TCC Hosts 2025 Literary Festival with Special Guests Tim Seibles and Chris Brydge
As part of its Annual Literary Festival, TCC partnered with The Muse Writers Center to host an unforgettable evening of poetry and music on Wednesday April 2, at TCC’s Visual Arts and Design Center. The event, which celebrated both National Poetry Month and National Literature Month, featured a unique collaboration between former Virginia Poet Laureate Tim Seibles and renowned upright bassist, and TCC alumnus, Chris Brydge, creating a mesmerizing fusion of poetry and music that captivated the audience.
The TCC Literary Festival is an annual event focused on literature, and has been a beloved tradition for decades, attracting writers, aspiring writers, and literature enthusiasts from the community. This year, to revitalize the festival and reach a wider audience after post-Covid challenges have made it difficult to draw the large crowds that the festival used to attract, TCC decided to partner with The Muse Writing Center for the first time, and the collaboration proved to be a resounding success.
Known for its mission to celebrate creative writing and the literary arts, the Muse Writing Center has grown to become one of the top 10 writers’ centers in the country. They offer in-person, online, and hybrid creative writing classes, workshops, and seminars in every genre, and host diverse and culturally relevant literary events, readings, open mics, and special events at The Muse, around the region, and online for every audience.
Chris Brydge, a local freelance bassist and TCC alumnus, has been performing in the region since 1994, with a rich history that includes playing with the Virginia Symphony Jazz Orchestra and numerous other groups. His addition to the evening brought a new dynamic to Tim Seibles’ poetry, creating a performance that was as much about the synergy between the spoken word and music as it was about the individual talents of the performers.
Tim Seibles, former Poet Laureate of Virginia, is a celebrated poet and educator who taught for many years at Old Dominion University. Seibles is the author of several poetry collections, including Fast Animal, a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award, and most recently Voodoo Libretto: New & Selected Poems. As former Poet Laureate of Virginia, Seibles is a household name in the region, and his performance on April 2 was especially anticipated. The fusion of his poetic voice with Brydges’ upright bass created an engaging and stimulating experience for all in attendance.
“I’m really excited about tonight’s performance,” said TCC English instructor Elizabeth Schleeper before the event. “Tim Seibles is such a beloved figure in our community. He’s known for his powerful poetry, and this collaboration with Chris Brydges, who adds the music of the upright bass, is something new and special. It’s going to be an amazing performance.”
Throughout the evening, Seibles and Brydges alternated between solo performances and collaborative pieces, with Seibles sometimes guiding the audience through the themes and meanings of his poetry. The result was a seamless blending of sound and word, an experience that kept the audience entranced from start to finish.
This event was just one part of the 2025 TCC Literary Festival. Earlier in the day, TCC hosted a book giveaway at the Portsmouth campus, and on Thursday, April 3, students whose work has been selected for inclusion in TCC’s yearly student-produced literary anthology The Channel Marker will read their works at the Chesapeake campus. This publication has been an integral part of the festival for over 20 years, showcasing the creative writing of TCC students and giving them a platform to share their voices with the community.
The TCC Literary Festival continues to inspire and engage audiences in meaningful ways, providing both students and the larger community opportunities to connect with literature, creativity, and the arts.