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26th Annual Rutgers-Camden
Summer Writers' Conference

June 18 through June 27, 2012

An intensive program of workshops and readings, featuring a staff of nationally-known writers, poets and editors. The series of workshops, lectures and lunch meetings is open to both Rutgers students and the community, though some prior workshop or professional experience is required. It may be taken for either undergraduate or graduate credit as well as on a non-credit certificate basis. See the course listings for Undergraduate and Graduate course numbers.

The schedule for 2012 is not yet available. It will be presented in March of 2012. The schedule from 2011 is below as a representative sample of how the program runs.


AFTERNOON READINGS
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
STAFF BIOS
ADMISSION AND WORK REQUIREMENTS


AFTERNOON READINGS
The 2011 Summer Writers' Conference features afternoon readings by the staff members and students. These affairs with refreshments begin at 1pm and are free and open to the general public. All readings will be in the Stedman Gallery in the Fine Arts Center.

SUMMER 2011 READING SCHEDULE

  • Tuesday, June 21: Jane Bernstein and Dolores Hayden
  • Wednesday, June 22: Robin Hemley and Ken Kalfus
  • Thursday, June 23: Rebecca Chace and Tom Sleigh
  • Friday, June 24: Greg Pardlo and Benjamin Hale
  • Monday, June 27: J.T. Barbarese and Danielle Evans
  • Tuesday, June 28: Lise Funderburg and Peter Trachtenberg
  • Wednesday, June 29: Students from the Program


SCHEDULE
Please note that the sessions are subject to change. All afternoon readings are free and open to the public. Workshops are open only to conference registrants (individuals may not register for single workshops).

SCHEDULE FOR 2011
Monday, June 20
11:00-12:00: Orientation session
12:00-1:00: Lunch
2:00-4:00: Panel Discussion- "Wearing Different Hats: Secrets and Strategies from Multi-Genre Writers" with Bernstein, Hayden, and Zeidner.

Tuesday, June 21
10:00-12:00: Nonfiction Workshop: Jane Bernstein
1:00-2:00: READING - Jane Bernstein and Dolores Hayden
2:00-4:00: Poetry Workshop: Dolores Hayden

Wedesday, June 22
10:00-12:00: Nonfiction Workshop: Robin Hemley
1:00-2:00: READING - Robin Hemley and Ken Kalfus
2:00-4:00: Fiction Workshop: Ken Kalfus

Thursday, June 23
10:00-12:00: Fiction Workshop: Rebecca Chace
1:00-2:00: READING - Rebecca Chance and Tom Sleigh
2:00-4:00: Poetry Workshop: Tom Sleigh

Friday, June 24
10:00-12:00: Poetry Workshop: Greg Pardlo
1:00-2:00: READING - Greg Pardlo and Benjamin Hale
2:00-4:00: Fiction Workshop: Benjamin Hale

Monday, June 27
10:00-12:00: "The State of the Short Story" (all genre session): J.T. Barbarese
1:00-2:00: READING - J.T. Barbarese and Danielle Evans
2:00-4:00: Fiction Workshop: Danielle Evans

Tuesday, June 28
10:00-12:00: Workshop all genres: "Strategies for Research" - Lise Funderburg
1:00-2:00: READING - Lise Funderburg and Peter Trachtenberg
2:00-4:00: Nonfiction Workshop: Peter Trachtenberg

Wednesday, June 29
11:00-1:00: Lunch
1:00-2:00: READING - Students from the Program
3:00-5:00: Agent Session: Melissa Flashman

STAFF FOR 2011
J.T. BARBARESE has published four books of poetry: Under the Blue Moon, New Science, A Very Small World and The Black Beach, which won the Vassar Miller Prize. He has also published a translation of Euripides’ The Children of Heracles. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, and Poetry. He is a professor at Rutgers-Camden.

JANE BERNSTEIN is the author of five books,among them the memoirs Bereft: A Sister's Story, Loving Rachel, and Rachel in the World. Her essays have been published in such places as the New York Times Magazine, Ms., Prairie Schooner, Fourth Grene, and Creative Nonfiction, and her screenwork includes the screenplay for the Warner Brothers movie Seven Minutes in Heaven. A member of the Creative Writing Department at Carnegie Mellon University, is working on a new novel, The Face Tells the Secret.

