KR Accepting Applications for Summer Writing Workshops

Among the finest writing programs in the country, KR's Writers Workshop and Young Writers programs are gearing up for 2007. Applications for both programs are now available online.

Writers Workshop
June 16-27, 2007

The adult Writers Workshop program offers the time, setting, and community for writers—both beginning and seasoned—to immerse themselves in their art. Poets, fiction writers, and literary nonfiction writers are invited to spend eight days in the wooded village of Gambier, Ohio, working together and independently, exploring their own work.

The 2007 Writers Workshop offers something for everyone: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, as well as workshops for new writers of fiction and an introduction to memoir writing. As one past participant said, "I learned more at the Writers Workshop than I did in an entire year of college."

Instructors for 2007 include: David Baker (KR Poetry Editor), Rosanna Warren (Witter Bynner Prize-winning poet), Nancy Zafris (KR Fiction Editor), Ron Carlson (award winning novelist and short story writer), Tara Ison (whose second novel will be published by Scribner in February 2007), Rebecca McClanahan (acclaimed creative nonfiction writer), and Brad Kessler (prolific novelist, memoir writer, and children's book author). Complete bios can be found here.

Young Writers
June 24-July 7, 2007
July 15-28, 2007

The Young Writers program has become so popular over the last couple of years that two sessions are offered. This intensive two-week program is for intellectually curious, motivated high school sophomores and juniors who value writing. The workshop provides a lively, supportive atmosphere where students can stretch their talents, discover new strengths, and challenge themselves in the company of peers who share their interests.

Workshop groups (no more than 12 students in each group) meet for five hours a day. In addition to free-writing exercises and responses to "prompts," students write stories, poetry, personal narratives, dialogues, reflective passages, and experimental pieces.

Scholarships for Young Writers are available to students who qualify. Admission is selective and is based primarily on the student's application essay and a teacher's recommendation.

2007 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers

Contest Ends November 30

The fourth annual Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers contest closes November 30. The prize, which is open to high school sophomores and juniors throughout the world, is juried by David Baker, KR's poetry editor.

More than 1,000 entries were received last year, with the winner, Justine Li of California, receiving a scholarship to KR's popular Young Writers summer workshop. The top three poems are published in KR, as well.

Students are invited to submit one poem via an online program until November 30.

High school teachers are encouraged to pass along this information to sophomores and juniors.

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KR BLOG FEATURE

An Interview
with Claire Messud

With her third novel, The Emperor’s Children, Claire Messud did something every writer dreams about: received positive critical notice, and hit the bestseller list. Earlier this month, KR Blog Editor Liz Lopatto interviewed Messud.

Liz Lopatto: I was wondering what the starting point of The Emperor’s Children was for you. Where did the initial energy come from?

Claire Messud: Well, you know, as with any book, it was a convergence of a number of things at once. I had made a decision. This is my fourth book and third novel, and I had not yet set anything primarily in the United States. There are bits of other things that are in the United States, but nothing fully, and I wanted to do that. And once I thought about doing that, New York seemed an obvious place, even though I’d never actually lived there. I think it seemed obvious because–why? Because in all my moving around, most of my friends went to New York and stayed in New York, so it’s been more of a constant for me than a lot of other places.

So there was that element. And then, I wanted to write about friendship, and I wanted to write about ambition. And really, it was the characters. I’m a character–what excites me as a reader and what motivates me as a writer is an exploration of characters.

I started thinking about characters, and started in a way, with the father-daughter relationship, the Marina and Murray relationship. I was curious to try to write about a daughter who wants to do what her father does and is successful at. And then Bootie was—I didn’t have a handle on how everything would come together until Bootie came along, and he remained pretty important in my understanding of this novel and how it would take its shape.

I started it, as I may have said that evening, in early 2001 and it was to be a contemporary novel set in New York. And then I had left it to one side because our daughter was born in the summer, and then there was September 11. When I eventually came back to it, I felt as though I couldn’t change the date, or year—the challenge had been set for me. That was sort of given. I had been writing a novel set in 2001 and I was going to write that novel...

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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.