THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 6, 1996 TAG: 9610070188
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: 67 lines
The theme of this year's Old Dominion University Literary Festival is censorship. Titled ``Forbidden Passage,'' the 19th annual ODU festival is scheduled for Thursday through Sunday.
Three panel discussions will highlight censorship issues, while internationally acclaimed writers whose work has raised the specter of censorship will read from their poetry or prose.
The festival will also feature ``Open Mic'' lunch-hour readings for community and student writers.
``Forbidden Passage'' opens Thursday at 10 a.m. in Hampton in the Newport News Room of the Webb Center, and moves to the ODU campus at 12:30 p.m. for the first panel discussion, ``Stifled Voice: Cultural Ramifications of Censorship,'' in Room 104 of the Batten Arts & Letters (BAL) building.
The other panels are ``Writing Past Censors: Private and Public,'' on Friday at 1:30 p.m., and ``The Poetics of Revolution: Fighting America's Invisible Censors,'' on Saturday at 1:30 p.m., both in Chandler Hall of ODU's Fine and Performing Arts Center.
Participating writers include:
Denise Duhamel, whose book of poetry based on Inuit mythology, The Woman With Two Vaginas (Salmon Run Press, 1995), was censored in both Canada and Alaska and whose other provocative books include Girl Soldier (Garden Street Press) and the forthcoming Kinky (Orchard Press);
Brian Evenson, whose short-story collection Altmann's Tongue (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), was vilified by administrators at Brigham Young University, where he was an assistant professor, and Mormon Church leaders, and now teaches at Oklahoma State University;
Jessica Hagedorn, born and raised in the Philippines, whose first novel, Dogeaters, was nominated for the National Book Award, and whose latest, The Gangster of Love (Houghton Mifflin, 1996), tells the story of a Filipino family's move to the United States in 1970;
June Jordan, poet, essayist and political activist whose latest titles include June Jordan's Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint (1995) and I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky (1995) and who teaches African-American studies at the University of California-Berkeley;
Tony Kushner, whose Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning play ``Angels in America,'' which looks at the AIDS tragedy, will be performed on Sunday at 2 p.m. in ODU's Technical Theater (tickets $8 for the general public; $6 for students);
Ben Marcus, a short fiction writer, author of The Age of Wire and String and assistant professor at ODU, who will present new fiction chosen for the spring issue of Conjunctions literary journal;
Achy Obejas, poet, fiction writer and weekly columnist for The Chicago Tribune, who has been published in journals such as ``Revista Chicano-Riquena'' and ``Beloit Poetry Journal'' and has a new book just out, Mambo Memory;
Andrea Slane, a film scholar who teaches film studies in the ODU English Department and will present a talk, ``Rated R: A Short History of Hollywood Censorship,'' on Friday at 5:30 p.m.;
Anthony R. Vigil, a poet and activist who educates barrio youth in Mexicano/Chicano studies and literature and has been unofficially banned from speaking or reading at many public schools in Denver, Colo., his hometown; and
Eleanor Wilner, the author of four books of poems and a lifelong civil rights activist whose work has appeared in many anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Poetry 1996, and earned her numerous honors.
All festival events except the evening performances are free. Tickets for these may be purchased at readings or at the ODU English Office, BAL 220. They are $12 for the public; $2 for students.
For more information, call 683-3991. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is book editor of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB