A gathering of approximately 40 people filled tables, booths and stools at Circle and Square Brewing late Tuesday afternoon for the latest Craft at the Brewery event entitled “The Language of Place: featuring John Grisham Writer-In-Residence Jerriod Avant.”
Avant is a native of Mississippi hailing from Longtown, a small community near Batesville. He graduated from Jackson State University and holds MFA degrees from Spalding University and New York University.
The event important offered new writers the opportunity to explore the connection between place and and the craft of writing.
“I hope that folks left with a sense of everything they need to embody the places that they care about: the physical world that makes up the places they think about, the emotional attachments that they have to the places they’re from and those that inform their lives most fully,” Avant said.
Avant also noted that writing about the concept of place can bring to light the similarities and differences that people may share.
“I feel like once you’re in a room of your own, there are themes and conversations you can have that aren’t as easy to have in a room with people that are from different geographical places. So it feels really good to be able to write into the space that we share culturally, politically and the places that we share in terms of family and images,” Avant said. “I think it’s important to show that folks from small, rural areas have just as much range of human experience as anybody from any other part of the world.”
Avant spoke about the importance of being around other creative people.
“I haven’t been to a lot of craft talks. So when this opportunity came around I knew I couldn’t miss it because I see how valuable it is to sit down and think about your writing alongside other writers. We’re always in somewhat of a revision process, and if you’re thinking alongside somebody else, chances are you’re going to come across more ideas and tools that you can pull into your writing,” Avant said.
Craft at the Brewery talks are curated by UM’s Department of Writing and Rhetoric. LaToya Faulk, first-year writing instructor and 2022 University of Mississippi MFA in fiction graduate, introduced Avant.
“The reason why we did this is because we wanted to create a space for not just faculty but community writers and readers as well,” Faulk said. “To come together and take a pause from their work life. A lot of the faculty members in our department teach heavy loads, so it’s really an opportunity for you to come be in fellowship with other writers.”
Faulk explained how the speakers and instructors for the sessions are recruited.
“The ideal is to find a published local writer in the community who would be willing to share techniques that they’ve used in their own writing,” Faulk said. “But we also wanted this to be a warm space, a space where writers can establish networks, connections and relationships.”
Avant read autobiographical vignettes to the crowd that explored his upbringing and experiences in northwest Mississippi with the axis being the topic of place.
When audience members entered Circle and Square, they were invited to grab a copy of the prompt that Avant had created for the event, inviting the audience to participate in a writing practice centered around the idea of place.
Kirstyn Young, an English major from Dallas and attendee of Craft at the Brewery, said that the Oxford area benefits greatly from events like these.
“I heard about it from my creative writing course,” Young said. “I think it gives people who have a niche or are working on something that kind of outlet.”
Gage Vieno, a journalism major from Boston, agreed with Young about the importance of creative events.
“I think there should definitely be more stuff like this. I think it’s something that brings the community together,” Vieno said. “There’s a lot of students who feel like there’s no place for them and have no community. When you host an event like this that has a center idea to it, those people can come together and maybe meet some friends and learn about one another’s passions.”
