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.