Writing & Reading at Centrum

Upcoming at the Summer Conference

2008 marks a new partnership at Fort Worden! The David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction--learn more about the Langum Charitable Trust here--will be awarded at the Wheeler Theater on July 18, at 4 pm in conjunction with the Port Townsend Writers' Conference.

The prize is offered annually to the work that is the best deemed book in American historical fiction. The prize and the $1,000 stipend will awarded to writer Kurt Andersen for his historical novel "Heyday".

Set in 1848, the novel begins in New York City and explores the relationship of a traveling Englishman and an American actress and clandestine prostitute. Andersen immerses the reader in rich quotidian details of life in New York City and California.

Following the award ceremony, which is free and open to the public, a reception will be held in the Fort Worden Commons.

Port Townsend Writers' Conference Now At Capacity

The core morning workshops and the special afternoon workshops, as well as the Residency-Only option at the Port Townsend Writers' Conference are now all at capacity. However, we have started a waiting list for all options. To put your name on this list, please call our Registrar at 360.385.3102, x114.

In the meantime, there are a number of ways to experience literary programming at Centrum this year.

• Our 2008 Readings and Lectures Series the week of July 13-July 19 is part of the week-long summer Conference, and is open to the public. All readings and lectures are free. 
• And for those of you looking for an intimate workshop experience, Rebecca Brown and Ilya Kaminsky will be leading an autumn weekend intensive the weekend of October 9-12. Space is limited for this--and all--literary workshops, but registration is available now.

Richard Kenney Poetry Reading April 27

Poet Richard Kenney will be giving a reading this Sunday at the Joseph F. Wheeler Theater. The reading will start at 1:30 pm, with a book-signing and reception to follow.

Kenney, who teaches poetry in the undergraduate and Master of Fine Arts programs at the University of Washington, writes poems as informed by science as they are by Celtic and classical literatures. He was a faculty member at the Port Townsend Writers' Conference during nineteen-eighties, teaching and writing alongside such writers as James Welch, Marvin Bell, and Tobias Wolff.

Influenced by the geological work of John McPhee, as well as by such poets as Keats, Hopkins, Yeats, Auden, Frost, and Larkin, Kenney 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.

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.

In this book, from which he will be reading on Sunday, Kenney tells tales of loves, births, and politics—in lively, quicksilver language that surprises at every turn. He often strikes a note that is rare in contemporary poetry—the satirical attack, with an eye on the news of the day—and ponders the “one-strand river” that is the sea, with its one encircling shore and its tidal pull on both the landscape and the human heart.

For a number of years Kenney led the UW creative-writing summer seminar in Rome. His work has appeared in such magazines as The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly, among many others.

The afternoon reading is free, and is presented as part of a new partnership between Centrum and Peninsula College’s Foothills Writers' Series.

Waiting List Available for Writers' Conference

Although all of the core morning workshops at the 2008 Port Townsend Writers' Conference have filled, a few spots may open up over the next couple of months. To put your name on the waiting list, simply call the Centrum registrar at 360.385.3102, x114.

Waiting lists for all workshops have been started, including those for Chris Abani, Kim Addonizio, Kathleen Alcala, Brian Evenson (pictured), Lesley Hazleton, Gary Lilley, and Selah Saterstrom.

Waiting lists are also available for the Residency Only option.

Port Townsend Writers' Conference Workshops Full

All of the core morning workshops at the Port Townsend Writers' Conference have filled. However, there are still many ways to be a part of the literary scene at Fort Worden this summer.

The Residency Only Option offers you not only time and space to write, but allows you to do so while attending our faculty readings and lectures; meeting, dining, and gathering with like-minded writers from all over the region and the country; and the rare opportunity to do all of this in one of the truly inspirational environments of the Pacific Northwest. Please note: There is only one more space left for this option!

To register for this option please follow this link or call our Registrar at 360.385.3102, x114.

Register for Port Townsend Writers' Conference

If your summer plans include the week-long Port Townsend Writers' Conference, now is the time to register! Our core morning workshops are currently full, but afternoon workshops and freewrites are available.  If the full workshop is what you're interested in, we can place you on a wait list, as space may become available over the next couple of months.
 

If you don't plan on registering for an afternoon workshop, but would like to spend a week at a writing retreat in an inspirational, supportive environment, you can also register for the Residency Only option and attend the readings and lectures for free while taking your own work to the next level.  Please note that there is only one space available for this option.

Registration is available by following this link, as well as by calling the Centrum Registrar at 360.385.3102, x114

Bad Girls Riding in Cars

A former psychologist and political journalist with deep roots in both Judaism and Catholicism, Lesley Hazleton is, as she writes in the introduction to her biography of Mary, "a Jew who once seriously considered becoming a rabbi, a former convent schoolgirl who daydreamed about being a nun, an agnostic with a deep sense of religious mystery though no affinity for organized religion."

Born in England, Hazleton reported from Israel for Time magazine, specializing in religious, social and cultural issues, and has since written feature articles on Middle East politics for, among others, The New York Times, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The Nation, and Harper's.

Her most recent book is "Jezebel: the Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen." Previous books include three acclaimed volumes of Middle East reportage: "Israeli Women," "Where Mountains Roar," and the award-winning "Jerusalem, Jerusalem" -- all widely praised for their blend of insight, in-depth reporting, and fine writing. In her own bad-girl past, she wrote about riding around in cars.

Hazleton will be leading a core morning workshop in nonfiction writing at the 2008 Port Townsend Writers' Conference, with an emphasis less on perfecting work in hand than on playing with ideas and approaches to move participants forward in their work. "I think of a workshop as a safe place to experiment, and fall flat on your face to get up and start again with a big grin," Hazleton says. "I'll be focusing on three things: trusting your own voice, re-creating the moment on the page, and playing with the possibilities of creative nonfiction."