July 29, 1998
73rd Annual Session of Middlebury
College’s Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference to Begin August 12
“I came to Bread Loaf when I was 18 years
old, a newcomer in this culture and language. It as my first contact
with a community of writers in this country, and it’s where I
first began to imagine that I could be a writer.” — Julia
Alvarez, author of “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent”
and “In the Time of the Butterflies”
The 73rd annual session of the Bread Loaf
Writers’ Conference, from August 12-22, will convene at the Bread
Loaf campus of Middlebury College in the Green Mountain National
Forest in Ripton, Vt. The public is invited to numerous free conference
lectures and readings.
The oldest writers’ conference in America,
Bread Loaf provides all writers, at all levels of artistic development,
the opportunity to come together to talk about the craft of writing.
The conference emphasizes small workshops and frank consideration
of literary writing and publishing. Supplementary classes, taught
by faculty and fellows, focus on specific aspects of craft. Participants
meet in small groups with agents, editors and publishers. Those
who are actively submitting manuscripts for publication may also
have an individual meeting.
In 1866, Joseph Battell opened the
Bread Loaf Inn and invited his friends and paying guests to come.
Ultimately, Battell purchased more than 30,000 acres of forest
and farmland in the mountains and, in 1915, willed all of it to
Middlebury College. The College decided to use Bread Loaf to house
a graduate school of English and American Literature. Robert Frost,
then living in South Shaftsbury, suggested that Bread Loaf was
the perfect setting for new writing to be nourished and encouraged.
Willa Cather, Katherine Lee Bates, Edwin Markham, and Louis Untermeyer
similarly praised Bread Loaf over more formal college settings.
At Middlebury College’s request, John Farrar, a young editor,
organized a teaching staff and program for the 1926 “Conferences
on Writing,” later to be known as the Bread Loaf Writers’
Conference.
Bread Loaf continues its rich intellectual
tradition by gathering a talented and diverse faculty. The teaching
staff has long consisted of some of the most distinguished writers
in the country, routinely featuring winners of such major honors
as the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Stephen Vincent
Benet, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and Isaac Asimov
are among the writers who have taught at the conference. Those
who have attended include Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty, Theodore
Roethke, and Toni Morrison.
Special guest faculty members at this
year’s conference include John Elder, Linda Pastan, Stanley Plumly
and Alastair Reid. Elder is the Stewart Professor of English and
Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, where he has taught
for 24 years. Both in his teaching and writing, he focuses on
the relationship between literature and the natural world. His
most recent book is Reading the Mountains of Home. Pastan’s
most recent work is Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems
1968-98. Pastan has won many awards for her poetry, and served
as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1991-1995. Plumly has published
six books of poems, including, most recently, The Marriage
in the Trees. He has also won six Pushcart Prizes, and is
presently a member of the department of English at the University
of Maryland. Reid is a poet, prose writer, a translator and a
traveler. He has published more than 20 books. His most recent
work, An Alastair Reid Reader, is a selection of his poetry
and prose.
Special events include a reading by
Louise Glück, critic, teacher, Pulitzer Prize winner and
Vermont State Poet. Glück, who received an honorary Doctor
of Letters from Middlebury College in 1996, will read from her
work on August 17 at 4:15 p.m.
All readings, lectures and conference events open
to the public will be held in the Little Theatre at the Bread
Loaf campus, located north of the village of Ripton on Route 125,
and will take place during the conference from August 12-22.
A detailed schedule of events follows. All lectures
and readings are free and open to the public, and will be given
in the Little Theatre at the Bread Loaf Campus, located north
of the village of Ripton on Route 125. Those who wish to attend
should call the Bread Loaf campus at (802) 388-7945 after August
9 to ensure there have been no scheduling changes.
Schedule of Events:
Wednesday, August 12
8:15 p.m. Readings
by Michael Collier, Susan Orlean and André Brink. Collier,
an award-winning poet, is director of the conference, and is currently
on the English and writing faculty at the University of Maryland.
Collier is also a member of the conference’s nonfiction faculty.
Susan Orlean is the author of The Orchid Thief, which will
be published in 1999, and Saturday Night. She is staff
writer for The New Yorker. Brink, a member of the conference’s
fiction faculty, is a professor of English at the University of
Cape Town. His many novels include A Dry White Season,
An Act of Terror, and Imaginings of Sand. Intimate
Lightning will appear in 1998.
