GC Summit

By Ashley Davis

The Grossmont Literary Arts festival ended its last event with a poetry reading of Lantern Tree: Four Books of Poems where local poets and authors of the book, Chris Baron, Heather Eudy, Cali Linfor, and Sabrina Youmans.  The book contains in four different collections of poetry, each written by the authors. Each author read several poems explaining what the poems were about and who they were for at the time the poems were composed.

Under the Broom Tree, a collection written by Chris Baron, explained that some of the poems in his collection were inspired by his travels to Jerusalem. Baron is now a Professor of English and Director of San Diego City College’s Writing Center. This book is his first formally published work.

The Lantern Tree: Four Books of Poems
Photo Courtesy Google Images

Bills of Landing, the second collection written by Heather Eudy. Eudy who is born and raised in San Diego graduated, she has since found a home as English professor at Southwestern College. Eudy’s work has been featured in several anthologies. She came up with her collection while being employed as a driver, delivering cars.

The Book of Ugly Things, which is the third collection of poems written by Cali Linfor. She received her Masters of Fine Arts in poetry from SDSU where she now is a professor in rhetoric, composition and writing. This is her first published collection in which she says that her title and some of her poems came from her fascination with “ugly things.”

Pacific Standard Time, by Sabrina Youmans is the last collection of poems. She completed her Master’s of Fine Art in Poetry at SDSU and since has continued to teach writing and poetry. She says that her collection is dedicated to those “who tries to make a sense of loss.”

Each poet ended the night with an ending poem an autographing their collection and they also answered questions to eager students who were wondering what they could do to become a published author.

By Ashley Davis

The Literary Arts Festival is a Grossmont College event that is held each year, sponsored by the Grossmont College Creative Writing program and English Department. The festival is a four-day event where different poets, authors and writers share their wisdom and ways the students could improve their writing skills, and are even given the opportunity to showcase their talents that they’ve been working on throughout the semester.

Monday April 29, was the beginning of the festival, where the first event was a seminar title Why Literature Matters, where a panel of faculty administers and students discussed the importance of literature in their lives and Grossmont College. Grossmont College Student Cassady Lynch shared her story on why literature mattered to her. Later on that night a student reading was held where students who were picked from their English and creative writing professors to perform readings that they’ve worked on during the semester.

On April 30, a literary performance was held, where actors Walter Ritter and Veronica Murphy selected different California authors and works and performed them. The second event was a presentation held by SDSU Comparative Literature Professor William Anthony Nericco in which he presented his book Tex(t) Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of The “Mexican” America, where he recited his different works of his life as a Mexican American.

On May 1^st , started off with American Student Literature and English students reading their works that were inspired by Tobias Wolff. The event continued along with a discussion of Wolff’s works and contributions to the short story genre, and the night ended with Wolff himself, where he read some of his works and signed books for students and faculty.

On May 2, was the last day of the festival with a reading and lecture on paranormal literature. The day continued with Judy Reeves, an author of A Writer’s Book of Days and also the originator of San Diego Writers Ink, a non profit organization for writers where they provide workshops, writing classes, and much more. Reeves discussed different topics of what San Diego Writers Ink has to offer to writers. The night ended with a reading and signing of the book Lantern Tree: Four Books of Poems. The book was developed by poets local San Diego poets Chris Baron, Heather Eudy, Cali Linfor and Sabrina Youmans the book was published in San Diego.