[slideshow_deploy id=’12175′]This Thursday will mark the third annual Write Place Festival, where the Statesboro community can gather together at the Averitt Center to enjoy music and readings from featured writers.

The festival is a three-day collaboration event organized by Statesboro Magazine, The Averitt Center, Statesboro Convention & Visitor’s Bureau and the Writing and Linguistics Department, which will take place Nov. 14-16. The event will start at 7 p.m. on the 14^th with readings by the featured authors and music by award-winning songwriter, Tony Arata.

“Georgia Southern is the only university in the state of Georgia that offers writing and linguistics as a major. We believe Statesboro is the birthplace of future writers. We’re not just the ‘write’ place once a year. The ‘write’ place is who we are,” Statesboro Magazine editor Jenny Foss said.

The Write Place readers include Georgia Southern University faculty from the Writing and Linguistics Department, Zach Bush, Sarah Domet and Christina Olson. The other readers include GSU alumni Jordan Fennell and Statesboro High School student Maya Van Wagenen.

“I’m really excited about the featured readings. I’m especially excited to hear Maya read. I read her essay last year, and it just blew me away,” previous featured writer and Georgia High School creative writing competition judge Emma Bolden said.

15-year-old Maya has a DreamWorks movie deal and her first book coming out in 2014 titled “Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek.” Maya was discovered after winning the high school creative writing contest that The Write Place sponsors.

The Write Place Festival will feature multiple different styles of writing including fiction, nonfiction, poetry and creative writing.

“This is a really awesome event. It showcases a very diverse and talented group of writers with very different genres. All the writers are connected to the Statesboro area in some way. This event shows that writing is not just important to the university but to the community as a whole,” Bolden said.