CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, the original version of this story's headline misrepresented the host of Oscar-nominated screenwriter, Lucy Alibar. Carolina Performing Arts hosted Alibar. The headline has been updated to reflect these changes.
Watch out, William Faulkner; there's a new Southern storyteller.
Thursday night in Historic PlayMaker’s Theatre, Lucy Alibar, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, read aloud some short stories from her new book, "Throw Me on The Burnpile and Light Me Up."
Alibar hails from the Florida Panhandle, the daughter of a pro bono lawyer who had a variety of heart problems and a distrust of religion.
“We follow a school year during which my dad was working on this one capital case,” she said.
During her reading, Alibar used her hands and expressions to emote passages of her book.
"I say grace under top security because Daddy says Jesus gives him a goddamn heart attack,” she read. “We come downstairs, and we avoid all the goddamn cats. The cats give us hookworm and diseases … Mama’s always worried the cats make us seem like white trash.”
A variety of students, faculty and community members were present at the performance for a slew of different reasons.