Everything Nac

Students from the Nacogdoches Independent School District participated in the fourth Barrio Writers summer program at Stephen F. Austin State University. Dr. Heather Olson Beal, SFA associate professor in the Department of Secondary Education and Educational Leadership, serves as the coordinator for this free weeklong program, which promotes literature and creative writing to teens.

Dr. Heather Olson Beal, SFA associate professor in the Department of Secondary Education and Educational Leadership, serves as the coordinator for this free weeklong program.

“We read beautiful and powerful literature written by famous and less-famous writers of color,” Beal said. “We had awesome conversations and dialogue with the youth who left the writing advisors feeling so good about our future.”

Barrio Writers is tailored for students ages 13 through 21 with an interest in reading and writing. Through this program, participants engage in workshops led by SFA students, faculty and staff. Participants read books, poems and song lyrics before discussing them as a group and free writing.

SFA faculty and staff who led the workshops and served as writing advisors included Beal; Dr. Lauren Burrow, associate professor of elementary education; Dr. Chrissy Cross, assistant professor of secondary education and educational leadership; Alicia De La Rosa-Millard, secretary in SFA’s Office of Multicultural Affairs; and Dr. Amber Wagnon, lecturer in the Department of English and Creative Writing.

Adaeze Elechi, an SFA student and poet, served as a guest artist and shared a spoken word piece. At the end of the week, students hosted a live reading with the community to share their works.

“Barrio Writers is so important for supporting our youth in the community who are interested in creative writing and whose voices I believe we all need to hear,” Beal said.

Each year, participants also attend a field trip in the community. Jeff Brewer, assistant professor in the School of Art, gave the students a tour of the SFA Sculpture for All exhibit in the SFA Arboretum.

Each student had a piece published in the 10th edition of the Barrio Writers anthology, which has been published by the SFA Press for the past few years. The 8th edition is available for $20 at the Bosslight in downtown Nacogdoches. The 9th and 10th editions are forthcoming.

To learn more about this program, visit barriowriters.org, or email sfabarriowrtiers@gmail.com.

By Kasi Dickerson, senior marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Greg Kuzma’s “Hose and Iron: Selected Poems,” published through SFA Press, is named a finalist for the 2018 High Plains Book Award for Poetry.

“Hose and Iron: Selected Poems” was published in 2017 through SFA Press, a publishing entity that operates through Stephen F. Austin State University. Kuzma, who has published more than 1,500 poems during a 50-year timespan, lives in Nebraska, but chose SFA Press to publish his latest collection of poems.

For Kim Verhines, SFA Press director, this nomination confirms the quality of books being published through the press.

“SFA Press produces beautiful books,” Verhines said. “This award is even more special because two of SFA’s graduate students, Jerri Bourrous and Jonathan Grant, edited and designed the book; both were graduate interns at the press and had the opportunity to work in book publishing as part of SFA’s transformative experience.”

The nomination is open to national and international presses that have published writers from both the U.S. and Canada. The authors live in states that include Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas, and in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan Canada.

Verhines said that while two other finalists also are located in the High Plains region, she believes SFA Press stands out among larger and longer-established presses.

“SFA Press is an extremely good publisher, and it’s significant that a modest university press like ours can garner this type of national attention,” Verhines said. “It gets SFA’s name and brand out to a larger public, and it helps to make people knowledgeable about the work being done here and the opportunities we provide.”

Visit the SFA Press website at sfasu.edu/sfapress. For more information, contact Verhines at verhinesk@sfasu.edu or (936) 468-1078.

By Emily Brown, marketing communications specialist for Stephen F. Austin State University.

In less than a week, the SummerStage Festival at Stephen F. Austin State University will open for its three-week run of presenting a fun and heartwarming children’s musical and an emotionally powerful American play for the 2018 summer theatre season.

