This past weekend, downtown Decatur buzzed with the hustle and bustle of the AJC Decatur Book Festival. As the largest independent book festival in the nation, the event brought more than 300 authors to Decatur for the holiday weekend and included readings, talks and panel discussions. SCAD Atlanta MFA students Tamara Joyner and Kerry Burke, as well as myself — Allie Jemison, also participated in the festival by presenting our creative nonfiction works.
Tamara Joyner commented, “it was a great feeling to have my family be able to hear what I had been working on since starting in the writing program [here at SCAD]. To look out in the crowd and see faculty and fellow SCAD students there supporting [me and the rest of us] was also very refreshing. It shows the students that SCAD is serious and very interested in the success of their students.” Presenting at Eddy’s Attic, a popular live music venue located in downtown Decatur, Joyner, Burke and I had the chance to join the ranks of the many writers and performers of the weekend. Keynote speaker Jonathan Franzen, the National Book Award-winning author of “The Corrections” was in attendance as well as artist Franklin Abbott with his latest book of poems, “Pink Zinnia.”
With the vendors, book readings, other literary events and good eating, the weekend was fun and artful. For the three presenters from Ivy Hall, knowing that the literary community is alive and bustling is the ultimate answer to promoting literacy, the creative arts and an age-old art form that has no boundaries.