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.