For the first time since the start of the pandemic, authors are making a return to Elon University classrooms in-person. In the English department, this means presentations with writers tying into course content.
Associate professor of English Tita Ramirez hosted poet and author Emilia Phillips as the department’s first in-person speaker on Oct. 20. Phillips spoke to poetry classes in the English department, in addition to performing a live poetry reading in Turner Theater. Live speakers have long been a part of Elon classes, both in the English department and across campus, but they have been on hold for the last year.
Associate professor of English Tita Ramirez said she and other faculty members have been working to bring authors back in-person, citing the importance of listening to the author speak their own words aloud.
“It opens you up to something that you're not going to get if it's just you in your room alone with the book,” Ramirez said. “It’s a whole other thing when you have the writer there, when you hear them reading their work, particularly poets, I think, is really a special thing.”
The benefits of a live event aren’t reserved just for the audience either; the experience of a live event is more engaging for a speaker than an online call, according to Phillips. Getting to know the students makes the whole event feel that much more impactful, Phillips said.
“It was still so wonderful to be with a live reading, with people who are actually actively responding to you, and they're not just like Brady Bunch squares,” Phillips said.
Though there were some initial safety concerns with the event’s indoor location, Phillips said that they felt confident in the event’s space and masking policies.
In addition to the live reading, many students within the English department, such as sophomore Meghan Malone, had the chance to interact with Phillips in the context of their classes.
“I was starstruck when I saw her in class because I’d just been reading her poems for the past week and getting to see her and talk to her in-person was just the coolest thing ever,” Malone said.
The English department’s annual speakers continued through the pandemic, but they all presented over Zoom meetings. Phillips’ live presence is the beginning of this year’s series and it will be followed up in the spring by two speakers focusing on fiction and non-fiction writing, respectively. Both are scheduled to be in-person events.
“It's just such a different thing being in-person, and especially being in the classroom setting; you're outside, but the response, versus being on Zoom, everyone’s just muted, no one really interacts too much, but we had a great discussion altogether,” Malone said. “People were laughing and, you know, it was really great and just not something you can get from just watching a Zoom speaker.” Emilia Phillips came to read poetry, judge a contest, and speak to classes on campus in the creative writing department’s first in-person speaker event since the pandemic.