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New Harmony Writers Workshop offers free public events

June 4, 2014

The University of Southern Indiana's New Harmony Writers Workshop, to be held June 8-14 in New Harmony, Indiana, allows participants to work closely with nationally-reputed writers - and will allow the public access to those writers through a series of free events throughout the week.

The faculty for the inaugural New Harmony Writers Workshop are Adrian Matejka, Erika Meitner, Phong Nguyen and Christine Sneed. The 2014 Fellows are Eugene Cross, Elena Passarello and Ryan Teitman. (Biographies and links to their websites below.)

The week's free events are:

Sunday, June 8

12-2 p.m.-Open House cookout at the James A. Sanders Scholars Retreat House

6:30 p.m.-Erika Meitner reading, Bayou Conference Center, with a reception to follow

Monday, June 9

7 p.m.-Eugene Cross and Elena Passarello reading, Sara's Harmony Way, with a reception to follow

Tuesday, June 10

10 a.m.- Adrian Matejka craft lecture, "Using the Mask: Persona and Voice in Contemporary Poetry," Barn Abbey

1 p.m.- Christine Sneed craft lecture, "Humor and the Use of Hybrid Forms in Prose and Poetry,"Barn Abbey

3 p.m.- Ryan Teitman poetry exercises, "The Republic of Metaphor," Barn Abbey

7 p.m.- Sneed reading, New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, with a reception to follow

Wednesday, June 11

4:30 p.m.-Passarello nonfiction exercises, "The Old Collage Try: Reading and Writing the Collage Essay," Barn Abbey

7 p.m.-Phong Nguyen and Teitman reading, The Atheneum, with a  bonfire reception to follow

Thursday, June 12

10 a.m.-Nguyen publishing lecture, "The How and Why of Literary Publishing," Barn Abbey

1 p.m.-Meitner craft lecture, "Poetry Taboos and You: How to Break the Rules and Why," Barn Abbey

3 p.m.-Cross fiction exercises, "Back Where I Come From: Writing the Active World," Barn Abbey

Friday, June 13

6 p.m.- Matejka reading, The Atheneum

Faculty

Matejka was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and the 2013 National Book Award for his most recent book, The Big Smoke.

Meitner, winner of the 2002 Robert Dana-Anhinga Prize for Poetry for her first book, Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore, and the 2009 National Poetry Series competition for her second, Ideal Cities.

Nguyen is author of Pages from the Textbook of Alternate History (2014) and Memory Sickness and Other Stories (2011) and is editor of Pleiades and Pleiades Press.

Sneed's first book, Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry, won the Association of Writers and Writing Programs 2009 Grace Paley Prize, the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award, and Ploughshares' John C. Zacharis Prize, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Fellows

Cross is the author of the short story collection Fires of Our Choosing, which was long listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and was named the Gold Medal winner in the Short Story category by the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Passarello is the author of the essay collection Let Me Clear My Throat, which won the 2013 gold medal for nonfiction at the Independent Publisher Awards. 

Teitman is the author of the poetry collection Litany for the City (BOA Editions, 2012), chosen by Jane Hirshfield for the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize.

For more information, go to www.usi.edu/nhww.

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