UA’s Poetry Press to Present Annual Festival

From the Black Warrior Review to high-ranking M.F.A. programs, UA’s literary chops regularly receive national recognition. Slash Pine Press is the latest addition. Launched in 2009 by Dr. Patti White, a professor, and Joseph Wood, an instructor, both in the Department of English, Slash Pine Press offers students a hands-on opportunity to conceive and create literary projects, including an annual festival showcasing undergraduate and established writers.

How hands-on is the experience? Slash Pine’s student interns design, promote, and hand-stitch the multi-genre chapbooks the press sells.

This year’s Slash Pine Press Poetry Festival takes place October 12 and 13 and will feature student writers, published authors, and faculty poets reading their own works at several locations: the front lawn of the Gorgas House, Gorgas Library, Green Bar, and the Mellow Mushroom restaurant. Slash Pine interns will sell the handmade Slash Pine Anthology at the festival; the chapbook includes one piece by each of the festival’s featured writers.

Slash Pine Press sponsors an annual chapbook competition and holds readings throughout the academic year, in addition to the yearly festival. The press seeks to emphasize the idea of artistic community and challenge the notion of traditional reading venues. For example, last fall the press held an event called “Slash/Stitch/Burn” where readers wrote creative pieces inspired by Tuscaloosa landmarks and then read these pieces in front of those landmarks.

For more information about Slash Pine Press or this month’s festival, visit .