Winter 2012-2013 alumni update: an Oprah pick, a Pushcart nomination & more
Oprah announces conference alumna Ayana Mathis’ debut as the second pick for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 Our alumni have hardly been hibernating during the autumn and winter months. Since our last update we’ve received word of publications and accolades galore — rewards for long seasons of toil. On the fiction side, 2011 participant Ayana Mathis‘ [...]
September alumni news: publication success & a new local workshop
We continue to hear good publishing news from alumni — including the latest crop of participants from 2012. Fiction writer Kirstin Chen, who was in Lan Samantha Chang’s workshop this year, learned while at the conference that her debut novel will be published in the fall of 2013 by Amazon Publishing. A 2011-2012 Steinbeck Fellow [...]
Faculty Profile: Brenda Hillman
~ by Aaron DiFranco Few writers match the tenacity, courage and range of Brenda Hillman in seeking out a congruence between one’s non-verbal experience of the world and how language reflects it. Her poems command not only a fiercely demanding verbal range, but are also fearless in their investigations of the often-disconcerting emptiness of that [...]
Faculty Profile: Tayari Jones
“Born, bred and buttered” in Atlanta, Georgia (as she once described herself), Tayari Jones has placed all three of her novels in that city, creating a trilogy, as The Village Voice noted, “defining middle-class black Atlanta the way Cheever did Westchester.” Although Tayari Jones lives primarily in the northeast these days, “Atlanta is where my [...]
We’re hearing good news from alumni !
Unbeknownst to each other, Kathleen Rowell (2010) and Thomas Linville (2010, 2011) both entered the Mighty River Short Story Contest in 2010 ~ and won prizes. Peterson received First Prize for her story “Resolution,” and Linville Second Prize for his story “Portland ” This is almost like a Trifecta, isn’t it? Okay, a Bi-fecta. The Mighty [...]
Faculty profile: Lan Samantha Chang
For last year’s conference, fiction and poetry assistant Jeannie Kim-McPherson penned this introduction to Lan Samantha Chang’s work. Lan Samantha Chang’s stories have appeared in The Atlantic and twice in The Best American Short Stories, and her books have won numerous awards and accolades, including the PEN Beyond Margins Award. She has received writing fellowships [...]
Allardice Publication News
Participant Jim Allardice sent the following message: Hello everyone, Just a quick note to let you know that the story I workshopped in Samantha Chang’s workshop last summer has been accepted in Folio. The story I workshopped with Robert Boswell was published in The Literary Review in January, and another story, which I submitted to [...]
Faculty Profile: Crossing Borders with Forrest Gander
Born in California’s Mojave desert with roots in the South, schooled in Virginia and California, now living in Rhode Island, but frequently traveling abroad: Forrest Gander’s itinerant physical existence is mirrored in his writing, which travels widely. Gander has authored 12 books of poetry, a novel, a book of essays, and a “hybrid book,” and [...]
A Bit More About Arthur Sze
When Arthur Sze was named a Chancellor of the Academy of AmericanPoets last month, Academy Chancellor Naomi Shihab Nye called his poetry “a nourishing tonic for the mind.” The word tonic, with its connotations of both musical tonality and promotion of muscular health, is a particularly apt one for Arthur Sze’s [...]
Tayari Jones on NPR
Tayari Jones was heard on NPR today with this essay about the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida. She writes and speaks with the elegance and heart-breaking honesty so present in all her work.
About the Blog
This blog is for the Napa Valley Writers' Conference community: once and future attendees, friends of the conference, faculty and staff. Please contribute comments, which are reviewed before publishing (usually within 24-48 hours of submission). We look forward to the conversation!