Hello readers!

As my bio mentions, I’m a member of Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honor society. The society holds a yearly convention with the opportunity for students to submit papers, both critical and creative. This year it was held in Denver, only about an hour drive for me. I thought, “why not?” and I was so glad I attended. It was four days of literary discourse, eloquent speeches, and powerful ideas.

About a year ago, a friend of mine from California moved to Denver. I hadn’t seen in her in a decade, maybe a little more. Her name is Lili, and she is simply a delight. We got some brunch together and each a single strawberry rhubarb Moscow mule, which were fantastic. We sat together and talked for a couple of hours, trying to cram ten or more years of catching up in a short time. She was recently abroad and sweetly presented me a Daruma doll from Japan and chocolate from Romania. I admit, the power of seeing a dear friend after so long caused some tears of joy when I got into my car, and even now as I write this. My heart felt so full, and still does.

By the time we parted, it was time to go to the Sheraton in Denver. It’s a lovely hotel that welcomes guests with a coffee and cocktail bar right in the lobby. I got registered and had time to get a drink at said bar, and a pizza at the attached-to-the-lobby YardHouse for happy hour before the opening speeches. Local authors Emily Perez, Wayne Miller, and Nicky Beer read their poetry, all of which were excellent. If you enjoy poetry, I strongly encourage looking into all of them. All three poet’s works were deeply personal and said huge truths about humanity. Nicky’s poem felt especially powerful to me as it dealt with the anti-LGBTQ+ atrocities happening all over the country right now.

Something I found so great about Sigma Tau Delta was the incredible diversity present at the convention. People from all walks of life, and a wide age range were present. We were all connected, though, by our mutual love of literature and language studies. It is impossible to discuss literature without taking Ethnic, and LGBTQ+ perspectives into consideration. However, to see it in person was mind-blowing. They even had preferred pronoun pins at registration, including non-binary options. I am so proud to be a part of an organization that fosters, or perhaps attracts, diversity such as this.

The next day, I drove back to Denver very early, now with a bag packed for the hotel. I made sure to leave Mini (my cat) big bowls of food and water, and poured a great deal of water for my seedlings as well and hoped dearly they would make it the two-and-a-half days remaining. The first presentation I went to that morning was a great session on navigating traditional publishing. Our current alumni representative, who has published several works, gave us some excellent strategies and resources to assist in acquiring an agent. She even kept her presentation permanent so that everyone who it could have the links and resources in perpetuity. As I’m now about halfway through the narrative of Last Ark, I will be querying for an agent before too long.

I should point out that except for the keynote speeches or other major sessions, most time slots have somewhere around six to ten separate sessions. There were some difficult choices to make, and some cool looking sessions to miss. I say this because I feel like my personal experience only scratched the surface of the whole convention.

The next session was a roundtable on imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is the idea someone feels they don’t deserve accolades for accomplished work, and in this case it kind of centered on feeling that within being a part of the honor society. One presenter had some interesting things on how intersectionality interacts with imposter syndrome to make the feeling even stronger. The main takeaway I got from it was that the best way to combat that feeling is finding mentorship and fostering a community of positivity. Thankfully, many of the professors I’ve had at school have been highly encouraging. I wouldn’t mind being someone’s individual Padawan though. After a lunch break I went to a reading of LGBTQ+ short stories written by some of the students. They were all really excellent and one story that really stood out to me was from the perspective of a nine to ten year old boy who got a new homeroom teacher. The boy’s father becomes angry when he finds out that the teacher is gay. It was so powerful and eloquent. To see successful peers felt encouraging to me.

Ancient and Modern Language was the title of the next session, and each student presented a paper with how ancient languages have affected English and why. The paper that caught everyone’s attention was a comparison of the Trojan War and Robert Baratheon’s Rebellion in Game of Thrones. I hadn’t considered the parallels before, but the student presented a well-thought-out critical paper on the subject, and she ended up winning an award for it. She talked about Helen and Lyanna Stark are similar characters, who have a war fought over them. Robert lines up with Menelaus since Lyanna/Helen was betrothed to him, but left with Rhaegar Targaryen/Paris. Perhaps the most interesting comparison is how Tywin Lannister, Hand of the Mad King Aerys, came to the gates of King’s Landing with a Lannister Army at his back and how that army is representative of the Trojan Horse. Once inside the city, they secure King’s Landing from the Mad King. Her fascinating paper was well deserving of the award she received.

