BitLit

More Literary Craziness

So much to do, so little time!  Now that Nuruddin Farah's event is over, his broadside designed and 50 printed, the delicious food ingested, the wise words absorbed... there are further demands on my time! 

Next on my plate is the printing of 300 more of the Nuruddin broadsides, which I'll handle this weekend. 

Meanwhile, there are so many events in the next few days to devour my "free" time...

Tonight, the Senior Reading! 7:30-9:00pm

The Literary House, English Department, and Writer's Union present an evening of readings by the seniors, and refreshments aplenty. 

Featuring:  Bobby Bangert, Zach Bennett, Ericka Buet, Juliana Converse, Michelle Cook, Jeff Donovan. Leah Ganse, Caroline Herman, Reilly Joret, Ben Kozlowski, Marielle Latrick, Lindsay Lusby, Marian Robbins, Wes Schantz and Emma Sovich (me!)

I can't wait to hear what everyone's been working on!

Tomorrow, chivalry and zoo madness! 

At the 2nd Annual Jousting Tournament, "Horse" and rider teams compete for Imperishable Glory and Undying Renown in a wheelbarrow jousting tournament on the campus green.  Check out the photos from the innaugural tourny.    4:00-6:00 pm

At 7:00, the Writer's Theatre will release the menagerie at the Lit House in their Murder Mystery production.  With the tagline "Someone has killed the zookeeper, and the animals are loose!" it's gotta be good.  Kudos to the Writer's Theatre for giving balance to a year that began with Hannah Tinti and her Animal Crackers

Tomorrow and Saturday evenings:

[Edit:]

7:00 Another showing of the Writer's Theatre Murder Mystery!   [/edit]

8:00 pm both nights:  Juvenalia, by Wendy MacLeod, directed by Bobby Bangert '08.  This one, about modern college students' antics, is perhaps a bit less "literary" but well, it's Bobby, one of our own Lit House Fellows.  He seems to be directing for the sheer joy of it, since his senior thesis rocked Minta Martin's lounge last semester, which makes this production all the more exciting.  Hooray, I'm in the mood for a comedy!

So perhaps I'll push all my studying for comps, portfolio editing, and bookbinding to Sunday...

The House is in a state of uproar...

...for tonight we are joined by Pen World Voices/Washington College Fellow in International Letters Nuruddin Farah for coffee, desert, and reading - all kicking off at 7pm! Nuruddin's an all-around great guy. Charming, witty, sarcastic.

Emma and Mac are down in the Print Shop furiously cranking out 50 broadsides for the occasion! Fortuitously, the grounds crew has just finished mowing the lawn, so we're looking quite spiffy over here. The student workers have really come into their own in the past two weeks - learning which lawns they can steal flowers from without getting caught, finding exactly the right wording in an angry note about not moving the House furniture and pasting it to the front door. Good work, guys!

Literary House to be rededicated as a Center for Literature and Creative Life on campus

This Friday, April 11th, at 5pm the Rose O'Neill Literary House will celebrate its refurbishment and rededication as a Center for Literature and Creative Life on campus with a reception, ceremonial cake-cutting and student performances.

I hope you all can join us. You. Yes you! You are invited! And I do so hope I will see you there. Planning this rededication has been a bit like planning a wedding. White tent with twinkle lights? Check. Gigantic cake in the shape of the Lit House? Check. An open bar for the 21+ crowd? Check. Enough vegetable sushi to keep me happy? Check!

I'd love show off my handywork and celebrate with all of you, so please come - no rsvp necessary!

KAB

Looking Back on Sophie Kerr Weekend

Sophie Kerr Weekend has come and gone, and was a great ride all the way through.

For me, the weekend began unofficially on Thursday night, down in the print shop, where we chose some very strange paper and ink in which to record Jane Smiley's visit, and we began churning out broadsides. The unusual, somewhat contrasting, colors have a certain striking beauty to them, in my opinion.

Unexpectedly, later that night, we received another portent of the year to come, when we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning celebrating our admission into Middle Hall.

This focus on the coming semester continued on Friday, when the prospective students arrived. The prospective who would be staying with me was very enthused about Washington College, and claimed several times before he left that he was, without a doubt, coming here next year. When most of the prospectives had arrived, we began a tour of the campus, which was abruptly aborted when someone came up with the idea that we should show them some of the town before everything closed.

Forty-five minutes and a round of Stam's chocolate malts later, we returned to campus for Jane Smiley's reading. Smiley read excerpts from Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel and Ten Days in the Hills, impressing me enough that I was the first in line for a signed book. (I had rushed to my dorm and back right before the reading began to grab my copy of A Thousand Acres.)

After the reading was the dinner, where we mingled with the prospectives and ate tasty desserts. Smiley did another Q&A session, which is not fresh enough in my mind to write about accurately. We shamelessly skipped the Litrenta showing of A Thousand Acres, and proceeded to the Literary House, where we talked with the prospectives a while and watched the Writers' Union movie.

The next day, we saw significantly less of the prospectives, only seeing them when we took them to the breakfast in the morning and the print shop demonstration in the afternoon. During said print shop demonstration, another prospective spoke very enthusiastically with me, and informed me she'd applied early decision, so she'd also be here next year no matter what.

Later, we bid the prospectives farewell, and hoped that they would come to love the Literary House as much as we do. Tomorrow, advising day, we will cement our plans for the next semester, and the week of looking forward will, in my mind, end.