Seventy-five writers, including five Wesleyan alumni, attended the 62nd Annual Wesleyan Writers Conference June 13–17 on campus. The conference welcomes experienced writers, new writers, and anyone interested in the writer’s craft. Pictured (from left) are Veda Pendleton McClain ’79, P’00; Collin Andrews ’18; and Ray Peters ’18.
Journalist and author Lis Harris works one-on-one with a Wesleyan Writers Conference participant on June 15.
Writing at Wesleyan welcomed established writers, new writers and others interested in the writer’s craft to the 61st Annual Wesleyan Writers Conference, held June 14-17 on campus.
Dr. Joe Fins ’82 spoke on “Writing about Science and Medicine.”
Participants had the opportunity to finish work in progress, start something new or be inspired by other writers’ work. The conference included seminars, lectures, readings, workshops, and manuscript consultations. Topics included novel, short story, poetry, nonfiction, young adult fiction, shaping narratives, literacy life in the digital age, writing about science and medicine, literary journalism and memoir, editing and translation and navigating publishing options.
Faculty included Amy Bloom ’75, the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan, Joseph Fins ’82, Lis Harris, Salvatore Scibona, Sarah Moon, Honor Moore, Rivka Galchen, Kate Lee, Isaac Fitzgerald, Steve Almond, Nadxieli Nieto, Rob Spillman, Toni Robino, Elissa Schappell and Lisa Weinert. The annual event is coordinated by Director Anne Greene, the University Professor of English.
Photos of the conference are below:
The Wesleyan Writers Conference celebrated its 60th year with discussions on poetry, fiction and non fiction writing, the short story, novel and publishing. The conference, held June 16-19, welcomes new writers, established writers, and everyone interested in the writer’s craft.
Anne Greene, director of the Wesleyan Writers Conference, welcomed the participants to the conference on June 16.
The program included seminars, craft sessions, workshops, master classes, guest speakers, readings, panel discussions and manuscript consultations.
Amy Bloom, the Distinguished University Writer-in-Residence at Wesleyan, made remarks at the Writing Conference. Bloom is the author of three novels, three collections of short stories, a children’s book, and an essay collection. She has been a nominee for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Guest faculty member Salvatore Scibona spoke about novel and short story writing. His short stories have been published in Threepenny Review, Best New American Voices 2004, The Pushcart Book of Short Stories: The Best Stories from a Quarter-Century of the Pushcart Prize, A Public Space, D di la Repubblica, Satisfaction, The New York Times and The New Yorker.
Guest faculty member Lis Harris, a journalist and author, spoke about literary journalism and memoir. Harris was a staff worker on The New Yorker for 25 years, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The World Policy Journal, and the Wilson Quarterly.
Participants are welcome to ask questions throughout the Writers Conference.
Guest faculty member and poet Honor Moore is the author of three poetry collections: Red Shoes, Darling, and Memoir and two memoirs: The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margaret Sargent by Her Granddaughter and The Bishop’s Daughter, named an Editor’s Choice by The New York Times, a “Favorite Book of 2008” by the Los Angeles Times, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
On June 18, William Finnegan spoke to conference participants about writing about social and political issues. Finnegan’s new book Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
Finnegan has been a contributor to The New Yorker since 1984 and a staff writer since 1987. Reporting from Africa, Central America, South America, Europe, the Balkans, and Australia, as well as from the United States, he has twice received the John Bartlow MArtin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism and twice been a National Magazine Award finalist.
Finnegan spoke to Wesleyan Writers Conference participants and signed copies of his book.
Additional photos of the Wesleyan Writers Conference are below: (Photos by Olivia Drake and Tom Dzimian)
Wesleyan Writers Conference participants took time to write and reflect, in addition to attending seminars, workshops, readings, panel discussions and manuscript consultations. (Photos by Laurie Kenney)
The Wesleyan Writers Conference celebrated its 59th year by welcoming more than 60 new and seasoned writers and others interested in the writer’s craft to the Wesleyan campus June 10-14.
The Wesleyan Writers Conference has been useful to writers at different stages of their careers.
Headed by Wesleyan Writers Conference Director Anne Greene, adjunct professor of English and director of Writing Programs, the conference featured seminars, workshops, readings, panel discussions and manuscript consultations led by Wesleyan faculty and other nationally known writers, editors and agents.
