The JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival is grateful to accept and acknowledge a generous gift from Moving the Margins, a progam of the Jacksonville Cultural Development Corporation directed by the amazing Shawana Brooks. It is the generosity of community organizations and civic-minded citizens that allows JaxbyJax to continue to bring the words of the talented writers of Jacksonville to their appreciative fans. Thank you!

The JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival VIII is pleased to announce the following slate of writers to read their work at the 2021 event to be held on Friday and Saturday, October 15-16 at the Jessie Ball duPont Center.

Featured Poet: Yvette Angelique

Featured Memoirist: Tricia Booker​

Featured Playwright: Tim Gilmore

Featured Authors: Rodney L. Hurst, Sr. and Rudy F. Jamison, Jr., Ed.D.

John Aloszka

Julie Delegal

Valarie Esguerra

Sohrab Homi Fracis

Melissa Gopp-Warner

Johnny Masiulewicz

Kayla Frances Murray

Tayve Neese

Linda O’Connell

Princess Simpson Rashid

Andres Rojas

Cheri “Junebug” Royal

Erica Susan Saffer

Damon Thomas

Taryn “Love Reigns” Wharwood

Warm congratulations to all the Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville.

With special thanks to Shawana Brooks and the Jacksonville Cultural Development Corporation.

Shawana Brooks, Executive Director, Moving the Margins, Jacksonville Cultural Development Corp. announces the following:

If activists are made and not born, how do we work through tragedy together to make a sustainable difference?

Through his art, artist Overstreet Ducasse brings us closer to examining our obsession with gun possession. Gun violence reverberates in any city where it then becomes a dominant issue for a neighborhood. As Jacksonville’s murder rates continue to rise, over-policing is no longer a singular issue to retraumatizing those affected daily.

While no community is immune, a few have more resistance depending on the resources that are allocated to serve their interests. In underserved communities, circumstances stemming from systematic practices to continued racial dissonance can capsize any improvement or derail progress from activist movements.

Saturday, August 14 | 7:00 PM | The Great Hall at The Jessie

We are honored to have Jacari W. Harris, Executive Director of The George Floyd Memorial Foundation, Inc. as a special guest speaker and our Executive Director Shawana Brooks, at the Triggered: Catalyst to Activist opening. Jacari is a social justice activist, inspirational speaker, and author of “Lost and Found: Finding Success in The Search for Self.”  

Directly following will be an Artist Talk with Overstreet Ducasse discussing his latest series of works Sign of the Times.

Moving the Margins is an immersive artist-in-residence program that redefines civic engagement. This groundbreaking artist-in-residence program is an incubator for BIPOC artists to collaborate with the change agents of Jacksonville to create accessible, immersive art installations and public programming that catalyzes our community toward action.

Visit movingthemargins.org for more information.

Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9:30 am to 5 pm, or by appointment on weekends and after hours. For press and other inquiries please email the gallery at shawana@jcdcjax.org.

WRITERS! There are just NINE days left to apply to read your work at the JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival VIII. You know you want to!