In the five years since Leah Stewart took over as director of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (July 15–27), the South’s grandest literary gathering has only gotten grander. For nearly two weeks in July, writers assemble “on the mountain” at the University of the South’s leafy campus.
There, aspiring and established fiction and nonfiction writers, poets, and playwrights will meet for morning workshops where the vibe emphasizes community over competition. “It was always a welcoming place for some, but we’ve done our best to make it welcoming for everyone,” Stewart says. What will never change is “the magic of being in a place as beautiful as Sewanee, as well as the magic of gathering with others who care as much about the power of language as you do.”
That magic is indeed open to everyone: The public is welcome at the evening events, when such writers as Venita Blackburn, Holly Goddard Jones, and the MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient A. E. Stallings will read from their works. For the bookish, a few highlights:
The conference will open on July 15 with readings by Luis Alberto Urrea and Melissa Febos, both heavy (literary) hitters. Over the course of nineteen books, Urrea has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His novel Good Night, Irene is based on his mother’s service as a Red Cross “Donut Dolly” in the Second World War. Febos is the author of five books, one of which—Girlhood—won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
On July 18, novelist R.O. Kwon will speak and read from her fiction work, which includes notable novels Exhibit and Incendiaries. The public portion of the conference closes on the 26th with readings by the playwright Jesús I. Valles and Kristen Chen, whose novel Counterfeit was picked by Reese Witherspoon, the doyenne of all things Southern, for her book club.
Finally, keep an eye on the July 19 staff reading, when conference director Leah Stewart and associate directors Adam Latham and Travis Eisenbise will read. Is it any surprise that the South’s finest literary conference is staffed by some of our region’s finest writers? “I sometimes feel like the bride at a big wedding,” Stewart says. Fitting for a conference as joyful and meaningful as Sewanee’s.
Garden & Gun has an affiliate partnership with bookshop.org and may receive a portion of sales when a reader clicks to buy a book.
