2008 Summer Residency Readings
Three evening readings by program faculty, visiting authors and graduating students will be offered to the community as a part of the Whidbey Writers Workshop Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program summer residency.
Monday, August 18:
Marc Acito, fiction -- How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater, Oregon Book; American Library Association Top Ten Teen Book; optioned by Columbia for feature-length movie.
Kate Gale, poetry/fiction/musical composition -- Five books of poetry, including Mating Season; Lake of Fire (novel); Rio de Sangre, Paradises Lost, adaptation of Kindred (librettos for opera).
Bruce Holland Rogers, fiction/non-fiction -- Keyhole Collection (winner of 2006 World Fantasy Award), Flaming Arrows, Wind Over Heaven, Thirteen Ways to Water (short fiction collections); Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer.
Larry Cheek, non-fiction - Fifteen nonfiction books on travel, nature, North American prehistory, architecture; architecture critic for the Seattle P-I; articles on architecture and environment for numerous magazines.
Thursday, August 21:
Marvin Bell, poetry - Mars Being Red, Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist; Stars Which See, Stars Which Do Not See, National Book Award finalist; A Probable Volume of Dreams, Lamont Award, Academy of American Poets.
John Calderazzo, fiction/non-fiction -- Writing From Scratch: Freelancing; 101 Questions About Volcanoes; Rising Fire: Volcanoes and Our Inner Lives; numerous magazine articles; work cited in Best American Stories and Best American Essays.
Christopher Howell, poetry -- The Crime of Luck; Though Silence: The Ling Wei Poems; Light's Ladder; two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships; Washington State Governor's Award; three Pushcart Prizes.
Carolyne Wright, poetry/non-fiction -- A Change of Maps, Idaho Prize finalist and Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, Poetry Society of America; Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire, Blue Lynx Prize and American Book Award; The Road to Isla Negra (memoir), PEN/Jerard Fund and Crossing Boundaries Awards. These readings begin at 7:15 p.m., and will be held at Miriam's Espresso, 101 S. Main St., Coupeville.
Books by the authors and light snacks will be available for purchase before and after the readings.
Biographies and information about readers are on the WWW website:
Acito, Bell, Calderazzo, Cheek, and Gale on residency page:
http://www.writeonwhidbey.org/mfa/residencies.htm
Howell, Rogers and Wright on faculty page:
http://www.writeonwhidbey.org/mfa/faculty.htm
On Saturday, August 23 the four graduates in our second graduating class will read from their thesis manuscripts. This reading begins at approximately 5 p.m., following the commencement exercises and will be held at the Greenbank Progressive Club (also the location of the commencement beginning at 3 p.m.), which is located off Bakken Road behind the Greenbank Store.
Caleb Barber: Beasts and Violins
Tanya Chernov: The Other Side
Stefanie Freele: Feeding Strays
Laurie Junkins: Uncertain Balance
The Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program is the first in the country not associated with a college or university: by writers, for writers. It is the degree authorized by the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board and offered by the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, a program of the Whidbey Island Writers Association.