Members of the University of Mississippi and Oxford communities can listen and learn about queer ideas and representation in literature by attending the Glitterary Festival, a queer literary festival with a broad definition of what is literature and what is queer.

The festival, set for this Friday (Apr. 29) in the Gertrude C. Ford Ballroom at The Inn at Ole Miss, is intended to spark conversation about boundaries surrounding queer identity and about race, class and issues of intersectionality.

Beth Ann Fennelly, UM professor of English and co-founder of the festival, is ready for community members to celebrate the university’s queer writers.

“I founded the festival with one of the graduate students in our MFA program, Kate Leland, to celebrate the robust population of queer writers in our communities,” Fennelly said. “Unlikely as it seems, Oxford has become a place where important and soulful work is being done in the intersection of queer studies and literature.

“We want to create a space for these nontraditional conversations to take place.” 

Hosted by the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies in conjunction with Oxford Pride, the festival will feature roundtable discussions with renowned writers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown.

“We were delighted to partner with Beth Ann Fennelly to organize the Glitterary Festival as part of this year’s Oxford Pride,” said Jamie Harker, director of the Isom Center. “One of our core goals at the Sarah Isom Center is the creation of inclusive spaces, both on campus and in the larger community.”

“We have been expanding events, with community and university partners, over the years as part of Oxford Pride. A literary festival focusing on LGBTQ+ authors was a welcome addition to our broader array of events, including the Pride parade, Lavender Graduation and an annual drag show at the Lyric.”

The festival schedule includes:

• 9-10 a.m. – Queer Ecology Roundtable
• 10:15-11:15 a.m. – ACE Roundtable
• 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. – Writing the Queer Body
• 2:30-3:30 p.m. – Getting Queer Words into the World
• 3:45-4:45 p.m. – Queer Intersections
• 5-6 p.m. – Happy Hour
• 6:15-7:30 p.m. – Keynote Readings

All events are free and open to the public. For more information on the Glitterary Festival, go to https://glitteraryfestival.com, and click here for all Oxford Pride events.