& BigSmallPressFest
June 22-28, 2003
Application deadline: May 15
Dear Students:
This June 22-28 the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program for Poets and Writers will hold the first annual Juniper Summer Writing Institute and BigSmallPressFest. Open to writers of all ages and levels, we especially invite UMass and Five College students to consider taking advantage of this unique opportunity to explore and advance their craft.
The week-long Institute will
provide daily intensive writing workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative
non-fiction; forums on particular aspects of craft; readings by a wide
variety of authors; and the opportunity for individual manuscript consultation.
The program will culminate with the BigSmallPressFest, a daylong festival
showcasing the range and inventiveness of contemporary literary publishing,
at which editors, agents and publisher of independent magazines and presses
will showcase their wares and participate in forum discussions on a host
of practical and aesthetic issues.
A link to a website describing program details and fees is below. We've
also attached a word doc of the application form to this email (deadline
May 15), and have pasted further information about the Institute below.
Please let us know if you have any questions or would like a brochures
sent to you.
With best wishes,
Dara Wier
Noy Holland
Lisa Olstein
Juniper Initiative, MFA Program for Poets & Writers
visit: http://www.umass.edu/aes/conferences/juniperdetails.html
email: juniperinfo@yahoo.com
call: 413-545-5240
Announcing the Juniper Summer Writing Institute & The BigSmallPressFest
In June the UMass Amherst MFA Program for Poets & Writers, one of the oldest and finest MFA programs in the country, hosts the Juniper Summer Writing Institute & BigSmallPressFest.
At the heart of the program are each morning's three-hour intensive workshops in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. By specializing in one genre and working closely with a single instructor and group of writers, participants will benefit from multiple opportunities to present their work to a close and careful readership. Faculty will also offer a limited number of private manuscript consultations.
After a communal lunch for participants and faculty, forums with instructors and special guests address particular aspects of craft. Each evening features readings of new work by acclaimed poets and writers.
The Juniper Summer Writing Institute culminates with The BigSmallPressFest, a daylong festival celebrating the astonishing range and inventiveness of contemporary literary publishing of independent presses and journals. The day features forums and panel discussions with editors, publishers and agents on a host of practical and aesthetic issues facing writers, and displays by independent presses and journals.
Juniper Summer Writing Institute Faculty
Poetry
Dara Wier is the author of eight books of poetry including Hat on a Pond Voyages in English, and Our Master Plan. She is a professor in the UMass Amherst MFA Program for Poets & Writers, and has also taught at the University of Alabama, Hollins College, the University of Montana, the University of Texas and the University of Utah. Her work has been featured in the Best American Poetry series, and her awards include a Pushcart Prize, the American Poetry Review, Jerome Sheestack Prize, and fellowships from the NEA, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Matthew Zapruder is the author of American Linden (Tupelo Press), and is the co-translator of Secret Weapon, by the late Romanian poet Eugen Jebeleanu. His poems have appeared in many literary journals including The New Yorker, The New Republic, Boston Review and Harvard Review. He teaches poetry at The New School, and is the 2003 James Merrill Writer in Residence. He is editor-in-chief of Verse Press.
Fiction
Will Eno is a Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting. His plays and short stories have appeared in the Antioch Review, Post Road, Open City, and The Quarterly. His plays have been produced by The Gate Theatre in London, BBC Radio, New York Stage & Film, Naked Angels, and elsewhere.
Noy Holland is a professor in the UMass MFA Program for Poets & Writers. Her first book, The Spectacle of the Body (Knopf), was nominated for a National Book Award. Her stories have appeared in The Quarterly, Story Quarterly, Glimmer Train, Black Warrior Review, and Open City. She has also taught at Phillips Andover and the University of Florida, and has received fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the MacDowell Colony and Bread Loaf Writers Conference.
Non-Fiction
Bruce Watson is the author of The Man Who Changed How Boys and Toys Were Made (Viking-Penguin). He is a frequent contributor to Smithsonian, an occasional contributor to Yankee, Readers Digest, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times. He writes a weekly humor column for the Daily Hampshire Gazette and is currently working on a history of a famous labor strike.
Special Guest
James Tate, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
Participants & Readers
Peter Richards, Diane Williams, Kurt Brown, Beau Friedlander, Matthea Harvey, Geoffrey Nutter, Ethan Paquin, Martha Rhodes, Timothy Donnelly, Rob Casper, Rebecca Wolf, Matthew Rohrer, Brian Henry, Michael Brodeur, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, James Haug, Michael Teig, Joanna Yas, Christopher Janke, and J. Johnson.