VIDEO: Writing festivals combine for two-day event

Updated 4/1: Video from event produced by Megan Card. 

High school students will be putting pen to paper this weekend at a creative writing seminar.

The first ever Vermillion Literary Project Festival and Sorcerer’s Apprentice Writing Camp will be held at the University of South Dakota March 27-28.

Michelle Rogge, director of the Dakota Writing Project, said in previous years the Sorcerer’s Apprentice Writing Camp for high school students was held separate from the annual poetry festival, which was sponsored by the VLP. This year the groups decided to combine their activities into one large literary festival.

“Marcella Remund (a VLP faculty adviser) said ‘Hey, why don’t we combine our annual poetry festival with the Sorcerer’s Apprentice camp, only we’ll call it a literary festival so it’s about more than just poetry?'” Rogge said. “That’s why there’s such a variety of events, and it’s spread out over two days.”

A writing marathon, a writer’s craft talk, a mini-slam poetry workshop and a poetry slam will be held Friday. On Saturday, five writing workshops are scheduled along with a public reading of participants’ work.

Rogge said the workshops are open to the public and will be taught by USD professors and graduate students. The workshops cost $5 for college students and the general public, and participants can register up to the day of the event. Some of the events, such as the poetry slam on Friday, are free to attend.

“Not only high school students can come to this, but so can college students and the general public,” Rogge said.

Sara Henning, a USD English graduate student with an emphasis in creative writing, will be leading one of the events workshops.

Henning said she taught a poetry workshop last year at the Sorcerer’s Apprentice Writing Camp, but will be teaching a slightly different course this year.

“I’m planning on running a workshop that discusses different contemporary uses of image and how a beginning writer can kind of glean through using the senses and engaging with memory,” she said.

Henning said the combination of both writing seminars into one large writing festival will be beneficial to new writers. At the workshops, students will be able to learn about the process writers go through to publish their work.

“It’s a great opportunity to have students who may have only been writing for a year — to try to get a sense of what it’s like to be constantly splitting your time as an artist,” Henning said. “I think it could ultimately be helpful to students who want to go on (to publish their work).”

Audrey Larsen, a USD English instructor and coordinator of the VLP Festival and Sorcerer’s Apprentice Writing Camp, said writing is a powerful and useful tool all students should learn.

“If you can write effectively you can communicate effectively,” Larsen said. “You can get your point across, you can engage with others and you can be an effective communicator.”

Larsen said writing can be a process of self-discovery.

“You have to think about things from multiple perspectives,” she said. “Writing is a very powerful act that anyone can do.”

(Photo: High school students attend the Sorcerer’s Apprentice Writing Camp in the fall of 2013. Organizers of the camp have decided to combine it with the Vermillion Literary Project’s spring poetry festival to create one large creative writing festival. Submitted Photo / The Volante)