April 23, 2007
SELINSGROVE, ( Pa. ) – The Writers' Institute at Susquehanna University will hold its annual Writers Workshop for high school students Sunday through Saturday, June 24-30. Now in its 18th year, the Writers Workshop provides America 's most talented high school writers with the opportunity to work in intensive, small-group workshops led by nationally recognized authors.
The Writers Workshop is open to experienced writers entering their junior or senior year of high school in the fall of 2007. Acceptance is competitive and class sizes are limited to 15 students in order to ensure close supervision and individual conferencing. Workshop attendees are chosen based on teacher/counselor recommendations and the quality of their portfolio submissions. The preferred postmark deadline for applications is May 1, but submissions will be considered through May 30.
The Writers Workshop is one of only 27 programs selected by Early College Programs 2003 as a Best Value in Summer College Programs for High School Students. Each day of the workshop brings with it a variety of writing activities in fiction, nonfiction and poetry, including group workshops, individual conferences, and readings by students, faculty, and guest writers. The workshop concludes with a public reading that provides students with the opportunity to share their work with fellow students, family and friends.
Creative nonfiction sessions will be led by Gary Fincke, professor of English and creative writing and director of the Writers' Institute at Susquehanna University. Fincke is the winner of the 2003 Flannery O'Connor Award for his short story collection, Sorry I Worried You. He has been cited in Best American Essays nine times in the past ten years and is a winner of a 2001 Pushcart Prize for creative nonfiction. Amp'd: A Father's Backstage Pass, his nonfiction account of his son's life as a signed rock musician, was published in 2004. He has published three additional short story collections and twelve books of poetry. A winner of the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine, Fincke has appeared in such magazines and newspapers as Harper's, The Paris Review, Doubletake, American Scholar, Newsday, and USA Today.
Tom Bailey, associate professor of English and creative writing, will lead fiction sessions. Bailey is the author of two novels published by Random House, The Grace That Keeps This World and Cotton Song . Random House will also publish Bailey's third novel, tentatively titled Sunny Hills, along with a fourth book based on the lives of people who live and die in the shadow of the Grand Canyon. Bailey is the recipient of a 2007 fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the 2006 fiction prize from the Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters, and a 1999 Pushcart Prize for fiction. His short stories have been anthologized in New Stories from the South and Streetsongs: New Voices in Fiction. His additional works include the short story collection Crow Man, and the instructional books A Short Story Writer's Companion and On Writing Short Stories.
Karla Kelsey, assistant professor of English and creative writing, will direct poetry sessions during the workshop. Her book of poetry, Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary won the 2005 Sawtooth Poetry Prize and was published by Ahsahta Press in 2006. She is the author of the chapbook Little Dividing Doors in the Mind and has appeared in such journals as The Boston Review, Fence and Verse, 24. From 2003-2005, Kelsey was the associate editor of the Denver Quarterly.
Guest writers Betsy Wheeler and Susan Perabo will also instruct workshop attendees. Wheeler is the Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University 's Stadler Center for Poetry. Originally from the Mississippi River Valley, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Octopus and Brooklyn Review, as well as the anthology Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel. She is co-editor of FlatCity Press and is currently working on her first book of poems.
Perabo is an associate professor of English and a writer-in-residence at Dickinson College. She has published a collection of short stories, Who I Was Supposed to Be and a novel, The Broken Places. Her stories have been anthologized in Best American Stories and New Stories from the South, and have appeared in Story, Glimmer Train and Triquarterly.
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Contact: Victoria Kidd
570-372-4119
#vk/5096#
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