A faculty member during the 1976 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Toni Morrison offers a lecture in the Little Theater and later in the conference will read from her book Song of Solomon that will be published the following year. Listen to Toni Morrison read from Song of Solomon in the Little Theater.
Alex Marzano Lesnevich reads during the annual LGBTQ+ Reading in the Little Theater during the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Located in the Green Mountains, the Bread Loaf campus is surrounded by 2,100 acres of forest and fields that are conserved and protected now in perpetuity by the Bread Loaf Preservation Fund, established in 2014.
Bread Loafers, including Robert Frost and Anne Sexton, talk at an outdoor reception during the 1959 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. The inaugural conference, inspired by Robert Frost and with the support of other Bread Loaf School of English Faculty, as well, including Willa Cather, Katherine Lee Bates, and Louis Untermeyer, took place in 1926. Like Sexton, many writers attend early in their career and are inspired by the place and community.
The Little Theater, where conference attendees still gather today for readings and lectures, was filled to capacity in 1928 when Sinclair Lewis presented his newest work, and later, in 1945, when Richard Wright read from Native Son to a spellbound audience. Here, faculty member Laura van den Berg reads from her fiction.
Built in the nineteenth century to house Morgan Horses, the Barn now serves as a place for social events and small group and one-on-one meetings during the conferences. It features a huge stone fireplace next to which a young Eudora Welty once worked diligently on A Curtain of Green with her faculty mentor Katherine Anne Porter.
Special Guest Kevin Young shares his poetry in the Little Theater; during the conference, special guests as well as editors and agents from the publishing world offer programming, including readings, talks, and panels.
Participant Vicki Vertiz talks with Faculty member Amber Flora Thomas during her individual faculty workshop leader meeting; scheduled by the Faculty member during the session, the meetings take place in locations throughout campus, often outside, when possible.
Laurie Thomas meets with Jenna Johnson on the porch of the Bread Loaf Inn. Bread Loafers are invited to sign up for individual and small-group meetings with visiting agents and editors. Upon arrival on campus, participants receive the meeting information based on the forms they submitted leading up to the session.
A. H. Jerriod Avant, Jericho Brown, and Francine J. Harris during the Book Signing Reception on Treman Lawn.
