NEWS CHANGES TO THE KR MASTHEAD
Esteemed
Fiction Editor Nancy Zafris Moves on to Southern Pastures; New
Fiction Editor and Associate Editor Appointed
Joining the KR staff is Sergei
Lobanov-Rostovsky. Lobanov-Rostovsky
will take on the new role of associate editor. A novelist, critic, and
distinguished teacher at Kenyon College, he will take the lead in expanding KR's web
site, and will also work to identify a wider circle of writers on
whom to call for reviews, essays, and intellectual dialogue.
Nancy
Zafris, long-time fiction editor at KR, has decided to take
on a new
challenge as the editor of the Flannery
O’Connor Award for Short Fiction at the University of Georgia
Press. She will continue to work with KR as a member of
the Advisory Board and as associate director of the Writers
Workshop. Said KR Editor David Lynn, "Nancy has
been my friend and collaborator for so many years—I'll miss
her invaluable counsel. But I know this is a great opportunity for
her. I'm especially
grateful
that she'll
remain a part of the KR family."
Geeta Kothari has
been selected to fill Zafris' sizeable shoes. Kothari, a faculty member
at the University of Pittsburgh, writes fiction and nonfiction. Her
work has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, the New
England Review, Best American Essays, and KR, among others.
She is the recipient of a fellowship in literature from the Pennsylvania
Council on the Arts. Said Lynn, "Geeta is a writer and teacher
of vision, eloquence, and breadth."
FROM
THE KR BLOG
KIRSTEN OGDEN ON HER EXPERIENCE AT THE KR WRITERS
WORKSHOP
Part One: In which the blogger expounds on the brilliance of Rosanna Warren and the comforts of a good cup of coffee.
Yeah,
it’s a bit like boot
camp (without the yelling and obstacle
courses) for serious writers but I never expect it to be as boot-campy
as it turns out to be each summer. “Eat, sleep, drink, breathe” writing–they
aren’t kidding. It’s year four for me, and after two
non-fiction workshops with Rebecca
McClanahan and a poetry workshop
with David Baker (See: God
of Poetry). I found myself in Rosanna
Warren’s poetry workshop two weeks ago discovering how artists
take observations from “hey, ain’t this neat” to “wow!” 
Myself and nine other poets began in Treleaven House on the Kenyon College campus early on a Sunday morning, with the West Coasters like me hungover from jet-lag and time-change wishing the coffee were just a wee bit stronger; and they want a poem outta me? We’ll just see about that. We began with “Thanks—Offering for Recovery” and “Redcliffe Square” and talked about the observed fact and its connection with personal reality. Rosanna’s question: How is the observed fact moved through the imagination into art?
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Inside the Summer
2007 issue of KR...
- Fiction by T.C. Boyle, Myfanwy Collins, Gerald Duff, Amina Gautier, Alan Heathcock, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Daniel Torday, Lori White
- Poetry by Marvin Bell, Claudia Grinnell, John Hollander, William Logan, Maurya Simon, Arthur Sze, Charles Harper Webb
- Nonfiction by Atar Hadari, Stanley Plumly, Roger Rosenblatt, Jeff Staiger
- And David Lynn's interview with Ian McEwan
Don't miss it...on newsstands now. Better yet, order a subscription now and get it in your mailbox.
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The Kenyon Review is supported in part by generous grants from the Ohio Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Smart Family Foundation, and the New York Times Company Foundation.
the wild and precious lives
of young writers
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver
It's the second
week of the second session for this summer's Young
Writers (YW) program and,
by all accounts, it's been another success. Anna Duke Reach, 
KR's
programs director, lists just a few of the many activities these high
school students
have been immersed in:
- Three daily workshop sessions; beginning with freewriting to "stretch," then on to exploring fiction, literary non-fiction, poetry, prose, essay-writing,etc.
- Homework includes reading selections from The Kenyon Review to inspire students to write in various genres.
- Genre sessions in playwriting, forms of poetry, autobiography, war stories, and more.
- Nightly readings—the first week by professional writers, and the second week by the students themselves.
- Writers Fight Club.
- Special group projects: Session I wrote cadences and marched to them at July 4 parade; Session II held a midnight publication party for the last Harry Potter book, then a marathon reading of it over the weekend.
It's
a heady two weeks for most. YW Director David Hall has shaped
a challenging curriculum that pushes the kids to imagine new possibilities
in their writing. He is supported by a talented staff of instructors,
many of whom graduated from Kenyon
College, who get the ink flowing
in these young writers' pens. You can read KR Blog Editor and YW instructor
Tyler Meier's blog postings about
it here, here,
and here.
