Award-winning artists headline annual writing and arts festival

John Brown University welcomes three awardwinning artists for the annual Giving Voice Festival: A Festival of Writing and Arts from Wednesday, Sept. 19 to Friday, Sept. 21.

The artists include Harrison Scott Key, an awardwinning nonfiction memoirist; Laura Waters Hinson, an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker; and Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, a prolific poet and author.

The festival begins at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19, with a book and DVD signing by all three artists at the Siloam Springs Library. On Thursday, Sept. 20, at 5:30 p.m. in JBU’s Simmons Great Hall, the writers will give presentations, and there will be a showing of Hinson’s film, Mama Rwanda, followed by a book signing. Both events are open to the public.

Harrison Scott Key won the Thurber Prize, the highest national honor in humor, for his book TheWorld’s Largest Man: A Memoir. His work has appeared in multiple publications like the New York Times, Oxford American and World Magazine.

In addition to teaching at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Key’s new book Congratulations, Who Are You Again? is set to release on Nov. 6.

Laura Waters Hinson won the student Academy Award in 2008 for her documentary film AsWe Forgive which details the story of Rwanda’s reconciliation journey. Hinson created an award-winning production company in Washington, D.C., called Image Bearer Pictures. Her latest film, Mama Rwanda,

tells the stories of young, women entrepreneurs who helped in establishing Rwanda as one the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s work is found in multiple publications and across a variety of different platforms. Her large selection of poetry and prose bolster a wide range of topics that include holiness, relationships between mothers and daughters and Flannery O’Connor. O’Donnell teaches at Fordham University, and her latest book, Still Pilgrim,

focuses on the theme of pilgrimage.

More than 200 high school students, the largest number in Giving Voice history, will participate in workshops.

Visit jbu.edu/giving_voice for more information.