KNOXVILLE— Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) will be one of the 20 vendors to compete at this year's International Biscuit Festival’s Biscuit Boulevard on Saturday, May 17th. The main event will take place in Downtown Knoxville, with other biscuit-centric events happening all weekend. Each year, the festival attracts over 25,000 people to the city to taste biscuits made by the finest restaurants and bakers in the region.

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is an artists' colony on a 29-acre farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, that hosts workshops, retreats, and residencies for writers, actors, filmmakers, and visual artists. All are guided by experienced, professional instructors from a variety of creative disciplines who are dedicated to cultivating the arts in Eastern Tennessee. This is the first food competition SAFTA has entered as an organization and one of the only teams participating in this year's Biscuit Boulevard competition that isn't a restaurant or press organization.

SAFTA’s founder and creative director Erin Elizabeth Smith first learned to make biscuits with her grandmother as a girl, but really found a love for baking them while working towards her doctorate in Creative Writing in Mississippi. The state is famous for “cathead” biscuits, a departure from the traditional buttery, flakey Tennessee-style biscuits. “Our biscuits are a little bit scruffier, beautifully imperfect, and individualistic. Kinda like this city,” says Smith about her “Simon and Garfunkel” biscuit recipe. These original biscuits will be what Smith and her SAFTA team will be serving up on Saturday, made with parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. The biscuits will also be served with ham glazed with Smith’s homemade peach preserves, as well as a special biscuit broadside poem made for the event!

This young organization is excited to participate in such a large community event and aims to change the way people perceive artist and academics by participating. They will be one of, if not the only, non-restaurant team in the bake-off, and they hope their individuality and savory treats will make them a favorite with the crowd.

For more information on Sundress Academy for the Arts and their upcoming events, visit their website: www.sundresspublications.com/safta/.