A Look Back at the 2016 WWW Season

A Look Back at the 2016 WWW Season By: Jessica Gordon

As the 2016 season of Winter with the Writers comes to a close, all of us involved, whether interns, community members, or Rollins faculty and staff, are left with the wonder each talented, and inspiring writer has left us with. But after a month of such a unique literary festival, I would like to remind everyone involved of the highlights as the end might feel a little bittersweet. When in need of a little scholarly, artistic, or writerly inspiration, look to these memories from our 2016 season! We began our festival season with a visit from renowned Chilean novelist and playwright, Antonio Skarmeta, who wrote the novel for which 1994’s Academy Award winning film “II Postino.” Winter With the Writers partnered with the local non-profit art house Enzian Theater on February 3; film buffs and literature lovers alike came together to watch a screening of “No,” a film adaptation of Skarmeta’s play “The Referendum,” which is based off his novel “The Days of the Rainbow.” We were lucky enough to experience two versions of this exciting political fiction. On February 4, Skarmeta changed up the usual four o’ clock master class scenario in which interns workshop publicly with the visiting writer--instead, he performed a dramatic reading of “The Referendum” for all those in attendance. The only performance which might have topped such a treat was Skarmeta’s evening reading from his newest novella, “A Distant Father.” Skarmeta’s warm, rich cadence brought the audience to jubilance. He even graced us by reading a few pages in the original Spanish. Winter with the Writers Director Carol Frost asked him questions from the audience, and afterwards, of course, a long line of enthralled fans got to take pictures and have their books signed by an ever-inviting Antonio Skarmeta. Beside all of these open-to-the-public events, some of our interns got the chance to translate some of Skarmeta’s own song lyrics from the original Spanish and then meet with him to workshop those translations! It was a truly enjoyable week, and Antonio Skarmeta showed us just all the places literature can take us--through poetry, song, novel, theater, and film, a story can take us anywhere our imagination does! The opening week began Winter with the Writers on a high note that just kept going! On February 11, Winter With the Writers welcomed celebrated author of the Flannery O’Connor Award winning Silent Retreats and beloved professor of creative writing at Rollins College, Dr. Philip Deaver. We brimmed with anticipation to hear Dr. Deaver’s not-yet-released (by local publisher Burrow Press) Forty Martyrs read aloud at the evening reading, but first, a dear friend of Dr. Deaver, celebrated poet and author of Here, Bullet and My Life as a Foreign Country, Brian Turner, held the master class at 4 p.m. Turner’s class was beyond encouraging and generative, his master class was also personalized to each student who put their work out for the public to see. At 7:30, the community got a chance to listen to sections of Forty Martyrs read by Jill Jones, Ryan Rivas, Ryan Favata, Brian Turner, and none other than Dr. Philip Deaver himself. Afterward, all who were in attendance at the reading got a chance to buy a copy of Forty Martyrs (not out until March!) and have Philip Deaver sign a copy. It was a beautiful evening full of members of Orlando’s very present literary community, all brought together by adoration and respect for Rollins’ very own Writer in Residence. Our third week of Winter with the Writers welcomed poet Chase Twichell, whose 2010 collection of poetry, Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been, won the prestigious Kingsley Tuft Poetry Award. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts, and has taught from Princeton University to Warren Wilson College. Twichell led nine interns and Rollins College students in a special generative poetry workshop that began Monday February 15 and went through Wednesday afternoon, the 17. Those who were present for her fun-filled, language-loving, and mind-stretching poetry workshop were extra prepared for her 4 p.m. master class on February 18, open to the public as always. Twichell asked of each intern “what do you want to ask of your poem?” and shared with all those present the ways in which the questions a first draft poem creates are really where the poem’s depth lies. Twichell asked each intern to examine the mind through the form of poetry-- what a gift for a poet. At Twichell’s evening reading, some of us were expecting her to read from Horses--but all poetry lovers in attendance were surprised and delighted when Twichell read a series of new poems, from a book which will probably not be finished, she says, for at least another year. After the reading, Chase Twichell was on stage for a question and answer session with our director, and her longtime friend and fellow renowned poet, Carol Frost, then graciously signed copies of her books and posed for photos. It was a lovely end to an incredibly fruitful week. The 2016 season of Winter with the Writers concluded this past week with two writers, non-fiction author Sy Montgomery and poet Ross Gay, brought to Rollins College by a partnership with the National Book Awards and executive director of the National Book Foundation, Harold Augenbraum. We started off the excitement by listening to an amusing account of the world of publishing from Harold Augenbraum at the Kerouac House Wednesday evening. On Thursday, the community got the chance to participate in two master classes. At one p.m., the exuberant Sy Montgomery (who has written over twenty books of nonfiction and writes for National Geographic) presented us with a charming yet informative account of “misadventures in non-fiction,” a memoir-style lecture in which Montgomery recounted the obstacles which she faced in research in the field for her first few books--chasing pink dolphins in the Amazon, being stuck without a translator searching for tigers in a remote village in India. But as she pointedly told her audience, these misadventures were actually, as she described them, gifts which helped her to follow her true guides, the animals she was writing about. We were moved by her genuine spirit and passion for the best writing possible. At 4 p.m., poet Ross Gay, who teaches at Indiana University in Bloomington, and who is also a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, held a special workshop for the interns workshopping poetry. In front of the community, Gay asked the interns to ask questions about the poems, not make evaluative statements, and also led the interns in an exercise in seeing beauty in daily life. It was preparation for the evening reading, in which Sy Montgomery read from The Soul of an Octopus, which held the audience captivated over this magical creature as seen through her eyes. Afterward, Ross Gay read from “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” which had me in tears of gratitude, personally. The question and answer session afterward let the audience feel the “gobsmacked” state in which these two writers see (and write) the word. Then audience members could of course get their books signed by either or both writers. At the close of this magical Winter with the Writers season, interns, look back to fond memories of our special intern lunches with the writers or secret moments shared with your personal favorite writer that might not have been caught on camera. We were truly privileged. Community members, Winter with the Writers donors, and Rollins faculty and staff, I hope this time was “gobsmacking,” and Winter with the Writers can’t wait to see you again next season. And finally, after everything said and done, let us pause to thank Winter with the Writers director Carol Frost, who flawlessly put together this perfect season.