The Middle Georgia State annual Arts Festival, this year called "Without Margins," will take place Tuesday, March 17, through Friday, March 20, in the College of Arts and Sciences building on the Macon Campus. All events are free and open to the public.

This year is the first time the festival has combined with the MGA Undergraduate Conference to create one unified event focused on the fine arts, research and writing. The 2015 Festival will feature: Spoken Word, Blogging, Digital Art, Found Art, Graffiti Art, Digital Publishing and more.

The keynote speaker is Amanda Golden, a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology and previously holder of a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Poetics at Emory University’s Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. She is the author of Annotating Modernism: Marginalia and Pedagogy from Virginia Woolf to the Confessional Poets (Ashgate, 2015) and the editor of This Business of Words: Reassessing Anne Sexton (UP of Florida, 2016). She is also the Book Review Editor for Woolf Studies Annual and has published in Modernism/Modernity, Virginia Woolf and Twentieth Century Women Writers, Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers’ Libraries: A Handbook, The Ted Hughes Society Journal, Plath Profiles and Woolf Studies Annual. She will speak from 9 to 9:45 a.m. Friday, March 20, in the College of Arts and Sciences building theater.

The rest of the schedule:

9:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 17, "Color Theory and You," project with MGA art professor Lee  Simmons, College of Arts and Sciences building theater.

2 p.m. Tuesday, March 17, Vine Competition Workshop, College of Arts and Sciences building room 124.

11 a.m. Wednesday, March 18, "Blogging with Nicole Thurston," College of Arts and Sciences theater. Thurston, a blogger, freelance writer and Executive Director of the Cannonball House, holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Broadcast Journalism from Georgia College & State University, with a Minor in International Studies. She previously worked as a Radio DJ for two years in Milledgeville  and later as the 5 p.m. and Special Projects Producer for 13WMAZ. She won the Associated Press Award for Best Public Affairs Reporting for the documentary, “Faces of Freedom” and a Gabby Award for Excellence in Broadcasting (Georgia Association of Broadcasters).

2 p.m. Wednesday, March 17, 2015 Fall Line Review Release Party, College of Arts and Sciences building lobby.

11 a.m. Thursday, March 19, Novel Writing Workshop with Robin Grant, Library Lab. Grant published her first novel, Summer’s Winter, in 2014, and her second suspense novel, Jordan’s Shadow, has just been released. Summer's Winter won a bronze medal in the Romance - Suspense category of the International Readers' Favorite Book Awards, and Robin was named 2014 Author of the Year by the Georgia Association of College Stores. With a degree in English, several non-fulfilling jobs under her belt, and a mid-life crisis coming on, Robin returned to school and earned a master's degree in library and information science. She now has her best day job ever as a librarian for Middle Georgia State College, which keeps her young by allowing her to hang out with students.

8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, March 20, Undergraduate Conference, including student panels and keynote speaker Amanda Golden, registration in College of Arts and Sciences building lobby. Yolanda “Y-O” Latimore will be the lunch speaker from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Latimore is a Poet, Entrepreneur, Historian, Writer and Community Activist and is known as Y-O to many. She is the founder and director of Poetic Peace Arts, since 2003. This year, in August, will mark the 11-year anniversary of this arts organization which provides open mic sessions, reading theaters, literacy workshops and more for schools, recreational centers and other venues in the Middle Georgia area.

For more information on the MGA Arts Festival and Undergraduate Conference contact Dr. Sheree Keith [email protected], Dr. Shane Trayers at [email protected] or Dr. Kelly Whiddon at [email protected].