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Conference speakers to include: Judith Ortiz Cofer, Allison Hedge Coke, Natalie Daise, Thulani Davis, Connie May Fowler, Melissa Fay Greene, Sarah Gordon, Sharyn McCrumb, Marsha Norman, Mab Segrest, and Natasha Trethewey |
Since its inception in 1994, the Southern Women Writers Conference has been devoted to showcasing the works of well known and emerging southern women writers, expanding the literary canon, and developing critical and theoretical understandings of traditions and innovations in southern women’s writing.
The theme for the 2009 conference is “Many Souths: Remembering, Sustaining, Creating.” In recent decades, monolithic conceptions of the U.S. South have given way to more nuanced and particularized ways of understanding and representing the region. Yet even a cursory glance at the literary history of “the South” reveals writing marked from the very beginning by an awareness and appreciation of localized, subregional difference. Women writers have given us indelible images of regions within the region, from the mountain South to the Mississippi Delta, the Low Country to Cajun Country, and the continental-flavored coastal cities to the suburban Sunbelt. Coinciding with these geographical subregions, differences in gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality, and spirituality reveal additional “Souths” within “the South.” This year’s conference theme invites attendees to explore the ways in which southern women have used the written word to evoke these and other Souths, whether through remembering, sustaining, or creating.
Southern Women Writers Conference History
DRIVING DIRECTIONS TO BERRY
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