Events

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “An Anatomy of Surprise in Fiction” with Tania James

Surprise creates a rupture in the reading experience; we are stunned, stilled, caught. In this class, we’ll discuss surprise in terms of craft, and consider ways in which to manage surprise, suspense, reversals, and plot twists in fiction. The class will include discussion of published stories as well as in-class exercises aimed toward rendering surprise on the page.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “White Elegies: On Whiteness and Cultural Appropriation in Poetry”

Join us for “White Elegies: On Whiteness and Cultural Appropriation in Poetry,” with Paisley Rekdal.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “Slightly Odd or Profoundly Bizarre: Notes on Defamiliarization” with Matthew Oltzmann

This lecture will explore the idea that poetry should “make the strange familiar, and the familiar strange.” How does something recognizable or mundane suddenly find itself charged with mystery? How does something wild and surreal feel immediately connected to our daily lives? At a glance, it might seem like I’m describing two very different types of poems: one invested in our ordinary world, the other reaching for the absurd. The real and the unreal. However, in each of these modes, the effect I’m describing is actually achieved through similar means.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “Fiction Forms" with Tiphanie Yanique

Poets use form to challenge themselves by the form’s limitations. Poets also use form to participate in poetic tradition. In many cases, poets push against the limitations for forms as a way to push against the traditions which created those forms. Specific forms, however, have specific strengths which allow for specific dynamics to arise in the poem. To this end, poets have often created new forms as ways to reference new cultural limitations, create new traditions and make possible new dynamics.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “Through a Child’s Eyes; Childhood Memoirs and Their Narrators” with Reyna Grande

Capturing the “voice” of our child selves can be daunting but deeply rewarding. In this lecture, we will discuss successful approaches to child narrators in memoir and explore techniques you can apply to your own work.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “Charisma and Characterization" with Charles Baxter

What makes us fixate on a character so that we cannot look away? What causes a character to have power over us? Why do such people make us think about them? This is an immensely important and difficult topic, especially in these times, and I would like to talk about such characters as Morrison’s Sula, Melville’s Ahab, Dostoevsky’s Stavrogin, and possibly one of Shakespeare’s characters as “magnetic personalities.”

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “Magnitude and Bond: Imagery and the Sensual in the Work of Gwendolyn Brooks and Lucille Cli

“Magnitude and Bond: Imagery and the Sensual in the Work of Gwendolyn Brooks and Lucille Clifton” with Vievee Francis

Vievee Francis will explore the way Brooks’s and Clifton’s provocative and surprising use of imagery allows broad readings of the black body’s restraint and boundlessness. Through this exploration we may all find a means of (re)claiming our bodies for ourselves.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “A Belief in Angels: Joy in Poetry" with Victoria Chang

What is a poem of joy? Or a line of poetry that evokes joy? In this talk, we’ll think through what joy means, what a poem of joy might look like, and how a poem of joy might affect its readers. In the process, we’ll look at poems by various poets such as Frank O’Hara, Robert Hass, Li-Young Lee, Ross Gay, Elizabeth Bishop, and many others.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “Creatures of Impulse: What Fiction Writers Can Learn from TV” with Dean Bakopoulos

This lecture will focus on the way popular TV series hook the viewer, construct scenes, build character, and structure an episode, and how this can easily be adapted to add energy to short stories and novels.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “Fragmentation, Witness and the (Power) Structure of Story" with Ana Menéndez

This lecture concerns itself with the fragmented narrative as a vehicle for bearing witness.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “Remember When We Talked About the Future? Memory and Aspiration in Poems" with Gabrielle Ca

“Remember When We Talked About the Future? Memory and Aspiration in Poems” with Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “The Art of Revision" with Peter Ho Davies

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “Debut Books of Poetry: Notes on Sounding Like Yourself” with Brenda Shaughnessy

You’ve immersed in flow, process, form, revision, workshop, submissions, and now—what will/could all that creative and administrative energy add up to? What are the hallmarks, conventions, and pitfalls of the debut collection? How can a book “sound like” its author? This talk explores the elements of and issues around the debut poetry collection, both in contemporary literary history and in current publishing practices—and is meant to inform, inspire, and challenge those poets working on their first manuscripts.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: "The New Made New: Revisiting to Stephen Henderson," with Jericho Brown.

Virtual Middlebury

Bread Loaf Lecture Series: “What Is the Novel For?" with Alexander Chee

Virtual Middlebury

Erev Rosh Hashanah

Mead Chapel

Rosh Hashanah

Mead Chapel

Volleyball vs Saint Michaels

Memorial Field House Pepin Gymnasium

MiddView 2021 Fall MiddVote

Kick off the mid-term election season by creating your own MiddVOTE t-shirt (supplies provided). Stop by to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, and learn how to get involved in MiddVOTE’s fall nonpartisan get-out-the-vote efforts! Hosted by MiddVote and the Center for Community Engagement. Questions? Contact Ashley Laux, alaux@middlebury.edu.

Proctor Terrace

Field Hockey vs Wesleyan

Peter Kohn Field