REBECCA CHACE is a fiction and nonfiction writer.  She is the author of  Leaving Rock Harbor, Capture the Flag, and Chautauqua Summer. Capture the Flag was adapted for the screen by Ms. Chace and director Lisanne Skyler and received the Showtime Tony Cox Screenwriting Award at the 2010 Nantucket Film Festival; it is currently screening at national and international film festivals.  She teaches at Bard College.

DANIELLE EVANS is the author of the short story collection BeforeYou Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. Her work has appeared in magazines including The Paris Review, A Public Space, Callaloo, and Phoebe, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2008 and 2010, and in New Stories from the South. She teaches fiction and literature at American University in Washington DC.

MELISSA FLASHMAN is a literary agent at The Trident Media Group, where she represents narrative and serious non-fiction, including memoir, popular science, political, business/economics, technology, pop-culture books and select fiction, including young adult. She has also sold essays and fiction to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Paris Review, American Scholar, Chronicle Review, American Prospect, O Magazine, The Baffler, Salon, Slate, Granta, n + 1 and Tin House among others.

LISE FUNDERBURG's first nonfiction book, Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity, was a collection of oral histories. Her second book is a combined social history and memoir called Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home. She has written book reviews, essays, and feature articles for such publications as The Nation, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, and The Hungry Mind Review. She has also served as an editor for Vogue, Lucky, and O, the Oprah Magazine. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers-Camden.

BENJAMIN HALE is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, and the recipient of a University of Iowa Provost's Fellowship and a Michener-Copernicus Award. The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore is his first novel. He grew up in Colorado and now lives in New York.

DOLORES HAYDEN is the author of Building Suburbia, A Field Guide to Sprawl, and several other award-winning books about the history of American landscapes and the politics of place. She is past president of the Urban History Association. She is also a widely published poet. Her new collection, Nymph, Dun, and Spinner, appeared in November 2010. Recent poems appear in The Yale Review, The American Scholar, Raritan, Slate, and The Best American Poetry 2009. She is a professor of American Studies at Yale University.

ROBIN HEMLEY is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, including, most recently, Do-Over!: In which a forty-eight-year-old father of three returns to kindergarten, summer camp, the prom, and other embarrassments. His rewards include The Nelson Algren Award for Fiction, and two Pushcart Prizes. His work has appeared in such journals and newspapers as New York, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Sun, Southern Review, Ploughshares, and New Letters. He is Senior Editor of The Iowa Review and Editor of Defunct (Defunctmag.com). He is Director of The Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa and Founder of the biennial NonfictioNow Conference.

KEN KALFUS is the author of two novels, The Commissariat of Enlightenment and A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, which was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award. He has also published two collections of stories, Thirst and Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. His books have been translated into more than ten foreign languages. A film adaptation of his short story "Pu-239" aired on HBO in 2007.

GREGORY PARDLO is a graduate of Rutgers University, Camden. As an undergraduate, he managed the small business his grandfather owned in nearby Pennsauken, NJ, The Serengeti Café & Jazz Club. Pardlo is the author of Totem, winner of the 2007 APR/ Honickman Prize chosen by Brenda Hillman; and translator, from the Danish, of Niels Lyngsoe's Pencil of Rays and Spiked Mace. He currently serves as Poetry Book Review Editor of Callaloo, and is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at George Washington University.

TOM SLEIGH's books include After One, winner of the Houghton Mifflin New Poetry Prize; Waking, a finalist for the Lamont Poetry Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award; The Chain, finalist for Lenore Marshall Prize; and Space Walk, winner of the $100,000 2008 Kingsley Tufts Award. His other awards include the Shelley Prize from the Poetry Society of America, a Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin and an Academy of Arts and Letter Award in Literature. His new book, Army Cats, is forthcoming in spring, 2011. He teaches in the MFA Program at Hunter College.