I had a dinner break then and got a Nashville hot chicken sandwich from the lobby bar, which was delicious. Then it was time for one of the keynote speeches. The Toni Morrison Book Club is comprised of Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, and Piper Kendrix Williams, and I don’t know if the words exist to express how powerful their words were. Moving and poignant don’t seem to be strong enough. I teared up several times throughout their readings and thoughts. They told each other’s secrets in their book each writing the story of another person. They shared them with us, and the story that stuck out to me most was about how one of the women’s neighbor left a deer carcass to rot on his lawn. She drove passed one day and with the help of her son, carefully moved the carcass to the side of the road so the city could pick it up, but by so doing they had to go into his yard. She was worried for her son, as this neighbor was a white man, and she feared he had guns, and may shoot them (Bennett, et al). Their collective memoir on the late Toni Morrison is a book I will be purchasing very soon. I regret not getting a copy and getting it signed by the authors. Their eye-opening experiences of racism, bigotry, and how Toni Morrison’s work affected them and helped them were incredible to listen to. I will be buying a copy soon, and I cannot recommend enough that my readers purchase one as well.

I stuck around for a really fun part of the convention entitled “Bad Poetry” in which students compete to produce the worst possible poetry and then boo each other off stage after a hilarious onslaught of terrible rhymes and puns. It was a good laugh and I met a couple of ladies briefly. I thought the funniest one was about how the narrators sock curled around his heel inside his shoe. I retired to my room for the night, reflecting how I enjoyed spending the down time working on Last Ark as I had pages due the coming Sunday (this past one!).

Friday morning I attended another roundtable on the places an English degree can take you. When I tell some people that I’m a writing and English major, I often hear things like “why don’t you study something useful?” or “English degrees don’t provide jobs/good jobs.” It’s about half the time I hear that, the other half typically thinks it’s cool. Of course all us English majors know it’s not cool, it’s super nerdy. One presentation from students from Northern Michigan showed some statistics on graduation rates, job placement, and income. I can confidently say it is not a “useless” degree and actually opens a wide range of career paths.

The next session was on Frankenstein, which is a personal favorite. The chair from that session happened to be named Justine and she was missing from the session. The irony wasn’t wasted on me, and I wondered if that had been intentional. All three students had excellent papers. One student interpreted the work through a Lacanian psycho-analytical lens, another compared the work to Paradise Lost, and the third presentation dealt with domesticity. After each session was a Q&A, and the discussion generated by this session was particularly engaging. It was noted that Frankenstein is well suited toward myriad interpretations and most, if not all, lenses of literary theory. In my own class not long ago, I had used Freudian psycho-analytic criticism and, even within the same lens, a Lacanian scope produced a drastically different interpretation. The student talked about how Victor, in creating the Creature, is repressing his own homosexual nature. She explained that his goal is creating life without a woman. Whereas the analysis I used for my class involved the Oedipal dynamics at play within the Frankenstein family. The way Victor talks about his mother or how he replaces her with Elizabeth lines up well under Freudian criticism. In addition, the way Victor speaks for his father could reflect Mary Shelley’s own feelings on her father. I found her analysis really interesting as it was one I hadn’t considered before. Frankenstein happens to be excellent for adapting multiple lenses of interpretation. There’s good reason the literary community is still talking about the book two hundred years after its original publication.

It was then time for the Brenda Peynado’s keynote speech. Peynado’s first fiction publication The Rock Eaters, was the Common Reader for the society this year. It is a collection of short stories of mixed genres, including magical realism, sci-fi, and fantasy. Peynado talked about how reading a book is like entering a maze, we get lost in the story, in the interpretations, and eventually find our way through, only for us lovers of literature to dive right back into another maze. After some brief readings, and sharing the real life details of some story elements, I was compelled to purchase her book. She told us about the trucks that the U.S. sends south of the border to scan other trucks for people, and how it was a great opportunity to make one radioactive and create super-heroes for a story (Peynado). Then, since the line didn’t seem too long yet, jumped in to get it signed. She wrote “May you always find your way to the maze, books lighting the way!”

I felt exhausted, and hungry. I retired to my room and got caught up on the most recent episodes of “The Mandalorian” and “The Bad Batch,” (Both are property of Lucasfilm, and therefore, Disney). I’m a huge Star Wars fan, and love all of it. The two part season finale of “The Bad Batch” was awesome! Overall the series has kind of oscillated between somewhat unexciting filler episodes and really great story. Though, I will say the filler episodes do include some cool character development things. Anyway, it seemed like a good way to get in the mood for the Star Wars Roundtable the following morning.

I woke up painfully early, and got ready for the day. I made my way to the elevator and, still half asleep, thought about the final day of the convention. I lazily looked to my right and who should be standing next to me, but Brenda Peynado. We chatted for a while before we had to go to our respective sessions. It was a pleasure to meet her.

The first session was a discourse on comparing the Skywalker Saga trilogies to different era epics. So, the original trilogy coincides with the ancient epic, such as The Iliad, or The Odyssey, the prequel trilogy to the modern epic such as Paradise Lost, and the sequel trilogy was compared to the post-modern epic such as Catch-22. One of the panelists dressed as Leia, cinnamon buns and all, and I knew it would be a good session. Since I could probably write an entire post on just this session (or any other for that matter) I won’t get into too much detail, but I came away from it with a few new perspectives on the whole Star Wars Universe.

Film and Cultural studies was the subject of my next session. I hadn’t seen any of the films under discussion, but I understood the perspectives used for analysis. My readers may ask “why discuss films with literature or literary theory?” The answer is that films start the same way – writing. We can apply a lot of the same interpretative strategies to film as the narrative still contains themes, character development, or literary theory perspectives. For example, Feminism, as a literary criticism, is well apt to viewing the Star Wars franchise. There are tons of female/feminine presenting characters who break with what could be considered “traditional female gender roles.” Padme, Leia, Rey, Jyn Erso, Bo-Katan Kryze all go vehemently against the notion of the “domesticated” woman.

It seemed appropriate to choose a fiction reading for the final session before the awards luncheon. The students each read their pieces dealing in some way with self-blame. One student in particular, I thought, captured beautifully an anxiety induced line of thinking leading to a place of “everything is my fault.” It’s a common feeling and one that I’m not unfamiliar with myself. To hear that in prose was fantastic. After all, isn’t literature meant to tell about the human experience?

With presentations over, it was time for the Awards Luncheon. I ran into a student with whom I had briefly spoken at Bad Poetry. We found a table to sit together with some others she knew, and it was nice to get a chance to interact with people a little more personally. The Luncheon was nice and all the accolades made me want to submit something for next year. I’ll have a few classes left where appropriate papers will be written. It is competitive, but if I were to win prize money I would put it toward any associated costs on initiating the publishing process. Agents won’t charge up front, but editors before querying will have their own costs.

The convention had come to a close. I had spent any down time working on Last Ark. It felt like a glimpse of my future. Attending literary conferences, writing, and simply being immersed in the world of literature. I am so glad and proud that I joined Sigma Tau Delta. To be a part of something so diverse and large is amazing. Especially since it is a society built around books, poetry, literature, analysis, language, and academia. I felt as if Denver had been chosen just for me to be able to attend. The drive home was filled with contemplation and reflection. I thought of how each time slot had several sessions and I wondered how much I had missed. It was such a fulfilling experience, and I got a great deal out of it. I fully intend to submit for a presentation next year, and if any of you are also Deltans, “Meet Me in St. Louis!”

Yours truly,

Kathryn

Works Cited & Disclaimer:

Bennett, Juda, et al. The Toni Morrison Book Club. The University of Wisconsin Press, 2020.

Peynado, Brenda. The Rock Eaters: Stories. Penguin Books, 2021.

With the exception of Last Ark and this post itself, I do not own any of the titles, literature, films/TV shows, or student papers mentioned herein. Any accompanying thoughts are my own and do not reflect the opinions of Sigma Tau Delta, any other authors, or organizations.