’s poetry and presence left a vital legacy both in Lynchburg and in national history,” Street said. “Bringing together these two energies—Patricia Smith and Anne Spencer—for Wednesday’s reading and celebration will be powerful.”

The Visiting Writer Series brings authors to campus throughout the year to talk about their craft with students and give public readings. All visiting writer readings are free and open to the public.

Acclaimed poet Ira Sadoff set for reading at Randolph

This Wednesday, the Randolph community will be treated to a reading by poet Ira Sadoff. The author of eight poetry collections, Sadoff has published poetry in works such as the Harper Anthology of American Literature and Great American Prose Poems. He has received the Creative Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts as well as a Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation.

Most recently though, Sadoff has been serving as Randolph’s Writer in Residence as a part of the English Department’s Visiting Writers Series. During his stay at Randolph, he is teaching a one credit, special topics English class that is open to Randolph students. He will also make appearances in several other classes.

“It is an advantage for Randolph students to be exposed to a wide range of authors,” said Laura-Gray Street, an English professor at Randolph. Street is responsible for bringing Sadoff, who served as her thesis advisor, to campus. “He was a role model for me. He has such warmth, energy, and generosity as well as a remarkable presence,” Street said.

The poetry reading will start at 8pm in the Alice Ashley Jack Room. Refreshments will be served. This is also a Passport program event for First Year students. Any questions about the event can be sent to Street lstreet@randolphcollege.edu.

Later in the semester, be on the lookout for one more reading by author Allison Hedge Coke.

"Flashes of War" author visits Randolph, will give public reading on Feb. 6

“What is it about a small college that feels like opportunity?” Katey Schultz wrote in a recent entry on her website. While teaching a creative writing course at Randolph College, she has found an environment that fosters her creativity as she pens a novel about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Schultz has been writing fiction about the wars in the Middle East for a few years. Although she has never been to the Middle East and does not have family members or friends serving in those wars, she became keenly interested in the topic when she realized that terms related to those wars had become a part of the normal lexicon for students in the arts-centered high school where she taught.

“I was amazed how the language of the global war on terror had infiltrated the everyday speech of the average teenager,” she said. “They don’t have any memories of this country when we weren’t at war. They have grown up in such a different world, with a familiarity of warfare and violence and oppression and power.”

“My little cousins, in 5th or 6th grade, they know what a jihadist is,” she added. “I think that’s changing society.”

Visiting Writer Series

Public reading by Katey Schultz

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 8 p.m.
Alice Ashley Jack room,
Smith Memorial Hall

Schultz began reading first-person accounts of the wars, watching footage from YouTube and documentaries, and making lists of military words. That research grew into her first book of short stories, Flashes of War, which will be published in May. Each story explores a question, such as why someone enlists in the military during wartime, or what it is like to be fighting a war that many at home are not thinking about. Some of those stories inspire the novel she is writing now.

A couple of years ago, Schultz learned that she had lost a writing prize she had sought, but she noticed that the winner had been an Emerging Writer in Residence at Randolph College. That piqued her interest, and she contacted Randolph’s English department.

The Emerging Writer program is part of the College’s Visiting Writer Series. It brings young writers who have not yet published a full-length book to teach a course for several weeks and to present a public reading.

Schultz has enjoyed working closely with Randolph students and teaching them about the creative process of writing. “They are curious about what you can do with creative writing, and they want to do a great job,” she said. “Everyone here is trying to learn and wants to be here. When you share those two basic principles, a lot of things can happen.”

Schultz will present a public reading of stories from Flashes of War on Feb. 6 at 8 p.m., in the Alice Ashley Jack Room on the second floor of Smith Memorial Hall. She hopes that her audience will feel the passion behind her work and think about the implications of war. “My stories are really bearing witness to something that we’ve done a pretty good job not looking at,” she said. “I hope it invites people to look at these wars again.”

Former Emerging Writer-in-Residence gets book contract and offers advice for Randolph students

Anthony D’Aries arrived at Randolph College last year with two tasks ahead of him. The first task was to teach a course for seven weeks. Second, he wanted to finish a book he had worked on for years.

Bunny Goodjohn, a Randolph English professor, dropped him off at an apartment where he would stay on campus. When she returned to check on him a few hours later, she found him sitting on the floor surrounded by copies of his manuscript.

“When I got to Randolph, I had a big chunk of material. I was at a point where I felt I needed to print all this and physically cut things out and move them around,” said D’Aries, the College’s 2011 Emerging Writer-in-Residence. “By the end of my time there, I felt really solid about it.”

D’Aries has now secured a publisher for The Language of Men, the memoir he polished at Randolph. The book is due out from Hudson Whitman / Excelsior College Press this summer.

Watch this video to hear Anthony D'Aries read from The Language of Men during his time as Randolph College's Visiting Writer-in-Residence in 2011. At the time, his memoir was under the working title Aural History.

Goodjohn said D’Aries’ achievement demonstrates the value that students can receive from Randolph College’s Emerging Writer-in-Residence program. Each year, that program invites an author who has recently received a master of fine arts but has not yet published a full-length book to teach a creative writing class at Randolph.

“Working with someone who is a fine writer, who is pursuing the grail of publication but has not yet found it, makes the process seem more do-able for a novice,” Goodjohn said. “If students can work with an emerging writer who then completes that emerging process and becomes a published author, it becomes more real.”

The experience also helps students understand the hard work required for becoming a published writer, Goodjohn said.

D’Aries said his time at Randolph provided him with an excellent opportunity to complete his book while also working with talented students. “The students at Randolph brought a lot to the class. A lot of them were strong writers to start with,” he said. “I was really excited to work with all the students.”

Advice for Aspiring Writers

D’Aries offered a few bits of advice for his former students based on his experience since he visited Randolph:

     1. Trust your instincts. “You have to really trust what you're writing about, even if it seems totally irrelevant. If certain things keep appearing in your work, your subconscious is telling you something.”

     2. Avoid getting too much feedback too early in the writing process. Give yourself time to develop your voice. “You still need feedback, but getting that too early can be more stunting than helpful.”

     3. Don’t put too much faith in writing habits—such as what time of day to write and how to get started—just because they have worked for others. “You've got to develop your own habits.”

     4. Don’t be too much of a perfectionist. “You have to get to a certain point where you allow yourself to be satisfied with it, where you allow yourself to feel like it’s finished.”