For writers, January is time to ‘Escape to Create'

January will bring composers, a novelist, a photographer and an expert on food history to Seaside in South Walton for the annual Escape to Create artists’ residency.

The 17-year-old event is a retreat for writers and artists to focus on their creative work, along with giving readings and how-to classes to aspiring creators.

“They were kind enough to offer me a writing fellowship,” John Edge, non-fiction writer and director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, told The Sun. “The extended period of time there gives me a month to finish a book. I’m on a tight deadline: The idea of being at the beach for a month while staring off into the waves, trying to write a book, had a great appeal.”

Edge said he’s working on a book about “street food” served at roadsides from trucks or carts and how the perception of it has changed from “roach coaches” to “the food of the people ... a delivery method for good food.”

In return for the freedom to write, Edge will moderate a panel about street food and how it relates to urban planning —  “I’ll mostly ask questions from smart people and try to get out of the way” — and a presentation about street food, “a virtual tour of street food in America. I’d like many people to get an idea how vital street food is, how widely embraced it is. Many people think of modern street food as an L.A.-based phenomenon, but I can steer you to a Korean taco truck in Oklahoma City.”

Other conference attendees include Jeff Harshbarger, the jazz bass professor at the University of Kansas; environmental and architectural photographer Stephanie Kloss; composer and trumpeter Martin Loyato, who will use Escape to Create to wrap up his Ph.D. work; composer Charles Mason; and novelist and fifth-generation Floridian Scott Morris.

Malayne DeMars of Escape to Create said in a news release that Morris has published two novels, “The Total View of Taftly” and “Waiting for April” and is finishing a third, “Gaines Green.” Morris, she added, was also a presenter at Escape to Create’s fall writing workshop.

Adding a fall 2009 writer’s conference to Escape to Create was a big expansion for the program, which will continue into 2010, DeMars said. In addition, there will be a February artists’ residence to add even more to the 30-A community; the residency will feature author and television director Roger Reid, recording artist Nathan Granner, composer Jeffrey Ruckman and artists Francis X. Pavy and Lyndsey Ogle.