Southern Fried Writing Conference - 2026
This event will consist of a series of workshops and breakout groups that cover writing, editing, and performance. There will be no competitions, but there may be an open mic or casual readings for feedback and practice purposes. This weekend is about strengthening your skill in your craft and performance.
Registration is now open! Check back frequently as we will be rolling out more information soon!
2026 Southern Fried Writer’s Conference
Oct 15th – 18th in Lafayette, LA
Conference Information
Registration is now open. Reserve your spot today!
Homewood Suites by Hilton Lafayette-Airport, LA
201 Kaliste Saloom Road
Lafayette, LA 70508
Phone: 337-264-6044
GROUP CODE – SFP
Sharonda “Eccentrich” Richardson – Kill Your Darlings: Editing Without Attachment
Editing is more than fixing grammar, punctuation, and spelling, it is having the courage to challenge what we’ve written. Kill Your Darlings: Editing Without Attachment is an interactive editing workshop focused on cutting the fluff, concise language, and learning when the lines we love most may be holding our work back. Participants will explore how emotional attachment can make it difficult to edit a poem to its greatness. Through practical exercises, participants will practice creating distance from their writing, identify the true heart of a poem or literary work, and making intentional choices about what stays, what changes, and what has to go. Traditional editing techniques will be woven throughout and participants will leave with practical strategies for becoming both the passionate writer and the ruthless editor their work deserves.
Sharonda “Eccentrich” Richardson is a poet, playwright, cultural curator, arts administrator, and Founder/CEO of Be Eccentrich, a nonprofit organization using arts and culture to strengthen communities and expand access to creative experiences. With more than a decade of experience, Richardson has developed arts education, youth wellness, community engagement, artist development, and cultural programming serving thousands of youth and adults. Her work includes directing festivals, producing theatrical and literary programming, facilitating artist residencies, and developing arts-based initiatives that address mental well-being and social connection. Her work has expanded from South Florida into rural Georgia and internationally through cultural exchange initiatives connecting artists in the United States and West Africa. Richardson is committed to creating equitable opportunities for artists while using creativity as a catalyst for individual and community transformation.
Crystalyn Whitaker Nelson, M.Ed – The ABCs of Performance Poetry
Objectives:
- Learn and practice performance best practices
- Learn and consider employing poetic devices in performance
- Write a couplet using a poetic device and employ ABCs in recitation
Crystalyn Whitaker Nelson, M.Ed is an artist, educator, and culture bearer from and residing in Shrveport, LA. She is the Caddo Parish Poet Laureate. Her artistic resume consists of countless spoken word performances, KAT Residency, 2026 Performance Critic’s Choice at Critical Mass 14, SRAC literary fellowship, SouthArts Artists of Color Fellow, and literary magazine publications. Her life’s work The Colored Port Saga is an immersive, multi-media experience that blends poetry, visual art, photography, and hands-on activities with historical and statistical data to lead viewers on a journey through the Black experience form the ports to the present. She is married to award-winning Chef Melvin Nelson Jr.
John Warner Smith – Writing a Poem
This workshop by John Warner Smith, an awarding-winning poet and former Louisiana Poet Laureate, is designed for emerging and published poets. Participants will learn “how is poem is born” and will be taught basis concepts, buildings blocks, and techniques for writing poetry, including form, structure, sound, imagery, and emotional appeal. During the workshop, participants will write one of several types of poems that will be presented. Advice will also be given about publishing poetry in literary journals and magazines.
John Warner Smith was the Poet Laureate of Louisiana from 2019 to 2021 and is the only African American male to serve in the office in its 84-year history. Smith has published five collections of poetry, most recently Our Shut Eyes, published by MadHat Press in 2021. His sixth collection, From the Flinty Rock: New & Selected Poems, is forthcoming from Legacy Book Press in 2027.
Smith’s novella, For All Those Men: When the KKK Threatened to Take Control of Louisiana, was published by UL Press in November 2022. Sisters of Gavinville, his first full-length novel, was published in December 2024 by Between the Lines Publishing. Smith’s memoir, I, Too Am Tar Baby, was published by Legacy Book Press in April 2025. His second novella, Murders at Mer Rouge, was published by Between the Lines Publishing in 2026.
A Cave Canem Fellow, Smith is a 2020 Poet Laureate Fellow of the Academy of American Poets and is winner of the 2019 Linda Hodge Bromberg Literary Award. He earned his MFA at the University of New Orleans.
Smith is now retired from full-time work and is an Adjunct Instructor of English at Southern University in Baton Rouge.
- 18 Years or older
- Poet and/or Spoken Word Artist
- Must be a member of Southern Fried Poetry Inc. Become a member for $30 a year.
Southern Fried Poetry Inc