Seersucker Live encourages students to engage in a literary community
Written by Maggie Maize and Catya Martinez-Gloria, Photos by Jordan Petteys
Alongside a busy
For five years now, Seersucker Live, a local non-profit literary community, and SCAD writing professors have teamed up to deliver audience-engaging shows of literary performances. This year, performers included professors Jonathan Rabb, Chris Millis, Andrea Goto, James Lough
The show began with a round of horror-themed fictionary, played by three teacher-student teams. Then, one by one, performers were introduced by answering the classic Seersucker Live question: “Who the hell are you?”
Professor Rabb initiated the night’s performances by reading a chapter from the novel he is currently writing. “I should be done with it in the next six weeks,” Rabb said. This is his first book written
Then Professor Lough shared a portion from an essay on teaching his son spiritual and religious beliefs he didn’t necessarily believe. Splashes of humor illuminated abstract concepts such as death, reincarnation, heaven and hell. Character-revealing descriptions and honest recollections placed a transcendent finger on the parent-child, student-teacher dynamic.
Next up was a new piece from Professor Goto, which herald the message of familial relationships and their effect on people’s upbringings. “I was telling my students I was either going to write about my pain or something funny,” Goto said. “What evolved was something in the middle, that’s a little uncomfortable and weird.” Goto’s pain but also comedic relief found itself in a memoir focused on her two grandmothers, neither of whom fit the soft and gentle characteristics she desperately desired.
While the event provided a moment for professors to engage in work outside the classroom, some have found that experience influences their teaching approach. For Millis, the chair of SCAD’s writing department, exploring personal experiences in writing is a lesson within itself. “I’m always sharing with students how I’ve tried to solve writing challenges, hopefully encouraging them to understand that we’re all in this together at different places on the path,” Millis said. “Problems don’t get easier, they get more complicated as you demand more.”
With the encouragement Seersucker Live gives to faculty members to stay involved with their personal work, becoming a better professor in the process also happens to be a result. “In order to really make your own teaching relevant, you need to continue building on your own work,” Millis said. “It’s not easy, time and effort-wise. It’s very challenging, especially when you have family and so forth. But it’s necessary in order to be a good teacher to your students.”
Before reading a section of his screenplay, Millis announced that the project is set to be a feature film, making it his second. “It’s a fun movie copyright infringement and intellectual property laws,” Millis said. For his reading, he compiled digital images of the characters—also people in real life—and flipped through them via projection while reading. The overall effect was that of a one-man-movie.
Choosing to read from a piece she started while at SCAD in Professor Rabb’s class, Felton shared ‘Writing About Place’. “The only prompt he gave was to write about a place that you are familiar with,” Felton said. With the chosen location of a hair and beauty salon, Felton frequented throughout adolescence. The piece focused on her self-acceptance journey to embrace her natural hair. Felton touched on specific moments ranging from her middle school to college years. Her use of rich detail in describing the shop and its effect on her journey brought light to the trending movement’s conversation. The memoir also explored the topic of race and the various accounts Felton experienced, leading to how she understands herself today. Felton has built on the piece since graduating from the M.F.A. Writing program in 2015. “That was nearly four years ago,” Felton said. “Thank goodness it didn’t stay the same.” Now a publication manager and teaching artist at Deep Center, Felton spends her alumna days writing personal essays, journals and monthly book review columns for “Do Savannah.”
Similar to the human connection running through the pieces, Berinato encouraged attendees to get connected in the wider writing world. “Outside of SCAD, there’s a whole literary community going on,” Berinato said. Seersucker Live is only part of it. Spitfire Poetry Group, open mic nights and local bookstores such as The Booklady and E. Shaver are also included.
The night ended with audience members volunteering to share their 90-second poetry inspired by a projected drawing. Exiting back through the garden just hours later, the community already felt tighter.
