This summer, as for the past 50 years, the Wesleyan campus will not be quiet or empty. Classrooms and halls will continue to buzz with learning as the University holds its 50th annual Writers Conference, scheduled for June 18 through 23.
“The thing about writing is that it’s a way of life: writers work alone,” said Conference Director and Adjunct Professor of English Anne Greene. “One of the things that conferences like ours do is give writers, including faculty, the opportunity to get together, to form communities that will last after they leave.”
Established in 1956 as the first writing conference of its kind, Wesleyan Writers has been directed by Greene for the past 25 years. The week-long program features seminars, workshops, and a guest speakers series on writing genres across the board, including fiction, poetry, film, nonfiction, literary journalism, and publishing. Participants may also opt to register for private manuscript consultations with a faculty member or teaching fellow.
According to Greene, one of the ways that a conference such as this establishes an identity is to have a core faculty that returns year to year. At the same time, an evolving faculty incorporates young, new writers and new literary trends.
“You like to have your faculty, but you also like to have your variety,” Greene said.
This year’s seminar leaders include fiction writer Roxana Robinson, four of whose seven books were named Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times. She has taught at the conference for the past eight years and has also served as a visiting COL professor at the University.
“What’s so engaging about it is that it’s a temporary, five-day-long world in which everyone thinks and talks about writing,” Robinson said. “The people who come to it are full of enthusiasm and energy, so the whole experience is highly charged and very invigorating. Everyone rolls up their sleeves and participates.”
Other notable faculty includes former visiting writer for the English Department Alexander Chee ’89, whose debut novel, “Edinburgh,” has received acclaimed recognition and numerous awards since its 2001 publication, and native Croatian Josip Novakovich, whose English novel, story collections, and narrative essays have been praised and awarded since he was first published in 1995.
Greene notes that this program differs from other writing conferences in its focus on various literary fields, not solely fiction. Widely published and acclaimed poet Honor Moore will present poetry along with her seminars. Non-fiction will be addressed by author and literary journalist Jonathan Schell and magazine veteran Katha Pollitt, who will teach both literary journalism and memoir.
The 2006 Padraic Column Lecture is the conference’s keynote address, named after one of its prominent founders. It will be delivered by fiction writer Ann Beattie, whose eight short story collections and seven novels have received numerous awards.
Other guest speakers include novelist Robert Stone, whose story collection “Bear and His Daughter” was a 1998 Pulitzer Prize finalist, and nonfiction writers of social issues Charles Barber and Jennifer Golan.
Remarking on both Barber and Golan’s relatively young age as professional writers, Greene said, “There’s a structure here that’s really fascinating. It’s an absolute cross-section of people who write.”
This cross-section extends beyond age, with faculty and participants ranging from experienced to new writers and seeking both professional and social connections. Several previous participants have met their agents at the conference, and many are now published and award-winning writers. In 2001, for instance, about a decade after attending the Writers Conference, Tom Hallman, Jr., won the Pulitzer Prize award for Feature Writing in Journalism.
“Best New American Voices,” a young but reputable annual anthology of fiction from writing conferences across the country, has also included a Wesleyan Writers participant in six of its seven editions.
Greene looks forward to future up-and-coming writers who will build their roots at the Writers Conference.
“I’m always impressed with the quality of the writing from the participants who come,” Green said. “They’re interested in new kinds of ways in which people are publishing today, and I want the conference to help them.”
About 140 participants are expected to register for the conference, including many writers from abroad.
“It really is an international conference,” Green remarked.
The conference fee ranges from $780 to $1190, depending on whether the participant is a day student or boarding student and whether or not they eat all meals on campus. Boarding students will be housed in the new Fauver dorms; students in previous years spent their week sleeping in the Butterfields and Clark Hall.
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