Jennifer Nettles Among Those Headlining the Agnes Scott Writer's Festival

Grammy-winning singer/songwriter and Agnes Scott graduate Jennifer Nettles is among those headlining the 40th annual Writer's Festival at .

Nettles will give a reading and performance on March 31, at 8 p.m. in Presser Hall. Tickets are free and can be picked up in the box office starting at 6:30 p.m. 

Nettles will be joined by Danzy Senna, author of "Caucasia," and Arda Collins, an accomplished poet during the festival, which runs from March 31 to April 1.

Past visiting writers to the festival include authors Eudora Welty, Julia Alvarez, John Updike, Junot Diaz, Margaret Atwood, and others. Agnes Scott has hosted the festival since 1972.

During the festival, Nettles and the other headlining guests will give public readings and performances, conduct workshops and award prizes in the statewide literary competition.

Student writers from other colleges and universities from around the state take part and submit their fiction, poetry, personal essays and one-act plays to the Writers’ Festival contest. This year, a songwriting contest was added to the festival in honor of Nettles, who is a graduate of Agnes Scott College.

Agnes Scott publishes the finalists’ works in the festival magazine and the visiting writers award prizes for the best work in each category. All finalists attend a workshop with one of the visiting writers.

A Georgia native and 1997 graduate of Agnes Scott College, Nettles is a Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter. She is lead vocalist Sugarland. Before forming Sugarland, Nettles performed regularly at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur. Besides a 2009 Grammy Award for Best Country Song for “Stay," Nettles has also recorded a No. 1 hit with Bon Jovi, performed at the Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial in 2009 and participated in the new recording of “We Are the World” to benefit Haiti in 2010.

Senna is the bestselling author of the novels, "Caucasia," and "Symptomatic," and the memoir, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?: A Personal History."

Her debut novel, "Caucasia," won several awards, including the Alex Award from the American Library Association, and the Los Angeles Times’ Best Book of the Year Prize. The book explores the story of biracial sisters growing up in racially charged Boston during the 1970s. Her memoir, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night," explores the forces of history at work in the power and failure of her parents’ unlikely union. 

Collins's collection of poems, "It Is Daylight," won the 2008 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize. The volume have received praise, including, “a book of astonishing originality and intensity, unprecedented, unrepeatable.” Her poems have recently appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review and A Public Space. A former Glenn Schaeffer fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Collins is pursuing a Ph.D. in poetry at the University of Denver. 

The scheduled Agnes Scott College 2011 Writers’ Festival events are free and open to the public. Call for tickets – 404-471-6430.

A schedule of events include:

• Reading by Danzy Senna

Thursday March 31, 4 p.m.
Dana Fine Arts Building, Winter Theatre
Book signing and reception will follow the reading.

• Reading and performance by Jennifer Nettles

Thursday March 31, 8 p.m.
Presser Hall, Gaines Chapel. 
The event is free but tickets are required. 

• Reading by Arda Collins

Friday April 1, 2 p.m.
Dana Fine Arts Building, Winter Theatre