 |
 |
|
Connecticut State University System
Writing Conference
at
Western Connecticut State University
181 White Street
Danbury, CT 06810
Sat. & Sun. May 6-7, 2006
Midtown Campus
Frank McCourt Headlines Unique Writing Weekend
Unique Writing Conference Open to
Teachers, University Undergraduates, Graduates,
Gifted High School Students, writers from the public
Saturday Conference—For Students
(With panels and readings open to the public)
Sunday Conference—For Community Writers
Bookfair
The McCourt Lecture—Open to All at 4 p.m. Saturday
The Ives Auditorium, WCSU's Midtown Campus
Pulitzer Prize memoirist Frank McCourt will keynote a unique gathering of student and community writers from around the state the weekend of May 6 and 7 at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury.
On Saturday, May 6, graduate and undergraduate creative writing students from the four Connecticut State University campuses, along with outstanding student writers from the state's high schools, are being invited to the fourth annual state-wide writing conference, with a second day devoted to writing seminars for the public.
McCourt, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for Angela's Ashes, a gritty portrayal of the author's upbringing in Limerick, Ireland and whose latest book is Teacher Man, about his 30 years teaching in the New York City schools, will hinge together the two-day writing experience with a talk on Saturday evening in Ives Concert Hall on Western's midtown campus.
The Los Angles Times described Teacher Man as "An enthralling work of autobiographical storytelling….Anyone who has ever faced a classroom of yawning, slouching adolescents will recognize the accuracy of McCourt's descriptions and applaud his honesty."
The title of McCourt's talk is "Teacher in the Trenches: A Thirty-year Tour."
The weekend, co-sponsored by the Master of Fine Arts writing program at Western Connecticut State University, the literary journal Connecticut Review, and the IMPAC-Connecticut State University Young Writers Trust, has received substantial grants from CSU and WestConn's President James Schmotter. The program has additional support from Drunkenboat.com, an international on-line journal for the arts.
Sign-up forms for the Saturday and Sunday conferences are posted here. Return them electronically as soon as possible before an April 15 deadline.
The Saturday Conference—For Students
(Panels and readings open to the public)
Students and distinguished writing faculty
gather to share their work at WestConn
Faculty members from the CSU System and other state universities will lead workshops and participate in panels and readings for the Saturday event, the fourth annual CSU Student Writing Conference..
Saturday's program will include small group workshops focusing on student work in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, screenwriting, and journalism. There will also be readings by faculty, students, and the keynote speaker. The panels, readings, keynote talk and bookfair are open to the public.
Patricia D'Ascoli, publisher of Connecticut Muse, a quarterly review of the Connecticut literary scene, has organized a regional book fair with display tables from local publishers of books, magazines and newsletters.
Books by faculty members and other poets and writers will be sold through a table set up by Western's book store.
The Saturday event will be free to all students participants, including lunch.
The advance program for the day can be found on this webpage.
The Sunday Conference—For Community Writers
Acclaimed authors to offer community
writing seminars at WestConn
Public invited to join small study groups May 7 in four literary genres
Aspiring writers will have a rare opportunity to learn their craft and receive critiques of their work from four nationally acclaimed literary masters during workshops offered to the general community on Sunday, May 7, at Western Connecticut State University.
Registrations are now being accepted for limited space in each of four public workshops in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and screenwriting. The seminars, presented on the university's Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury, and will feature noted authors in each genre:
- Fiction: Pete Duval. Duval made a memorable debut on the professional literary scene with his first collection of short stories, "Rear View," winner of the 2003 Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize for Fiction awarded by Middlebury College and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
- Nonfiction: Daniel Asa Rose. Rose's selection as a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) literary fellow marks the latest chapter in an accomplished career as an actor and author of prize-winning nonfiction and fiction works. His autobiographical 2002 book "Hiding Places: A Father and His Sons Retrace Their Family's Escape from the Holocaust" received the New England Booksellers Discovery Award.
- Poetry: Marilyn Nelson. Nelson, a two-time NEA creative writing fellow and author of nine books of poetry published during the past three decades, has served as Poet Laureate of Connecticut since 2001. Two of her collections, "Carver: A Life in Poems" in 2001 and "Fortune's Bones: The Manumission Requiem" in 2004, were selected as Coretta Scott King Honor Books.
- Screenwriting: Hassan Ildari. Ildari, a native of Iran who emigrated to the United States in 1973, directed and wrote the screenplay for the 1991 film "Face of the Enemy," a psychological drama about a fictional ex-CIA agent and hostage in the Middle East who seeks to take revenge on a former captor.
Reservations for the Sunday seminars will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Check in for the conference is 12 p.m. Sunday.
Contact John Briggs (203-837-9043)Briggsjp@wcsu.edu ,Ravi Shankar (860-832-2766) shankarr@ccsu.edu, or Andy Thibault (860-567-8492)
tntcomm82@cs.com for more information.
|
| |