From bestselling author of “Big Fish” Daniel Wallace to high school writers from Mississippi to CNN analyst Jeffery Toobin — attendees of Mississippi University for Women’s 29th annual Welty Symposium and Gala can expect a diverse lineup, event organizer Kendall Dunkelberg told Rotarians at their weekly lunch Tuesday.
The Welty Symposium is a three-day celebration of Southern writers, where students, faculty and the public can hear published authors read and speak about their work. Dunkelberg, English professor and Creative Writing graduate program director, has organized the symposium for the last 10 years.
“It (is) a celebration of Southern literature,” he said.
“This is a wonderful, cultural opportunity in Columbus and it’s open to everyone,” MUW president Jim Borsig said. “It’s a chance to see up-and-coming Southern writers as well as established Southern writers.”
The symposium is named for MUW’s most famous alumna, the Southern writer Eudora Welty. Every year, Dunkelberg tries to pick a theme from one of Welty’s stories. This year’s “the incident became the story” comes from “The Hitch-hikers” in which a traveling salesmen picks up two hitch-hikers and becomes reluctantly famous when one of the hitch-hikers kills the other.
“(The salesman) is complaining that the incident became the story,” Dunkelberg said.
Dunkelberg said he liked the idea of an incident taking on a life of its own and becoming its own story or adventure and tried to find writers whose recently published works fit that idea.
This year’s keynote speaker, Daniel Wallace, has a new book that hinges on that type of incident. In Extraordinary Adventures, Wallace’s protagonist gets a phone call telling him he’s won a beach vacation in Florida. The catch is he has to take someone with him. Before his beach vacation, he has his own series of adventures trying to find a weekend companion.
Dunkelberg was taken by the idea of an opportunity striking unexpectedly.
“We all get these calls,” he said. “What would happen if you said, ‘Yeah, I want to do it … I want to take that chance?'”
Wallace will talk about the book on the symposium’s opening night Oct. 19. His speech and book signing will open the door to three days of readings and book signings by writers from all over the South. Their works range from stories about hostage situations on college campuses to urban legends to the Civil Rights movement in Jackson.
Dunkelberg also picks a handful of writers every year to judge the competition for the Eudora Welty Ephemera Prize for Mississippi high school students. Students can write poems, essays or short stories for the competition, and up to five will win $200 and receive an invitation to read their work at the symposium.
Dunkelberg began the competition about four years ago, and since then it’s grown to include more students. Most are from Mississippi, but Alabama schools within 100 miles from MUW are also welcome.
“Last year we had 60 (submissions) and that was our best year,” he said. “This year we have over 100.”
The symposium also includes the Welty Gala, a fundraising event for MUW’s general scholarship fund, Oct. 20 at the Trotter Convention Center. Tickets for the event start at $100, and attendees will be treated to dinner and a talk by CNN senior analyst and The New Yorker staff writer Jeffery Toobin, who recently authored American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst, though he has also written books about the O.J. Simpson trial, the Supreme Court and the Obama administration.
“It’s a very elegant event,” said organizer Andrea Stevens, executive director of development and alumni at MUW. “It is well worth $100 because it is a fabulous meal paired with wine … It’s worth every dollar and it goes for a wonderful cause for scholarships for our students.”
The symposium runs from Oct. 19-21. A full schedule of symposium and events is on MUW’s website at http://www.muw.edu/welty.
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