Festival’s 5th year brings authors, artists, musicians

All Write, coming early March, will return for the fifth year in a row. The 2019 festival will feature a space theme to give an out-of-this-world experience.

For one week, the day-in, day-out experience of the school day will be replaced with movies, performances and speakers.

Continuing from last year, the festival will feature a movie with a question-and-answer session following the screening.

The documentary film, “Day One,” follows a group of teen refugees resettled in St. Louis who try to overcome the trauma of their past.  The director, Lori Miller, and special guests from the film will be present post-after.

A second movie, “Parallel Chords” will show in the library Wednesday.

This year in particular brings more attention to creators of spoken word and poetry, with Tongo Eisen-Martin returning for a consecutive year, as well as Alex Luu and Ashlee Haze performing.

Around 20 speakers from this year’s line up will be flying in from out of town.

English teacher and All Write organizer Steve Leftridge said, “I think people will find the assemblies and the lineup to be particularly powerful this year.”

The festival also celebrates artists of the musical kind, with St. Louis rock band The Mighty Pines and senior students Owen Ragland and Christian Raigan performing on Friday.

Besides performing, student participation in All Write is always present. Naturally, the student writing contest, named after alum author Jonathan Franzen, will feature student-submitted written works.

Art Write and Screen Write, showcasing student artists and filmmakers will also make a return.

Ragain said, “All Write is great for students because it allows them to step away from their class settings that they’re used too and actually experience meaningful life lessons from authors and all sorts of people with varying professions. It’s something that not a lot of schools do and we are very lucky to have.”

The All Write Festival will take place March 4-8, in Knight Auditorium, the Black Box Theater, and a new Satellite Stage in part of the library.

 

Lindsey Bennett – Feature Editor This is feature editor Lindsey Bennett’s first year on ECHO staff, but she made several contributions while taking journalism class her sophomore year. She has attended JournalismSTL’s Spring Conference and MIPA’s J-Day.

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