Conference topics included the novel, short story, poetry, nonfiction, memoir, biography, journalism, writing for film and TV, new media, writing about food and travel, writing about science and medicine, preparing your work for publication, and how to sell your work.
Wesleyan is hosting the 59th annual Wesleyan Writers Conference June 10-14.
Registration is open for the 59th Annual Wesleyan Writers Conference. This year, the conference is offering scholarships and fellowships for alumni and other members of the Wesleyan community, including six scholarships for undergraduates.
The conference, held June 10-14, welcomes established writers, new writers, and everyone interested in the writer’s craft, and features seminars, workshops, readings and manuscript consultations.
Sessions include novel, short story, poetry, nonfiction, journalism and special sessions such as writing about science and medicine.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to start a new project or develop your current work with the help of distinguished writers, editors, agents and publishers,” said Anne Greene, director of the Wesleyan Writers Conference.
Faculty include Amy Bloom, Roxana Robinson, Alexander Chee, and William Finnegan of The New Yorker, as well as many others. To register, or apply for a scholarship, visit the conference website.
Both experienced writers and new writers participated in the 58th Annual Wesleyan Writers Conference June 11-15.
About 90 writers attended, including Wesleyan students enrolled in Summer Session courses.
Manuscript consultations and publishing advice were key parts of the program. Participants attended daily seminars in the novel, short story, poetry, and nonfiction (including memoir and literary journalism), and the program also included guest speakers, readings, workshops, panel discussions and talks with editors and agents.
Faculty and speakers at this year’s conference included award-winning fiction writer Amy Bloom ’75, author of the new novel Lucky Us; Roxana Robinson, short story writer and author of the new novel Sparta; Salvatore Scibona, author of The End, a finalist for the National Book Award; poet Michael Dumanis; and nonfiction writers/ journalists Lis Harris of Columbia’s School of the Arts, and William Finnegan of The New Yorker, whose recent coverage of Mexico received the Overseas Press Club Award for the best coverage of Latin America in any medium. The group of editors and agents include alumni Vicky Bijur Johnny Temple ’88, founder and editor of Akashic Books. View the full list of faculty, including bios, online here.
View photos of the event below (Photos by Olivia Drake):
Writing faculty Amy Bloom made remarks during the Writing Conference Introduction of Faculty and Fellows, June 12 in Mink Dining Hall.
More than 90 writers participated in the Writers Conference.
Participants attended daily seminars in the novel, short story, poetry and nonfiction writing.
Both experienced writers and new writers are welcome to participate in the Wesleyan Writers Conference this June. Special topics include selling your book and writing for film, science and medicine and social issues. Manuscript consultations and publishing advice are key parts of the program.
Registration is now open for the 58th annual Wesleyan Writers Conference, one of the nation’s leading programs, to be held on campus June 11-15. Both experienced writers and new writers are welcome. This is a time to start a new project or develop your current work with the help of the conference’s faculty, distinguished writers who work closely with participants. Manuscript consultations and publishing advice are key parts of the program. Participants may attend daily seminars in the novel, short story, poetry, and nonfiction (including memoir and literary journalism), and the program also includes guest speakers, readings, workshops, panel discussions and talks with editors and agents. Special topics include writing for film, writing about science and medicine, writing about social issues and how to sell your book.
“Writing is often lonely work,” said Anne Greene, director of the Wesleyan Writers Conference, director of Writing Programs. “It can be transforming to spend a few days outside of your writing room talking to people who share your interests. Former participants say they’re still in close touch with friends and writing colleagues they met at the conference, and they find these connections invaluable.”
Tracie McMillan, the Koeppel Journalism Fellow at the Shapiro Writing Center, is teaching the upper-level seminar “Topics in Journalism: Writing and Arguing About Inequality: How to Make Your Case.”
(Story contributed by Emma Davis ’17. The full interview appears in the Feb. 21 issue of The Wesleyan Argus)
Tracie McMillan is Wesleyan’s Koeppel Journalism Fellow and author of The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields, and the Dinner Table, a New York Times Bestseller. Her recent work appears in Best Food Writing 2013 and she has received a James Beard Award, the Sidney Hillman Prize, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism and other national awards for her writing about food, consumers’s choices and other social issues.
Q: How did you become a reporter?
