Del Shores — the queer, Southern creative mind behind many successful films, plays and television series such as Sordid Lives — and his frequent collaborator, Emerson Collins, will be in town at Out Front Theatre this weekend to host the second Del Shores Foundation Writers Festival. The first festival was held in Dallas in 2022.
“We are coming back to your wonderful town,” Shores said in a recent interview. “We love Atlanta, and we’re so thrilled that we’re getting to return for this. This is such a special thing for our foundation.”
The festival and the year-round work of the foundation are designed to provide more opportunities to LGBTQ+ writers from Southern states. In 2023, the foundation hosted its Writers Search competition, and Atlanta playwright and actor Lee Osorio won the top prize with his play A Third Way.
Additionally, three other Atlanta playwrights placed as finalists and semifinalists in the competition: Davin Allen Grindstaff, Emily McClain and John Mabey. A reading of McClain’s script The Poet, The Spy and the Dark Lady, developed by the foundation, was held at Out Front earlier this month.
Collins said it seemed natural to bring the festival to our town to celebrate the Atlanta writers.
“It was very exciting,” he said. “You know, it’s always interesting to see what turns out and who submits. And it just seemed like the universe was trying to tell us that Atlanta was the journey this year.”
This year’s weekend of free events will celebrate distinctly Atlanta art, featuring panel discussions with writers such as Kayla Parker, Leslie Kimbell, Topher Payne, Ava Davis and Chad Darnell. There will also be moderated talks with local theater producers, including Paul Conroy, Jamil Jude and Freddie Ashley.
“I’m so excited that we have Out Front, Out on Film, True Colors and Actor’s Express all represented at the festival,” Collins said. “That’s why we hope to move the festival every year, so we can celebrate different queer communities. Y’all’s is great.”
Also planned for the festival are a screening of Shores’ film Southern Baptist Sissies, attended by the film’s actors — Dale Dickey, Bobbie Eakes, Ann Walker and Collins — as well as a conversation between Shores and celebrated playwright Jack Heifner. A staged reading of the competition’s winning screenplay, Istanbul Crossing, by Timothy Jay Smith, featuring local actors, will be held Sunday.
The festival’s celebration of Southern voices will feature a reading of Osorio’s winning script, performed by the cast and director of the world-premiere production at Actor’s Express scheduled for the fall. The foundation provided a $10,000 grant to Actor’s Express for the production.
Osorio said Shores and Collins have been terrific mentors since the competition began.
“It’s been really inspirational to work with Del and Emerson,” Osorio said in a statement. “They’re both very talented multi-hyphenates: They write, act, produce, run the foundation. It’s been wonderful to not only learn more about how they’ve built incredible careers but to see how they’re using their knowledge and connections to lift up other Southern queer writers.”
Asked if Southern literature is the best, Shores and Collins had no doubt.
“We’re the wrong people to ask because . . . yes, absolutely,” Collins said.
“Of course!” Shores added. “We have Tennessee Williams; we have William Faulkner; we have Eudora Welty; we have Capote! We have To Kill a Mockingbird!”
“We can spin a yarn into Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, you know?” Collins concluded. “There are no better storytellers.”
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Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant.
