COURTESY: COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS
Jack Pendarvis first came to campus as a Grisham Writer-in-Residence in 2007 and stayed to teach fiction in the MFA and English departments until 2013. Then Pendarvis got a very important phone call.
“There was an opening, and my friend Kent Osborne, who’s the head of story, thought of me,” Pendarvis said. “A couple of other people who work on the show had read my books. So, they tried me out, and I seemed to fit in, so they asked me to stay on.”
Pendarvis came onboard “Adventure Time” in the middle of writing season five, in October 2012.
Pendarvis will return to Ole Miss tonight for a discussion on his work with Adventure Time as well as showing some of his episodes tonight at 7 p.m. in the Overby Auditorium. The event will be moderated by Bill Griffith and is co-sponsored by Cinema and The Southern Documentary Project.
“Jack is a frequent reader of Faulkner, so that’s where the spark of friendship hit between us,” said Bill Griffith, curator of grounds at Rowan Oak and moderator for the discussion. “My wife knew him when he lived in Alabama. We have similar interests, sense of humor and writing.”
“When Pendleton Ward and Kent Osborne, the creators of the show, came to Oxford for a visit, I took them to Rowan Oak and Bill turned out to be a huge ‘Adventure Time’ fan,” Pendarvis said. “He wanted to talk about ‘Adventure Time’ as much as he wanted to talk about Faulkner. He knows as much about ‘Adventure Time’ as he does about Faulkner, and that’s saying a lot.”
“Adventure Time” is currently in the middle of season seven. Pendarvis pens the unimaginably bizarre adventures of Finn and Jake in what is considered by many students a beloved and witty series.
Pendarvis writes with other writers stationed in Los Angeles, California via Skype while at home in Oxford. Along with his contributions to the television series, he continues to write a column for Oxford American and the Believer. Pendarvis has published two short story collections, “The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure” and “Your Body Is Changing,” both of which wring through emotions leaving readers both devastated and happy.
“Jack is a very talented writer; he has written short stories, novels, and has written songs for various musicians,” said Beth Ann Fennelly, director of the MFA program here at the university. “He is very well read, from Japanese Anime to older classic novels, there’s not a book you can think of that he hasn’t read.”
To be a great writer, one must be a great reader.
“Jack said he wanted us to read things that he liked, not to test us or add more work to our pile, but so, we could genuinely enjoy the act of reading,” said Lizzie Tran, one of Pendarvis’ former students. “It was really refreshing and I was exposed to books I would have never known to read.”
Pendarvis said working with “Adventure Time” has allowed him to bring out his dry sense of humor and his ability to see the absurdity of everyday life in every adventure he chooses to tackle.
“I remember trying to draw comic strips as early as the age of four,” Pendarvis said. “I always wanted to make up stories, even before I could write.”