PETER TRACHTENBERG is the author of 7 Tattoos: A Memoir in the Flesh and The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning, winner of the 2009 Phi Beta Kappa Society's Ralph Waldo Emerson Award. His essays and journalism have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, A Public Space, and The New York Times Travel Magazine. His honors include the Whiting Award, the Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction, and a 2010-11 Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

LISA ZEIDNER, Conference Director, is the author of four novels, most recently Layover, and two books of poems. Her stories, essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, GQ, Salon, Slate and many other publications. She is also a screenwriter, currently working on an adaptation for Focus Features. She teaches at Rutgers-Camden..


ADMISSION & WORK REQUIREMENTS
The Conference is for intermediate and advanced writing students. Writers should have taken at least one creative writing workshop or have some publications or writing experience. Address questions about admission to Lisa Zeidner, Conference Director, at (856) 225-6490 or email: zeidner@camden.rutgers.edu. Students interested in the Conference are encouraged to apply early, since space is limited.

Participants will have two pieces of writing reviewed by the staff: one by a visiting writer during the conference, and one by mail afterwards. The length limits for these submissions are:

Fiction and Personal Essay - A minimum of 7 and a maximum of 17 pages double spaced.
Poetry - A minimum of 4 and a maximum of 8 pages single spaced. Please keep margins to approximately one inch, and font size to the 10-12 pt. range.

Participants should submit the work to the SAKAI system that they wish to be discussed during the conference. The deadline for registration and posting the work is MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2011.

All manuscripts should be typed; fiction and essays should be double-spaced. Work must be submitted electronically, in MS Word, PDF or Text File format to the Rutgers Sakai website by no later than June 6, 2011. Login ID is either your RU ID (if you have one) or your email address. You will receive an invitation to the Sakai site when your registration has been completed. Instructions on uploading papers to the site are available on the site itself.

Please note that Conference participants may only submit work in one genre (poetry, fiction or the personal essay), although they will be encouraged to attend all workshop sessions.

Those taking the Conference for credit will be required to attend all workshops each day and all evening readings. For course credit, students also submit final work (same length restrictions as above), to be responded to by staff members. Due date for the final work will be Monday, August 1, 2011.

Please note that it is not possible to register for individual workshop sessions.

HOUSING
Dorm accommodations have limited availability in the summer. For more information regarding on-campus housing see the Rutgers-Camden Student Housing website. If you are interested in a hotel room, either in South Jersey or in downtown Philadelphia, please email the Conference Director for recommendations in the local region. Rutgers-Camden is accessible via a variety of public transportation systems, including NJ Transit buses, the Riverline Light Rail, and the PATCO Hi-Speed Line.

Rutgers-Camden strives to assure access to programs for all people with disabilities. Use the Rutgers-Camden TTY line for information on programs: (856)225-6648. Please notify us at least two weeks in advance of any special needs.

CREDITS
The Conference is open to the community as well as to Rutgers students. Applicants may register in the following ways for the Summer Conference:

Undergraduate Credit
50:989:401:D1:90430
50:989:402:D1:90335 - for students who have already taken a Summer Conference for undergraduate credit

Graduate Credit
56:200:525:D1:92009
56:200:526:D1:92010 - for students who have already taken a Summer Conference for graduate credit

No Credit (Certificate of Achievement awarded)

TUITION AND FEES
Fees below are for three-credit courses and include the Summer Student Fee.

Undergraduate credit - NJ resident - $1,102.00
Undergraduate credit- non-NJ resident - $2,185.00

Graduate credit - NJ resident - $1,945.00
Graduate credit - non-NJ resident - $2,875.00

Non-credit (Certificate of Achievement) - $750.00

Tuition and Certification Program checks payable to Rutgers University.

In addition to the tuition and fees listed above, students pay a separate Conference Fee of $65.00. This covers students for one lunch, one dinner, and the coffee sessions. Make separate $65.00 check payable to Rutgers University Arts and Culture Fund.

APPLICATION FORM
If you are interested in applying for the Writers' Conference 2011, you may print out the Registration Form provided and mail it to the address below or FAX it to (856)225-6524. To print out the hard copy form, you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is freely available from the Adobe Website.

Mail To:
Summer Writers' Conference
Rutgers Summer Session
319 Cooper St.
Camden, NJ 08102

call us at (856)225-6098
or FAX at (856)225-6524

We look forward to hearing from you!

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