WKU community members gathered in Cherry Hall Tuesday evening for the Goldenrod Writing Festival, an annual reading of poetry and fiction.
The festival, organized by the WKU English Club, featured Gaylord Brewer, an English professor at Middle Tennessee State University, reading selections from his book, “Before the Storm Takes It Away.”
Brewer also judged 10 finalists’ submissions for the Goldenrod Undergraduate Writing Contest. In late March, students submitted one original literary work of under 750 words to be judged. The top three entries received Spencer’s Coffee gift cards valued at $100, $50 and $25.
This year is the 21st annual festival. While the competition used to only feature poetry, there is now an expanded focus on flash fiction and creative non-fiction.
The finalists of the competition were:
- Christina Colovos in first place for her piece “Numbers.”
- Breanna Leber in second place for her piece “Familiar Fire.”
- Alli Sadler in third place for her piece “Sometimes We Ask for It.”
“You’re looking to be engaged early, preferably with fresh and surprising usage of language as you move through the piece and then remaining engaged to the end,” Brewer said of the criteria used to rank the entries.
Finalists received feedback on their literary works Tuesday afternoon during a collective meet-up with Brewer. The workshop is a chance for the finalists to learn from a professional author.
“I got to talk, try to talk, meaningfully and helpfully to them about where they are in the process with the piece and what the possibilities are,” Brewer said.
The English Club’s faculty advisor and poetry professor, Tom Hunley, said that the event is designed to inspire student writers.
“We leave events like this one and go home and write,” Hunley said.
Students, faculty and community members alike attended the festival. Brewer read from a podium and microphone to the gathered audience. He glanced up intermittently to make eye contact with the silent listeners as he read.
He read 10 selections, including “Advice on Burning Manuscripts,” “ SeaWorld Armistice,” “Still Not Illegal, Not yet A Sin,” “Charlton Heston’s the Holy Bible,” “Friday the 13th, Harvest Moon,” “Flash Memoir Contest” and yet-to-be-published works “Trigger Warning” and two untitled poems.
Hunley assisted the club members in selecting Brewer as the guest speaker.
“Every year, generally, I give them press kits for three different writers, and then they debate amongst themselves, and they pick one,” Hunley said. “They overwhelmingly picked him.”
