Terrance Hayes
Nikky Finney photo by Forrest Clonts
DECKLE EDGE LITERARY FESTIVAL 2018 OPENS TICKET SALES FOR TERRANCE HAYES KEYNOTE ADDRESS AND NIKKY FINNEY SOUTHERN TRUTH AWARD CELEBRATION
In the third year of celebrating South Carolina’s rich literary tradition Deckle Edge Literary Festival 2018 will welcome keynote speaker Terrance Hayes and renowned Southern literary artist Nikky Finney March 3, 2018 for the Deckle Edge 2018 Keynote Address and Southern Truth Award Celebration. Following the 2018 Deckle Edge Literary Festival daytime sessions from 9:30 am until 5 pm at Richland Library on Assembly Street, the Keynote Address and Southern Truth Award Celebration will take place at 7 pm at 701 Whaley Street Market Space. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 day of, and $10 for students. Heavy hors d’oeuvres from Chef Joe Turkaly will be served with music from Cola Jazz’s Amos Hoffman and Sam Edwards, and there will be a cash bar. Tickets are available at Brown Paper Tickets at https://de18.bpt.me.
Prior to the Keynote Address and Southern Truth Award Celebration a VAP* Champagne Reception will be held from 5:30 until 7 pm, also at 701 Whaley Market Space. (*Very Appreciated Person). The VAP Celebration allows attendees to meet and mingle, as well as raise a champagne toast to, Terrance Hayes, Nikky Finney and other honored participants in this year’s Deckle Edge Literary Festival. The reception will feature free champagne, heavy hors d’oeuvres, and reserved seats for the keynote address and award ceremony to follow, as well as recognition at the event. The reception will also serve as a fund raising opportunity for Deckle Edge Literary Festival. The purchase of VAP tickets will not only help offset festival costs but will serve as a scholarship fund for additional students to attend the evening’s Keynote address.
Winner of MacArthur, Guggenheim, US Artists Zell, and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, Hayes is the author of Lighthead, which was the winner of the 2010 National Book Award, Wind in a Box, Hip Logic, and Muscular Music. How to Be Drawn, his most recent collection of poems, was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award, the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award, and received the 2016 NAACP Image Award for Poetry. He is the current poetry editor at New York Times Magazine and has two manuscripts forthcoming in 2018.
A South Carolina native, Nikky Finney is the author of Head Off & Split, which won the 2011 National Book Award for poetry, The World Is Round, Rice, Heartwood, and On Wings Made of Gauze. She is the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina.
Over two dozen sessions will make up the Deckle Edge Literary Festival this year with panels and presentations that cover poetry, prose, songwriting, screenwriting, new works from local authors, a live interview for the Pat Conroy Literary Center filmed on-site, writing graphic novels, writing for social justice, a poetry workshop for teens, USC’s Moving Images Resource Center, literary history, and interactive art-making with Columbia-based fiber and installation artist Susan Lenz. Among the authors attending are Chuck Brown, Sanford Greene, Julia Elliott, Scott Gould, Mark Powell, Tim Conroy, Claudia Smith Brinson, Anthony Grooms, Alvin McEwan, Monifa Lemons, Ray McManus, Cassie Premo Steele, Marjorie Spruill, all of SC’s poets laureates – Marjory Wentworth, Marcus Amaker, and Ed Madden, Brock Adams, Isabella Gomez and many more.