hi,
I just wanted to comment that I was considering registering for the first time to the writing festival this year as I am a writer native of Chattanooga, but I now live out of town, and I thought this would be fun way to revisit my hometown. My family has always supported the AEC, and they are full of praises for this organization so I hope you take my comment as constructive criticism: When I noticed that no poets are on the guest panel for this year, I was very disappointed and decided against attending the festival. I hope next year the AEC will consider adding poets to this conference. There are so many great Southern poets who could be considered for workshops and readings here. (Paul Guest, a former teacher at UTC and a recent winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize, comes to mind...or perhaps poetry faculty from Vanderbilt's or Memphis' MFA Creative Writing programs, for instance.) Thanks for taking my comment into consideration, and I'll keep my eye out for more poets in future AEC writing festival activities.
-Emily