Old Dominion University Literary Festival

Old Dominion University Creative Writing Program. Old Dominion University 33rd Annual Literary Festival. Old Dominion University. Various, 4 October 2010 Norfolk. Print.

Old Dominion University 33rd Annual Literary Festival Pamphlet, Workplace Document

This year’s theme is “Hard Times in America.” The text hopes to have its audience, “Think honestly about their own experiences, to reach beyond self in order to enter another person’s conflicts, to see with another person’s eyes the problems that confront us all.” The primary audience is Old Dominion University students and the secondary audience is Old Dominion University faculty and staff. The accidental audience could be friends, family members, co-workers of Old Dominion students and faculty and staff and people who live in and around Old Dominion University.

This pamphlet was given to me by one of my professors. The writer is Old Dominion University Creative Writing Program. The writer makes the argument that “Hard Times” mean more than economics. The writer wants us to think about “Hard times” as, “Inevitably entwined with racism, crime, despair, an inequitable legal system, inadequate medical care, and inequalities in education.” The author supports this argument by having the performers at the Literary Festival perform pieces about “Hard Times.”

In each section of the pamphlet there is a short personal and or professional biography about each performer, the day, time and place they will be performing. On the inside flap it talks about the theme for the festival and on the back it lists the dates, times, location and names of the performers. There is a photograph of each performer next to their biography and they are explicitly used to get the reader to connect with the performers on a visual level. Each photo puts a face to the stories and achievements of the performers. The performer’s names are written in bold, white text; it stands out from the rest of the text and their names can be recognized easier.

The tone of the language is soft, almost emotional. It uses pathos to get through to the reader by using the theme of “Hard Times in America.” The words are fairly simply to understand. Knowledge is created and conveyed by clearly stating the theme of the Literary Festival on the front and inside of the pamphlet; also by defining the theme and the purpose of the Literary Festival. Literature values expression through writing and critical thinking through reading.

Arch Literary Journal

Shannon Robinson. Arch Literary Journal. Washington University, St. Louis: 2008

Academic journal, Arch Literary Journal

I am studying an online literary magazine called Arch Literary Journal. “Arch, v: to span, bridge. Arch Literary Journal, n: an online collection of writings that spans genres, styles, and fields; a journal that creates bridges across aesthetics, languages, and attitudes.”
Their purpose is, “to publish new writing that transforms the way we envision, startles us into new ways of knowing, subverts expectations, and delivers new experiences of language. We embrace multiplicity: we look to mirror and extend the diverse nature of today's most exciting literature both in the U.S. and around the world.”
Arch Literary Journal includes poetry, fiction, translation, interviews, essays, and reviews. The editors use each literary submission to make direct arguments in connection to the purpose of Arch Literary Journal because they prove that they embrace multiplicity and diversity by having pieces in other languages. Although I cannot understand the translations, it is good that they have this section of the magazine because it spans the globe proving that the Arch Literary Journal bridges the gap between English writers and writers of other languages. I found myself trying to read some of what I thought was Spanish, to see if I understood any of it. Upon a little research of the title “De Vita Philologica” by Jamie Siles, I could not find what language it is but it is not Spanish.
I do think the Arch Literary Journal is an effective magazine because it values diversity. It includes different genres, styles, and languages. The poems are very different. The interview with Haines Eason was interesting because it is good to hear about what an author was thinking when they wrote a particular piece and why. It give a full view of the literary world, pieces by writers, interviews with authors and some reviews.