A: I became a reporter after interning at the Village Voice under Wayne Barrett. Wayne was the City Politics investigative reporter at the Voice for around 40 years; he left the Voice a couple of years ago. Every semester, he had a cadre of interns who would come in and help him do his work, and that was one of the internships I had as an undergraduate. I did well there, and got on well with Wayne, and that led me into doing reporting work.
When I took that internship, I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to be a journalist. I knew that I wanted to do something with writing, and I had a vague idea that I would work at a magazine, but I hadn’t really thought through the specifics of that. And certainly at the time, I think I was more interested in national politics, and Wayne’s work was very local. But I lucked into getting paired with him at the Voice, and that put me on that path.
Q: What brought you to Wesleyan?
A: [Director of Writing Programs] Anne Greene brought me to Wesleyan. I have a little bit of a relationship with Wesleyan. In 2006, I got a Davidoff scholarship to attend the Wesleyan Writers Conference. That was when I had just gone freelance. I had taken some time off, and I had taken basically half my life savings and gone traveling for six months. Because I had been working since I was 14, and I had this epiphany—I was about 29 at the time—that I had always been working, and I had never stopped to figure out where I wanted to go; I just went where it seemed like I could go… I didn’t really know if the work I was doing as a journalist was what I really wanted to dedicate myself to, or if maybe there was something else I wanted to be doing. And I didn’t really know myself well enough to make that call, and I realized that I was at a point in my life where I didn’t have anything tying me to any one place.
And once I had enough time to really clear my head, I kept coming back to writing. I didn’t just want to write about me, myself, and I; I wanted to write about the world.
Salvatore Scibona
Salvatore Scibona, the Frank B. Weeks Visiting Assistant Professor of English, is the winner of this year’s Ellen Levine Fund for Writers Award for his novel-in-progress Where In the World Is William Wurs?
The award is sponsored by the New York Community Trust and the Ellen Levine Fund for Writers. Members of the Teachers and Writers Collaborative nominated Scibona for the award, which comes with a $7,500 grant. Awards go an author who has previously published a print edition of one or two books of fiction, and who doesn’t currently have a publishing contract for a second or third book of fiction.
Scibona’s first novel, The End, was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award from the New York Public Library. The End is published or forthcoming in seven languages. A former FAWC Fellow and a graduate of St. John’s College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Scibona has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, an O. Henry Award, a Pushcart Prize and a Whiting Writers’ Award.
In 2010 he was named one of the New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” writers to watch. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space and Harper’s. Scibona also will leading seminars at the 2014 Wesleyan Writers Conference.
Ellen Levine, award-winning author, teacher, mentor and social justice advocate, died in 2012.
Anyone interested in the writer's craft is welcome to attend the Wesleyan Writers Conference.
Well-known and award-winning novelists, journalists, publishers and editors will be on the faculty of the 56th Annual Wesleyan Writers Conference, held June 14-17 on campus.
The conference welcomes both experienced writers and new writers.
“Our distinguished faculty offer careful attention to your work and will offer an array of seminars, readings, and panel discussions, all designed to move your work forward, or help you launch a new project,” explains Anne Greene, director of the Wesleyan Writers Conference, director of Writing Programs.
Over the years, conference participants have gone on to win a number of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, Whiting Writers’ Award, and nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
The Writers Conference features seminars, workshops and panels on novel writing, short stories, poetry, nonfiction, journalism, film and TV, new media, publishing, tips on how to sell your book and talks with agents and editors. Faculty will speak on writing for the stage, writing about science and medicine, short and long form journalism, the future of publishing in the electronic age and more.
The Wesleyan Writers Conference also will host a special one-day festival on Saturday, June 16.
Each member of the conference faculty leads a daily seminar, usually including a short lecture, discussion, and (optional) writing exercises. Participants will be given ample time to develop their own writing in quiet spaces and the Wesleyan libraries.
The faculty include novelists Roxana Robinson, Wells Tower ’96, Kit Reed, Peter Blauner ’82, and Amy Bloom ’75; poet Honor Moore; and nonfiction writers/ journalists Lis Harris, Peg Tyre and William Finnegan of The New Yorker. Publishers, editors and agents include Pamela Dorman ’79 of Viking Press; Stuart Krichevsky; Andre Bernard of the Guggenheim Foundation; Johnny Temple ’88 of Akashic Books; Bill Contardi; and others. View the faculty member bios online here.
View a video of the Writers Conference below:
