Heather Parton, a liberal political blogger who writes under the pseudonym “Digby”, will read posts from her blog, Hullaballoo, on Tuesday, Nov. 13 as part of the University of Central Arkansas’s Artists in Residence series.
The reading will take place at 7.30 p.m. in the College of Business building 107.
After commenting on liberal blogs by Bartcop and Atrios for some time, the Santa Monica blogger was inspired to launch Hullaballoo “because one function of blogs is to create a ruckus.” Since then, she has utilized her blog as a platform to express her liberal political views.
She blogged as “Digby” and styled her page with a screaming picture of Howard Beale, the fictional newscaster from the film Network. In 2005, Parton won the Koufax award for blog writing and in 2007 she won the Paul Wellstone Award on behalf of the progressive blogosphere at a conference by Campaign for America’s Future.
Until Parton made a public appearance at the 2007 to accept her award, most people had assumed Digby was a man. At the time, the stereotype was that most pseudonym bloggers who blogged about politics were male. Digby proved them wrong. She was one of the first female political bloggers to write forcefully about politics — and, specifically, to address women’s issues.
Parton’s writing reflects her passion for human justice.
“She doesn’t like tasers. She thinks they’re deadly and an abuse of power,” Terry Wright, UCA professor of writing, said. “She’s very concerned about women’s issues, fearing their rights are being chipped away. She also writes about the media, referring to them as ‘the village,’ and is rather critical that some of the established media aren’t fulfilling their watchdog job.”
Wright proposed the residency for Parton to read her posts at UCA.
“After Arianna Huffington, Digby is probably the best known female political blogger,” Wright said. “She is a really good writer. She writes with so much elegance. There’s considerable feeling in her writing. She has the ability to cut through spin and get to the heart of things. Her metaphors, comparisons and sense of history are amazing. She also asserts her own opinion and isn’t afraid of mincing words or mentioning names. ”
As part of the residency, Parton will give a craft talk in Thompson Hall 338 at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 14.
Both her reading and craft talk are free and open to the public.
The Artist in Residence program is funded by UCA’s arts fee and administered by the College of Fine Arts and Communication. For more information, call the Office of the Dean, College of Fine Arts and Communication, at (501) 450-3293 or e-mail jdmiller@uca.edu.
For more information about Parton’s visit contact Wright at (501) 450-5108or terryw@uca.edu.