Thursday, August 13
9 a.m. Lecture
by David Bradley, author of two novels, South Street and
the Chaneysville Incident, which was awarded the 1982 PEN/Faulkner
Award and the Academy Award from the American Academy Institute
of Arts and Letters. Bradley is a member of the conference’s fiction
faculty.
4:15 p.m. Readings
by Stanley Plumly and Linda Pastan. Plumly is an award-winning
poet who has published six books of poems, including, most recently,
Boy on the Step. He is presently a member of the department
of English at the University of Maryland, and is a special guest
of the conference. Pastan’s most recent work is Carnival Evening:
New and Selected Poems 1968-1998. Pastan has won many awards
for her poetry, and served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1991-95.
Pastan is also a special guest of the conference.
8:15 p.m. Readings
by Jeffrey Harrison and Richard Bausch. Harrison, a poet, has
published Signs of Arrival, and teaches at Phillips Andover.
Bausch’s eighth novel, In the Night Season, is due out
this spring. The recipient of many awards and fellowships, Bausch
was elected to the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 1995, and
is Heritage Professor of Writing at George Mason University. He
is a member of the conference’s fiction faculty.
Friday, August 14
9 a.m. Lecture
by Charles Baxter. Baxter is the author of four books of short
fiction, most recently, Believers. He has also published
two novels, and is currently on the faculty at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Baxter is a member of the conference’s
fiction faculty.
4:15 p.m. Readings
by Carol Frost and Helena Viramontes. Frost is the author of,
most recently, Venus and Don Juan and Pure. The
recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and
two Pushcart prizes, Frost teaches at Hartwick College, where
she directs the Catskill Poetry Workshop, and is a member of the
conference’s poetry faculty. Viramontes is the author of the novel,
Under the Feet of Jesus, has published a collection of
short stories, and teaches at Cornell University.
8:15 p.m. Readings
by Terry Tempest Williams and Eric Darton. Williams most recent
work is Desert Quiet. She is the Shirley Sutton Thomas
Visiting Professor of English at the University of Utah, and the
recipient of Lannan and Guggenheim fellowships, as well as the
National Wildlife Federation’s National Conservation Award for
Special Achievement. Williams is a member of the conference’s
nonfiction faculty. Darton is the author of the novel, Free
City, and teaches media, technology and cultural studies at
Hunter College in New York City.
Saturday, August 15
9 a.m. Lecture
by Agha Shahid Ali, director of the M.F.A. Creative Writing Program
at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Ali’s most recent
collection of poetry is The Country Without a Post Office.
Ali is a member of the conference’s poetry faculty.
4:15 p.m. Readings
by Sigrid Nunez and Lesley Dauer. Nunez, a member of the conference’s
fiction faculty, is the author of the novels Naked Sleeper
and A Feather on the Breath of God, and has received two
Pushcart prizes, a General Electric Foundation Award for Younger
Writers, and a Whiting Writer’s Award. Dauer is a poet, has published
The Fragile City, and is a reading and writing tutor for
junior high and high school students.
8:15 p.m. Readings
by Carl Phillips and Norah Labiner. Phillips’ three collections
of poetry are From the Devotions; Cortege, a finalist for
the 1995 National Book Critics Award; and In the Blood,
the 1992 winner of the Samual French Morse Poetry Prize. Phillips
is a member of the conference’s poetry faculty. Labiner is the
author of the novel, Our Sometime Sister, and holds a master’s
in English from the University of Minnesota.
Sunday, August 16
4:15 p.m.
Student Readings.
8:15 p.m. Readings
by Dagoberto Gilb, Jennifer Brice and Judy Budnitz. Gilb’s work
has been honored by fellowships from the National Endowment for
the Arts and the Guggenheim and Whiting Foundations. The Magic
of Blood won the Hemingway Foundation Award. Gilb is a member
of the conference’s fiction faculty. Brice is the author of The
Last Settlers, and has an M.F.A. from the University of Alaska
Fairbanks, where she teaches. Budnitz is the author of Flying
Leap, a book of stories, and is completing her M.F.A. at Columbia
University.
Monday, August 17
9 a.m. Lecture
by André Brink.
4:15 p.m. Reading
by Louise Glück, critic, teacher, Pulitzer Prize winner and
Vermont State Poet.
