All posts by Darlyn Finch Kuhn

Southern Gothic: What’s old is new again

Vic DiGenti, FWA Regional Director invites us to explore Southern Gothic, old and new:

“Acclaimed American writers like William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Truman Capote, and Carson McCullers established their place in the
traditional Southern Gothic canon. Author Darlyn Finch Kuhn explores
the past and contemporary direction of Southern Gothic in her
presentation, “Weird Characters, Strange Places, and Tough Times:
Writing New Southern Gothic” at the FWA Ponte Vedra Writers meeting on Saturday, September 24 at 10 a.m. at the Ponte Vedra Beach Branch
Library.

In her presentation, Darlyn will discuss how current writers are
rediscovering this fascinating sub-genre dealing with disenfranchised
voices in warped communities, not necessarily set in the American
South. She’ll examine several Southern Gothic classics before moving
into current examples and allow participating writers to generate their own story ideas.

Darlyn Finch Kuhn is that rare animal: a Florida native. Born and
reared in Jacksonville, she obtained an AA from FSCJ (when it was
Florida Junior College), a BA from Rollins College, and an MFA from
Spalding University. She was the 19th writer-in-residence at the Jack
Kerouac Project house in Orlando. Her poetry collections are
Red Wax Rose (published by Shady Lane Press) and Three Houses
(published by Scribbles). Her debut novel, Sewing Holes, was published
by Twisted Road Publications in 2015, and won that year’s Royal Palm
Award from the Florida Writers Association. Since moving back to
Jacksonville in 2017, Darlyn and husband Brad Kuhn are Co-Directors of the JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival.

The coffee will be hot and the room cool. We’ll see you this Saturday
morning.” ~ Vic

Jessica Stark to grace JaxbyJax

Jessica Q. Stark is the author of Buffalo Girl (BOA Editions, forthcoming 2023), Savage Pageant (Birds, LLC, 2020) and four poetry chapbooks, including INNANET (The Offending Adam, 2021). Savage Pageant was named one of the Best Poetry Books of 2020 by The Boston Globe and Hyperallergic. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry, Pleaides, & Glass Poetry Journal, among others. She serves as a Poetry Editor at AGNI and is an Asst. Professor of Creative Writing at UNF.

Jessica will read at 11:00 AM on Saturday, October 29 in the Rooftop Garden.
To see the Event Guide, click here.

JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival IX, a celebration of Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville, will be held on Friday, October 28 and Saturday, October 29, 2022 at the Jessie Ball duPont Center, 40 East Adams Street, Jacksonville, Florida 32202. Click here for directions and parking information.

JaxbyJax is grateful to our generous sponsors: JaxNEXT100Jessie Ball duPont CenterMoving the Margins904WARDHappy Tapir PressBab’s LabJacksonville Literary Arts AllianceThe VolsteadJaxPsychoGeoScribbles, and Brad Kuhn & Associates, LLC. Please click on their names to learn more.

Writing Workshop at Murray Hill Library

The Jacksonville Public Library’s Writer’s Lab will host a workshop from 10:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, October 8, 2022 at the Bill Brinton Murray Hill Branch, located at 918 Edgewood Avenue South.

Talk with Sewing Holes author Darlyn Finch Kuhn about the process of turning life experience into fiction. You never know how great your life stories can be until you free yourself to exaggerate! 

Participants will learn how to:

1.       Free yourself from worry about what people will think about what you write.

2.       Convert friends and family into characters even they won’t recognize.

3.       Ramp up the drama to turn real life into compelling, selling fiction.

Click here for additional information, and to register:

https://jaxpubliclibrary.libnet.info/event/7202884

JaxbyJax Welcomes Michael G. O’Connell

Michael G. O’Connell, a Florida native, is a retired creative director/illustrator who spends much of his time writing and reading. He was first published as part of a Twitter experiment where he and hundreds of others wrote a novella with Neil Gaiman. An award-winning poet, his short stories have appeared online and in print, including The Bacopa Literary Journal and Kaidankai: Ghost and Supernatural Stories. He is currently editing his first novel and illustrating his wife’s children’s book.

Michael will read at 2:30 PM on Saturday, October 29 in the Lecture Hall.
To see the Event Guide, click here.

JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival IX, a celebration of Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville, will be held on Friday, October 28 and Saturday, October 29, 2022 at the Jessie Ball duPont Center, 40 East Adams Street, Jacksonville, Florida 32202. Click here for directions and parking information.

JaxbyJax is grateful to our generous sponsors: JaxNEXT100Jessie Ball duPont CenterMoving the Margins904WARDHappy Tapir PressBab’s LabJacksonville Literary Arts AllianceThe Volstead, JaxPsychoGeo, Scribbles, and Brad Kuhn & Associates, LLC. Please click on their names to learn more.