And then there's
this thoughtful thank-you note from James Kriz, a participant in Session
I:
"...The Young Writers' program far exceeded my expectations, and it left me with much more than I came with. The positive workshop atmosphere helped me to further build confidence in my writing. The teachers, the sessions, the fellow students all provided so much. I love to write, but I learned the most during the sessions by listening to the works of our teachers and my fellow students.The insights and perspectives offered helped refresh my imagination and open my mind—to all thoughts, questions, diversities, and dreams."
The program, created by Kenyon Review Editor David Lynn, is divided into two sessions, each with 60 high school students formed into 12-person workshops and guided by the instructors. For many, it's a first taste of college life—from the competitive application process (with essay, transcript, and teacher recommendation), to the classroom setting in Ascension Hall, to residence-hall life with Kenyon College's student resident advisers.
Amber
Evans, a 17-year-old rising senior at Northland High School in Columbus,
Ohio, said her experience in Young Writers has
put Kenyon on her list of potential colleges. A $2,000 scholarship allowed
her to attend the program.
"I'm normally into poetry," Amber said. "But coming here, it kind of expands your outlook on writing and different kinds of writing." A presentation by Lynn boosted her confidence after he empathized with the self-doubt experienced by many writers. "It's just uplifting," she said.
FROM
THE ARCHIVES
Winter 1964
The
Winter 1964 issue of KR was
a celebratory one of sorts—it
was the 100th
issue since the magazine was founded
in 1939. 
To
honor
that achievement, KR Editor
Robie Macauley
gathered old friends, such as Peter Taylor, Robert Lowell, Randall
Jarrell, Cleanth Brooks, and more—even John
Crowe Ransom
himself, who contributed an essay on Wallace Stevens—to
bring new work to the special issue. Featured
among this "old
and happy gang" was Robert Penn Warren. Here is a snippet of Warren's
short story—click
the "more" link at the end to read the whole enchilada. [Incidentally,
you can also read about Warren's accomplished daughter, Rosanna, in this
newsletter—check out the "From the Blog" article.]
it's
a long way from central park to fiddlersburg
ROBERT
PENN WARREN
In the moment of waking,
on the same bed in Fiddlersburg where, twenty years back, he had
lain in the dark by Lettice Poindexter, his wife,
Brad Tolliver became aware first of the throbbing head and uneasy stomach
which he had predicted from the brandy. Then, even before memory
could sort out the facts of the recent past, he was aware of a sudden
swooping descent into despair, like lying in a dory, at sea, eyes closed,
and the day sliding side-on, down the trough of a wave.
He had, actually, shut his eyes.
Now he opened them again, recognizing the ceiling, the gray plaster, the familiar
cracks—would that plaster never fall?—and knew that it was late,
knew that it was Sunday, knew that he had certain obligations to a guest, to
an employer, to Yasha Jones, the Great Director, the Wonder Boy of the Coast,
and knew the source of his despair. Long ago he had written a little book. Now,
because of that book—not because of two Oscars or two awards from the Screen
Writers Guild, not because of seventeen credits, not because of any of these
things that had filled the years between—he was here and Yasha Jones was
here, and they would make a beautiful moving picture. Had all the years
between gone, therefore, for nothing?
He shut his eyes and knew that that was the way it had begun last night: with
that question. He had lain on the bed, and moonlight had fallen across
it, and he had remembered writing that book. If he had not written that
book, he would not, late one sunny afternoon in June 1937, have been walking
in Central Park, along a narrow, winding path bordered by high hedges, chewing
a grass stem, while Lettice Poindexter leaned down at him a little (she was in
high heels), or, rather, let her head bend a little forward and sidewise so that
she could scrutinize his face while, to the accompaniment of small weaving gestures,
merely from the wrist, on the left wrist, two heavy gold bracelets, East Indian
or something, with barbaric things dangling from them, she explained to him the
deeper meaning of his work.
He had great talent, she said. She would hate to see it wasted, she said.
Besides, she said, there was only one way, in the modern world, to find happiness. She
had found it. She was explaining to him how he could find it and, at the
same time, bring forth the deeper meaning of his work.
If there had been no work there would have been nothing to talk about the deeper
meaning of.
Work, he thought now, lying there.
Deeper meaning of, he thought.