8:15 p.m. Readings
by Alec Wilkinson and Ann Townsend. Wilkinson, a member of the
conference’s nonfiction faculty, is the author of five books,
a member of the conference’s nonfiction faculty, a recipient of
Lyndhurst Prize, a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and a fellowship
from the Guggenheim Foundation. He is a writer for The New Yorker
and contributor to Double Take. Townsend, a poet, has published
Dime Store Erotics, and teaches English at Denison University.
Tuesday, August 18
9 a.m. Lecture
by Carol Frost.
4:15 p.m. Readings
by Sarah Schulman and Michael Loncar. Schulman, a playwright and
author of eight books, is currently collaborating on “Red,
White and Black,” a musical. She was a 1997 finalist for
the Prix de Rome and has received a Fulbright, an American Library
Association Book Award, and a Revson Fellowship for the Future
of New York City at Columbia University. She is a member of the
conference’s fiction faculty. Loncar, a poet, teaches English
and film studies at the University of Michigan and has published
66 galaxie.
8:15 p.m. Readings
by C. D. Wright and Patrick Kavanagh. Wright, a member of the
conference’s poetry faculty, has published eight collections of
poetry, most recently Tremble and Just Whistle,
a booklength poem. The recipient of several poetry prizes, awards
and fellowships, Wright teaches at Brown University and is an
editor for Lost Roads Publishers. Kavanaugh, author of the novel
Gaff Topsails, has also published opinion features, reviews
and short stories.
Wednesday, August 19
9 a.m. Lecture
by C. D. Wright.
4:15 p.m. Readings
by Steve Orlen and Calvin Baker. Orlen, a member of the conference’s
poetry faculty, has published four books of poetry, won three
National Endowment of the Arts Awards, and several other poetry
awards. He teaches in the M.F.A. Program at the University of
Arizona in Tucson. Baker is the author of the novel Naming
the World, and has worked as a reporter and staff writer for
People.
8:15 p.m. Readings
David Bradley and Anne Caston. Caston, a poet, has published Flying
Out With the Wounded, and teaches at St. Mary’s College and
Charles Community College in Maryland.
Thursday, August 20
9 a.m. Readings
by Roland Flint, John Keene and Joyce Hinnefeld. Flint, a member
of the conference’s poetry faculty, has published three chapbooks,
six books of poems, and three books of translations from the Bulgarian.
He taught at Georgetown University for almost 30 years, and is
currently Poet Laureate of Maryland. Keene is the author of the
novel New Directions, has been a lecturer at the University
of Virginia, managing editor of Callaloo, and is presently a New
York Times Fellow at NYU. Hinnefeld is the author of Tell Me
Everything and Other Stories and teaches at Moravia College
in Pennsylvania.
4:15 p.m. Alastair
Reid will talk on Jorge Luis Borges, in the Little Theatre.
8:15 p.m. Performance
by Vermont Symphony Trio.
Friday, August 21
9 a.m. Readings
by Ursula Hegi and David Gewanter. Hegi is the author of six books.
She is the recipient of many grants and awards, including an NEA
Fellowship and a PEN/Faulkner Nomination, and is a member of the
conference’s fiction faculty. Gewanter, a poet, has published
In the Belly, and teaches at Georgetown University.
4:15 p.m. Readings
by Shelby Hearon and Janet Sylvester. Hearon, who makes her home
in Burlington, Vt., is the author of 14 novels, including Owning
Jolene, which won the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Letters Literature Award. Hearon is a member of the conference’s
fiction faculty, and is a visiting professor at Middlebury College.
Sylvester, a poet, has published Mark of Flesh, and is
also the author of That Mulberry Wine. She teaches at the
University of South Carolina.
8:15 p.m. Readings
by Agha Shahid Ali and Martha Cooley. Cooley is the author of
the novel The Archivist and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Saturday, August 22
2 p.m. Readings
by Robert Cohen and Claudia Johnson. Cohen, currently teaching
at Middlebury College, is the author of two novels, and his stories
have appeared in Harper’s, Paris Review, GQ, Antaeus and other
magazines. He is the recipient of several writing awards, and
is a member of the conference’s fiction faculty.
8:15 p.m. Readings
by Charles Baxter and Frederick Reiken. Reiken, author of the
novel The Odd Sea, is a reporter and nature writer.