GREENEVILLE – The Tusculum University Band and leaders of The Tusculum Review are collaborating to present an evening of music and to celebrate the newest edition of the higher education institution’s international literary journal.
This is the cover for the newest edition of The Tusculum Review.
The free event, open to the public, will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 2, in the Marilyn duBrisk Theatre of the Annie Hogan Byrd Fine Arts Center on campus. Called “Songs and Stories,” this event will feature the band playing a variety of songs interspersed with speeches connected to the unveiling of this year’s Review.
Originally, the event was going to serve as the band’s inaugural solo event to showcase its music, but when the Review’s launch date needed to change, the group graciously offered to join forces with the journal’s leaders to create “Songs and Stories.”
“We are pleased to partner with everyone associated with the Review by combining the written word with music to create a wonderful event,” said Dr. David Gonzalez, the band’s director. “We are excited to spotlight our music and our students as we continue to move the band program forward and welcome the opportunity to be part of honoring many outstanding writers and others who worked on the Review behind the scenes.”
Among the songs the band will play are “Second Suite in F” by Gustav Holst, “To a Wild Rose” by Edward McDowell, “Chorale” from Jupiter by Gustav Holst and “Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius. Band members Gracie Akins, Hughston Burnheimer, Samantha Nelson, Jyclyn West and Sarah White will also perform solos. The band will conclude with the Tusculum alma mater and fight songs.
This edition of The Tusculum Review is Volume 17. During the event, assistant editor Macy Woods, a senior who is seeking a bachelor’s degree in English, with a concentration in literature, will provide an overview of this edition.
Projects coordinator Aaron Phillips, a junior political science major, will highlight poetry in the review and read a couple of the works. Dr. Desirae Matherly, the nonfiction editor, chair of the English and Languages Department and a professor of English, will talk about that part of the Review and read one of the essays.
Assistant fiction editor Christine Moore, a sophomore seeking a bachelor’s degree in psychology, will discuss that section of the book and introduce the keynote speaker, L.A. Hawbaker, winner of the 2021 Fiction Prize from Tusculum. Hawbaker will deliver her remarks remotely.
Hawbaker is an award-winning writer based in Chicago, who has lived in different parts of the country and world. Her website says her prose explores place, cultural borders, travel, continuity and disconnection as well as the search for home. She writes pop culture analyses of film and books through a feminist perspective.
Publications where her work has appeared include:
- Allium, a journal of poetry and prose
- Bright Wall/Dark Room, which bills itself as an online magazine devoted to exploring the relationship between movies and the business of being alive
- Newcity, a magazine that examines Chicago’s culture with a singular perspective on the creators who make the art and producers who bring it to the world.
To learn more about Hawbaker, please visit www.lahawbaker.com.
“This volume of the Review is a credit to the countless hours of collaboration between our student staff, our accomplished genre editors, contest judge Amy Sturgis and the 22 writers and three artists featured in this issue,” said Kelsey Trom, the Review’s editor and an associate professor of English at Tusculum. “I’m convinced that the quality and urgency of the work we publish is as essential as the poems, stories, essays and plays in the most widely recognized literary journals.”
Trom highlighted many accomplishments of the students and professional writers this year. Those achievements included partnerships with illustrators Hank Collie, Sam Gray and William Retz to create a visually dynamic issue and fiction chapbook as well as students’ work to craft a mission statement and redesign the website for the Review and write book reviews. In addition, Clay Matthews, the journal’s poetry editor, read from his new book, “Four-Way Lug Wrench,” at the Southern Book Festival.
“’Songs and Stories’ will be a delightful event,” Trom said. “We are thrilled to highlight the musicality of the written word and grateful to Dr. Gonzalez and his musicians for sharing their stage.”
To purchase a copy of the Review, please visit https://ttr.tusculum.edu/.