Story by David Wright inspires filmmaker

“Remember, No Thinking,” a story by Furman writing instructor David A. Wright, will be used in a short film by Lexington filmmaker John Daniel Fisher. Wright’s story was the winner of the 2011 South Carolina Fiction Project sponsored by the South Carolina Arts Commission. The 10-minute film by Fisher is one of 15 films in production for the 2013 Expecting Goodness Short Film Festival to be held March 23 at the David Reid Theatre in Spartanburg.

“Remember, No Thinking” is about a lower middle-class family in the fictional small town of Whitehead, S.C. The main character, Ernest Hopgood, is a high school football player with lots of potential who feels pressure from his coach and family to live up to their dreams of gridiron glory. Meanwhile, Hopgood’s true aspirations may lie in more artistic pursuits. Inspired by Voltaire’s Candide, “Remember, No Thinking” satirizes the nearly-holy football culture of the rural South.

The Expecting Goodness Short Film Festival brings together writers and artists from the Hub City Writers Project and HUB-BUB, a nonprofit that builds community through dynamic arts and ideas in Spartanburg and across the Southeast. The Hub City Writers Project is a nonprofit in Spartanburg dedicated to cultivating readers and nurturing writers through its independent small press, community bookstore and diverse literary programming.

Wright is pursuing a Ph.D. in composition and rhetoric from the University of South Carolina where he also earned an M.F.A. in creative writing in 2008. Wright is currently writing a dissertation on the rhetoric of 20th century southern humor.

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

The Expecting Goodness Short Film Festival celebrates the literature and film of the state of South Carolina, providing opportunities for building a community between writers, filmmakers, and specialists across the film industry. Through community gatherings, workshops, lectures, and the concluding film festival during which the completed films will be screened and awarded prizes, the project’s mission is to showcase emerging South Carolina writers and filmmakers, engage and educate the community on numerous aspects of the industry, and generate enthusiasm for film.