20th ANNUAL
SPRING WRITERS’ CONFERENCE
Saturday, April 12, 2008

A day of readings and workshops, featuring poet PAUL MULDOON, novelist JOYCE CAROL OATES and many other accomplished writers.

ALL READINGS AND WORKSHOPS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

No registration is necessary for the afternoon and evening readings.

Note: new registration procedure this year. See below for manuscript submission guidelines.
Registration Form

Featured Writers

JANE BERNSTEIN is the author of two novels and three memoirs. The memoirs are Bereft: A Sister’s Story, Loving Rachel: A Family’s Journey from Grief; and, just published, Rachel in the World. Her essays have appeared in such places as Creative Nonfiction and The New York Times Magazine. She is a professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.

SUSAN MUADDI DARRAJ is Senior Editor of The Baltimore Review and Associate Professor of English at Harford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland. Her short story collection is The Inheritance of Exile. Her fiction, reviews, and essays have appeared in several anthologies and publications, including The Christian Science Monitor, New York Stories, and Mizna.

JANCEE DUNN who grew up in Chatham, New Jersey, has written for many publications, among them GQ, Vogue, The New York Times, and O, The Oprah Magazine, where she does a monthly column on ethics. For ten years, she was an editor at Rolling Stone. She was also a veejay at MTV2 and an entertainment correspondent for Good Morning America. Her memoir is But Enough About Me, and her novel, In Between Days, is forthcoming.

JOSEPH GANGEMI wrote the motion picture Wind Chill and the novel Inamorata—the film version of which is in development by Johnny Depp’s production company, Infinitum Nihil. He has worked for Warners, Sony, Fox, New Line, Lionsgate, and ABC. He is currently adapting young adult series H.I.V.E. for Paramount. He lives outside Philadelphia.

RACHEL HADAS is Board of Governors Professor of English at the Newark campus of Rutgers University and the author of many books of poetry, essays, and translations. Her most recent books are The River of Forgetfulness (poems) and Classics (selected prose). She lives in New York City.

RICHARD McCANN is the author, most recently, of Mother of Sorrows, a collection of linked stories. He is also the author of Ghost Letters, a collection of poems. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including The Atlantic and Esquire, and in such anthologies as The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007 and Best American Essays 2000. He teaches in the MFA Program in Writing at American University.

DAVID MATTHEWS is a writer living in Brooklyn. He has appeared on CNN, The CBS Sunday Morning Show, The Tavis Smiley Show, and BET discussing matters of race and American culture. The memoir Ace of Spades is his first book. His next book, Brother Superior, is forthcoming.

PAUL MULDOON was born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. From 1973 to 1986 he worked in Belfast as a radio and television producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States, where he is now Howard G.B. Clark ‘21 Professor at Princeton University and Chair of the Lewis Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. His collections of poetry include New Weather, Mules, Why Brownlee Left, Quoof, The Annals of Chile, Hay, and Poems 1968-1998. His most recent collections of poetry include Moy Sand and Gravel, for which he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, and Horse Latitudes, published in the fall of 2006.

JOYCE CAROL OATES is the author of more than seventy books, including best-selling novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, literary criticism, and essays. She is a recipient of the National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Her works include Them, What I Lived For, We Were the Mulvaneys, and the book-length essay On Boxing. Her most recent book is The Gravedigger’s Daughter. She lives in New Jersey, where she is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University.

GREGORY PARDLO is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a translation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches creative writing at Medgar Evers College, CUNY. His first book, Totem, is the winner of the 2007 American Poetry Review/Honickman Prize.

KATHLEEN VOLK MILLER is the co-editor of Painted Bride Quarterly. She has published fiction, personal essays, and articles in numerous publications, including The Smart Set, Red Booth Review and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She teaches writing at Drexel University, out of which she runs PBQ.

MARION WRENN, co-editor of the literary magazine Painted Bride Quarterly, is a cultural historian and media critic. She teaches writing at New York University, where she is on the faculty of the Expository Writing Program.

Schedule

9:00
REGISTRATION
Lobby, Armitage Hall
(Workshop locations to be announced)

9:15 to 10:45
FICTION: Susan Muaddi Darraj
POETRY: Gregory Pardlo
SUBMITTING TO LITERARY MAGAZINES: Kathleen Volk Miller and Marion Wrenn

11:00 to 12:30
SCREENWRITING: Joseph Gangemi
POETRY: Rachel Hadas
CREATIVE NONFICTION: Jane Bernstein

12:30
LUNCH - Black Box
Fine Arts Building

1:45 to 3:00
READING: Jane Bernstein, Rachel Hadas and Richard McCann
Science Lecture Hall

3:15 to 4:45
FICTION: Richard McCann
MEMOIR: David Matthews
FREELANCE ARTICLE WRITING: Jancee Dunn

5:15
DINNER - Campus Center

7:00
READING: Paul Muldoon and Joyce Carol Oates
Walter Gordon Theater, Fine Arts Building

All workshops are 1 1/2 hours each. It is not necessary to register in advance for the readings.

Registration and Submission Guidelines

All attending classes, whether submitting material or not, should mail a hard copy of a registration form with complete contact information, including email address. We will email registration details and instructions for accessing the manuscripts being discussed a few weeks in advance of the conference.

You may attend more than one workshop, but may only submit work in one. It is not necessary to register for the readings.

Length Restrictions for Submissions: