Writing & Reading at Centrum

Writers' Workshops

Registration is open for the 2008 Centrum Writers' Conference, July 13 through July 20, at Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend. Tuition is $495 and includes admission to all conference events. Scholarships are available.

Room and board options range from $200 to $390, depending on meal plan. Special-topic workshops are $50 each or $195 for five. Register online, or call 360-385-3102, ext. 114. For more information, contact Jordan Hartt, program director, at jordan(at)centrum(dot)org or 360-385-3102, ext. 131.

Now in its 36th year, the Writers Conference was founded by novelist Bill Ransom in 1973, and is known for its intensive, week-long workshops by nationally known authors. New this year are individual workshops on special topics.

Fort Worden State Park has contracted with a new food service company, Bon Appetit, known for the quality of its cuisine and use of organic, locally-grown food.

Writers don't have to sign up for workshops--one option is to pay for room and board during the conference and spend the majority of one's time writing. Or, pay for room and board and choose individual workshops to attend. Writers who do sign up for the morning conference workshops can attend special topic workshops free.

Special Visiting Faculty to Appear at 2008 Writers' Conference

We are pleased to announce that the following writers will be appearing at the Port Townsend Writers' Conference in 2008! These writers will give afternoon workshops to complement and round out the workshops that participants take with our morning workshop faculty. These workshops are free to all participants registered for a core morning workshop. For rates and registration information, please visit http://www.centrum.org/admin/register.html. The Port Townsend Writers' Conference takes place July 13 through July 20.

• Poets Jeannine Hall Gailey and Peter Pereira will offer afternoon workshops in special forms of poetry. Their workshops will take place on alternating days from Monday through Thursday.
• Children's literature author Deb Lund will offer workshops in the craft of children's literature Monday through Friday.
• Ellie Mathews will offer workshops in the craft of writing for young readers on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
• Nonfiction writer and Bellingham Review editor Brenda Miller will offer a two-day workshop session in the lyric essay Wednesday and Thursday, and participate in a panel on Friday along with the editors of the Crab Creek Review, Willow Springs, and Tidepools.
• Narrative journalist Patricia Morrison Coate will present a Wednesday workshop in writing feature articles for magazines.
• Nonfiction writer Brandon Schrand will offer a Thursday workshop in writing the memoir.
• Morning workshop faculty member Kathleen Alcalá will present an afternoon workshop in using maps to imagine and create new stories.
• In addition, there are several other workshops being added, that we will announce as soon as we have lined up the dates! Workshop registration for the summer Conference is already half full, after only one week of registrations, so if your summer plans include the Port Townsend Writer's Conference/Retreat make sure to reserve your place soon. 

Poet Richard Kenney to Read April 27

Poet Richard Kenney will give a reading at the Joseph F. Wheeler Theater on Sunday, April 27, at 1:30 pm. A book-signing and reception will follow.

Kenney's poetry is as informed by science as it is by Celtic and classical literatures. He writes about human evolution and language origins, the cognitive basis of poetic forms, magical reasoning, and the Darwinian lives of subliterary species such as jokes, riddles, proverbs, charms, spells, nursery rhymes, and weather-saws.

Inspired by such poets as Shakespeare, Keats, Hopkins, Yeats, Auden, Frost, and Larkin, Kenney’s books include “The Evolution of the Flightless Bird”, “Orrery”, and “The Invention of the Zero.” His most recent book, “The One-Strand River”, is a collection of poems from 1994 to 2007.

The reading is free, and is presented as part of a new partnership between Centrum and the Foothills Writers' Series. On April 28, Kenney will make a classroom visit and give a noon reading at Peninsula College.