Following the marker dedication, the Yellow Springs Film Festival will honor Rod Serling with its Opening Ceremony: A Tribute to Rod Serling at 6:30 p.m. at the Foundry Theater on the Antioch campus. The show will begin at 7:30 p.m. and include:
- Presentations from authors Anne Serling, Rod’s daughter and Mark Dawidziak.
- Live performance of a Serling radio play.
- Screening of a classic “Twilight Zone” episode and a panel discussion with Serling, Dawidziak and John Kiesewetter.
A limited number of tickets are available for pre-purchase only for $25 here.
Credit: John Hoke courtesy of Antiochiana, Antioch College
Credit: John Hoke courtesy of Antiochiana, Antioch College
About the panelists
Anne Serling, a former early childhood teacher, is the author of “As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling,” which won the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for best memoir/biography in 2015. The adaptations she wrote of two of her father’s teleplays were published in the anthology “The Twilight Zone: The Original Stories.” In addition to having published poetry in The Cornell Daily Sun and Visions, and articles on Salon.com, The Huffington Post and literary journals, she has appeared on several radio shows including George Noory’s “Coast to Coast AM” and NPR’S “Snap Judgment.” Currently she is working on a novel.
Mark Dawidziak is the author or editor of 25 books, including “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone” and the USA Today national bestseller “A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe,” which was nominated for Edgar, Agatha, Anthony and Ohioana awards. He also is an internationally recognized Mark Twain scholar, and five of his books are about Twain.
John Kiesewetter has covered broadcasting for 40 years for the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati Public Radio’s WVXU-FM and wvxu.org. He has written many stories about Rod Serling starting his career at Cincinnati’s WLW radio and television. In 2020, he produced a radio adaptation on WVXU-FM of Serling’s “O’Toole From Moscow,” a one-hour TV comedy broadcast live on NBC in 1955 about confusion between Russians and the Cincinnati Reds at the height of the “Red Scare.”
About Rod Serling
Rodman Edward Serling (1924-1975) was an American author, screenwriter and Emmy Award-winning television producer. He spent formative years in Ohio, where he worked, attended Antioch College, met his wife and returned to teach in later years.
Serling served as the principal writer of “The Twilight Zone,” the landmark 1959-1964 fantasy anthology series. He penned or co-authored 92 of the show’s 156 episodes, specifically “Patterns” and “Requiem for a Heavyweight.”
"His writing was marked with a profound understanding of human nature and a strong sense of social justice, frequently addressing such issues and themes as prejudice, greed, scapegoating, authoritarian dangers and how we treat children and the elderly," the Ohioana Library Association noted in a press release.
Serling enrolled at Antioch College in 1946 following military service in World War II. Beginning college as a physical education major, he discovered writing as a way of working through his war experiences, earning a literature degree in 1950. He also contributed short fiction to the campus literary magazine, “The Antiochian.”
Credit: Axel Bahnsen courtesy of Antiochiana, Antioch College
Credit: Axel Bahnsen courtesy of Antiochiana, Antioch College
He married classmate Carolyn “Carol” Kramer in 1948 and managed the student-run Antioch Broadcasting System, where he wrote and produced award-winning radio dramas. Serling got his first media job at Cincinnati’s WLW radio in 1950. He started selling scripts to national networks while living in Cincinnati, ultimately spending eight years in Ohio. Following the third season of “The Twilight Zone,” he returned to Antioch to teach writing in 1963.
The Serling historical marker is a joint effort of the Ohioana Library Association, Antioch College, Yellow Springs Film Festival, Anne Serling, and Mark Dawidziak from the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation. The Ohio Historical Marker program is administered by the Ohio History Connection. Since 1957, the program has placed more than 1,700 markers that share Ohio’s history.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
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