What Netflix is to lovers of TV series, The Eudora Welty Symposium is to book lovers.
Normally, book lovers have the opportunity to meet an author and listen to that author’s reading as the author makes a book tour.
But with the Welty Symposium, it’s much more like a binge. Beginning Thursday, a dozen acclaimed authors will be featured over three days, sharing their work with the audience and discussing their craft.
It’s sort of like Woodstock for readers.
This marks the 27th year of the symposium, which began as a way to celebrate Welty, the most celebrated MUW Alumna, whose 1973 novel, “The Optimist’s Daughter” won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
Over the course of the past 26 years, the Welty Symposium has brought some of the nation’s greatest Southern writers to Columbus, including four Pulitzer Prize winners from such disparate fields as journalism to poetry to fiction.
The theme for this year’s event is called “This Very Leap in the Dark: New Beginnings in Southern Letters.” It based on Welty’s essay “Words into Fiction,” in which she described an aspect of the artist’s work as an ability to look into the mysteries of the human condition not to derive some great truth, but to see that condition for what it is in all its complexities.
That brooding, dark look into humanity is, of course, not unique to Welty. Southern writers, particularly those of Welty’s era, were a morose bunch. Williams, Faulkner, McCullers, Capote, even O’Conner all looked unflinchingly into the darker chambers of the human heart.
This year’s keynote author, then, expertly fits that theme. Novelist Moira Crone kicks off the Symposium Thursday evening at 7:30 at Poindexter Hall, reading from her most recent novel, “The Ice Garden.” It is the story of 10-year-old Claire McKenzie, who takes care of her newborn sister, whom she calls Sweetie, while their mother sinks deeper into mental illness.
Friday’s morning lineup (9 a.m.-noon) includes Sefi Atta (A Bit of Difference), T.R. Hummer (Skandalon), Melissa Ginsburg (Dear Weather Ghost), Kiese Laymon (Long Division). Friday afternoon (1:30-4), the lineup features Ravi Howard (Driving the Kind), T.J. Jarrett (Zion), Michael Kardos (Before He Finds Her).
Saturday’s readers (9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.) close out the symposium and will include Lisa Hosworth (Flying Shoes), Miki Pheeffer (Southern Ladies and Suffragists), Randolph Thomas (The Deepest Rooms) and Steve Yates (The Teeth of Souls).
All sessions are held at Poindexter Hall.
As a change of pace, noted satirists/author P.J. O’Rourke will speak Friday at 7 p.m. in the Mary Ellen Weathersby Pope Banquet Room.
Hailed as “the funniest writer in America” by both Time and the Wall Street Journal, O’Rourke is prolific writer, author of 16 books and countless essays and columns and some of the world’s most prestigious newspapers and magazines.
For book lovers, the Welty Symposium is an embarrassment of riches, the chance to see and hear from those who admirably carry on the South’s great literary tradition.
All of the events are free, too, which is something you can’t say for Netflix.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.