BY TRAVIS WALTERS
As part of the Visiting Writers Series, the Savannah College of Art and Design will host Shirley Geok-lin Lim on April 10, at 7 p.m. in the Student Center on 120 Montgomery St. Born in Malaysia, Lim writes in the fiction, memoir and poetry genres. She will be reading from two of her works, “Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands” and “Passports and Poems From Other Lives.”
The SCAD liberal arts faculty will host the first ever SCAD Writer’s Assembly on April 14 at 7 p.m. in the Trustees Theater on 216 E. Broughton St. The faculty will be reading from their own works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays. Professors Stephen Geller and Dennis Randall will moderate the many speakers.
In addition to moderating, Geller will read from a novel he is working on now titled “Feist.” The novel is about an impoverished Jewish man living in 19th-century Savannah. Geller is internationally known for his screen adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five.” “The [Liberal Arts] Department is filled with wonderful writers/teachers. It seemed to me that it would be a splendid event, having those writers read from their works, present or past, to their students, the SCAD and Savannah community,” Geller said. “All writing programs have an annual reading of works-in-progress by the professional writing faculty. SCAD should be no different.”
There are seven other announced, and more unannounced, writers in addition to Geller.
“Sites of Insight” author and professional writing professor James Lough will be reading as well. The event will “give students a chance to become more familiar with the written work of their faculty members, who may or may not have shared their work directly with their students,” Lough said. “Also it’s a chance for faculty to share their current projects, interests and obsessions with their students and with other SCAD faculty and staff.”
Geller said the event will provide “Pleasure, surprise and the knowledge that the faculty also aspires to art in its own life.” Lough said that it also “makes people campus-wide more aware of the professional writing major and the creative writing minor.” Geller mentioned that he would like to see this event become “an annual celebration of faculty creative writing shared with the community.”
Professor Adam Davies will read from his third novel, “Mine All Mine,” which will be published in August. Davies is the author of both “Goodbye Lemon” and “The Frog King.” “The Frog King” will be adapted to film by “Sex and the City” creator Darren Star. Davies has appeared on numerous National Public Radio broadcasts as well as A&E’s “Breakfast with the Arts.”
Mary Aswell Doll will read from her book “Mother Matters.” Doll has authored four other books that deal with world mythology, literature and everyday life. She serves on the advisory board for the Jungian Journal “Spring: A Journal of Archetype
and Culture.”
John Valentine, who recently had the textbook “Beginning Aesthetics,” published by McGraw-Hill, will read from his personal collection of selected poems. His poems have been published in 20 poetry journals.
The other three announced speakers are George Williams, Angela Merta, and Mary Chi-Whi Kim. The event is free and open to the public.
Photo credit: James Biscardi