The SummerStage Festival runs June 29 through July 19. Ticket sales are brisk for the two featured plays, – the family friendly “Pinkalicious the Musical” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Crimes of the Heart.” Both shows will make wonderful outings for those hoping to escape the summer doldrums and enjoy quality entertainment, according to Cleo House Jr., director of the SFA School of Theatre and of “Pinkalicious.”

“SummerStage is as much for the Nacogdoches community as it is for SFA,” House said. “You may have seen us at the Blueberry Festival painting faces, or dressed up as characters from your favorite cartoon movies. Maybe you saw us at the local library reading books to kids. You might have heard about us on Red River Radio or learned about us from a poster in one of the local businesses. We’ve even scheduled one ‘pay-what-you-can’ performance for each show. All of this reveals that SummerStage is community driven – which, in turn, says SummerStage is all about the people of Nacogdoches.”

House continues by acknowledging that the SummerStage Festival is sponsored in part by Tipton Ford Lincoln. “We want to thank our corporate partner, Tipton Ford Lincoln, for their generous and annual partnership with our children’s show each summer.”

“Pinkalicious the Musical” with book by Elizabeth Kann and Victoria Kann, music by John Gregor, and lyrics by John Gregor, Elizabeth Kann and Victoria Kann, is the story of Pinkalicious, a little girl who can’t stop eating pink cupcakes despite warnings from her parents. Her pink indulgence lands her at the doctor’s office with Pinkititis, an affliction that turns her pink from head to toe – a dream come true for this pink-loving enthusiast. But when her hue goes too far, only Pinkalicious can figure out a way to get out of this predicament.

Dr. Inga Meier, assistant professor of theatre and director of last year’s SummerStage favorite “The Miracle Worker,” is excited about directing “Crimes of the Heart” in SFA’s more intimate performance space, the Downstage Theatre.

“‘Crimes of the Heart’ is ultimately a play about the bonds of family and about love,” Meier said. “The smaller theatre, and way we’ve arranged seating, allow the audience to feel as though they are a direct part of the experience.”

“Crimes of the Heart” by Beth Henley is about three sisters with very different personalities and lives who reunite when the youngest of them, Babe, has just shot her husband. The oldest sister, Lenny, takes care of their grandfather and is turning into an old maid, while Meg, who tries to make it in Hollywood as a singer/actress, has had a wild life filled with many men. Their reunion causes much joy, but also many tensions, according to the description at imdb.com.

Set in 1974, the play has the Magrath sisters still coping with their father’s abandonment and mother’s suicide that occurred more than a decade earlier, the devastation of Hurricane Camille five years earlier and the Watergate scandal that unfolded only months before the start of the play’s storyline.

“The traumas and crises faced by the sisters are thus not all that different from those confronting the country today,” Meier wrote in her program notes. “Our news may come from the internet rather than newspapers, but we are not unfamiliar with headlines informing us of suicides, hurricanes and Constitutional crises. The events leave their mark on the sisters in different ways and fracture their familial bond. When the play begins, they are faced with yet another crisis, causing the sisters to circle the wagons and find their way back to one another.

“It is said that history repeats, first as tragedy, then as comedy,” she said. “For the sisters, who have witnessed so much tragedy, the comedy offers both a reprieve and a path forward, blending laughter and tears into a story of resilience we can all learn from.”

With “Crimes of the Heart” addressing domestic violence, pedophilia and suicide, a “talkback session” with Jill Milem, director of SFA’s Counseling Services, will follow the play’s July 7 performance.

“Pinkalicious the Musical” will be presented in W.M. Turner Auditorium at 10 a.m. June 29, July 10 and 19; at 2 p.m. July 7, 10 and 18; and at 6:30 p.m. June 30 and July 14. General admission tickets are $8. A pay-what-you-can performance is at 2 p.m. July 10.

“Crimes of the Heart” will be presented in the Downstage Theatre at 7:30 p.m. July 5, 7, 12, 13, 17 18 and 19 and at 2 p.m. July 14. General admission tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $5 for students/youth. A pay-what-you-can performance is at 2 p.m. July 14.

For tickets or more information, visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS.