Writing the Future, Carolyn Forche/Pagan Kennedy Tickets Still Available. Plus Open House Workshop Specials!

This weekend is an EXTREMELY exciting one at The Writer's Center, with four major events in three days (read further for details). At the March 21 Open House, everyone in attendance will get the opportunity to see The Writer's Center's NEW WEB SITE—and learn about some of its special features—before the site launches later this spring. We're even throwing in some Open House bargains. Find out which workshop leaders are scheduled to attend here (but note that we’ll be adding more as the week goes on).

We've added several new workshops to our spring/summer session, including a Master Poetry Workshop with Maryland State Poet Laureate Stanley Plumly. In order to register for this workshop, you must be admitted by the workshop leader. PLEASE DO NOT register online or submit a payment unless you are accepted into the workshop. And please review guidelines carefully.

To view all of our upcoming workshops, visit http://www.writer.org/.

SUMMER WORKSHOPS FOR KIDSIs your son or daughter interested in a writing workshop? Did you know The Writer’s Center offers summer workshops for kids? To view a list of summer kids’ workshops, click on the banner along the top of this page.

NEWS:

Director (and workshop leader) Charles Jensen has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. Congratulations, Charles!

WEEKEND EVENTS & DISCOUNTS

FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 8:00 P.M. STORY/STEREO. FREE

Story/Stereo: A Night of Literature & Music welcomes visiting emerging writer fellows Kathleen Flenniken (Famous) and Anthony Varallo (Out Loud). The Musical guest: More Humans. We’ll also show the exciting trailer of the film Docs in Progress will debut at our upcoming LitArtlantic festival in May. Learn more here.

SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. WRITING THE FUTURE: A ONE-DAY CONFERENCE

The Writer's Center is stoked to offer this very unique opportunity for members and local writers. If you're a writer and want to know what the future holds in store for you, this is a must-see event. For the price of a one-day workshop, you get to see some of the most important writers and publishers in the industry. Up close and in person.

Admission: $90. Admission includes a FREE one-year subscription to the revamped Creative Nonfiction Magazine AND a FREE one-year membership to The Writer's Center. To view the entire schedule of events and to register, click here.

Here’s more about Writing the Future (and yes, we will be taking registarations on the day of the event):

WRITING THE FUTURE, a one-day, information packed conference for writers in all genres and media, reporters, editors, and publishers will explore and explain the transitions and innovations taking place in the literary and publishing worlds. Panelists include Nick Bilton, NY Times tech writer and interface specialist; Richard Nash, former editor of Soft Skull Press, social publishing visionary, and founder of Cursor; Carolyn Forche, poet and essayist; Tom Shroder, writer and former editor, The Washington Post; Jay Ogilvy, co-founder of Global Business Network; Lee Gutkind, author of Almost Human: Making Robots Think; and many, many more. This event is sponsored by The Creative Nonfiction Foundation, Arizona State University's Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, and The Writer's Center.

That same evening, from 5:00 to 7:00 P.M., join Lee Gutkind and the editors of Creative Nonfiction for a FREE reception to honor the Creative Nonfiction re-launch. Here's your opportunity to mingle with the editors and some fine writers and creative minds.

SUNDAY, MARCH 21, OPEN HOUSE. NOON-2:00 P.M.

The Writer's Center has moved its Open House from April 10 to March 21 at NOON--right before our 33rd Birthday reading (rescheduled from Snowmageddon in January). The Open House is FREE and open to everyone. As usual, you’ll be able to meet individually with workshop leaders and get feedback on what workshops are right for you. And now we're offering specials:

Everyone in attendance at the Open House will receive a $25 coupon on a Spring/Summer 2010 workshop.

Additional $25 coupons will be available on selected spring/summer workshops, which we'll announce at the Open House only. That means a potential value of $50.

Restrictions: Cannot be combined with other offers. Cannot be used on completed workshops, or workshops you're currently registered in. The selected workshop sale is for the Open House only.

CONTESTS:

Name the E-newsletter contest

Favorite Writer Quote contest

At the Open House, we're going to open two ongoing contests in conjunction with our new Web site. With our new Web site we'll be going to a snazzier, more reader-friendly version of a newsletter, and we'd like your help coming up with a good name for it. We'll announce details (and prizes for the winners) at the Open House and next week on Facebook.

We'll also announce details on our Favorite Writer Quote contest at the Open House, and what you can win.

SUNDAY, MARCH 21, BIRTHDAY READING WITH CAROLYN FORCHE AND PAGAN KENNEDY, 2:00 P.M.

Following the Open House, stick around as Pagan Kennedy and Carolyn Forche help celebrate The Writer's Center's 33rd Birthday. A champagne reception will follow this event. Admission: $20. Register here.

Carolyn Forche to Read at Annual Birthday Event

Great news. Carolyn Forche has just been added to our birthday event in January. She will read with Orange Prize finalist and Writer's Center "alumnus" Pagan Kennedy. Should be a highly memorable evening. More information will be posted when it's available. In the meantime, here's a bio of Forche:

Known as a “poet of witness,” Carolyn Forché is the author of four books of poetry. Her first poetry collection, Gathering The Tribes (Yale University Press, 1976), won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. In 1977, she traveled to Spain to translate the work of Salvadoran-exiled poet Claribel Alegría, and upon her return, received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, which enabled her to travel to El Salvador, where she worked as a human rights advocate.

Her second book, The Country Between Us (Harper and Row, 1982), received the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, and was also the Lamont Selection of the Academy of American Poets. In 1994, her third book of poetry, The Angel of History (HarperCollins), was chosen for The Los Angeles Times Book Award. Her fourth book of poems, Blue Hour, was published by HarperCollins in Spring 2003.

Her translation of Alegria's work, Flowers From The Volcano, was published by the University Pittsburgh Press in 1983, and that same year, Writers and Readers Cooperative (New York and London) published El Salvador: Work of Thirty Photographers, for which she wrote the text. In 1991, The Ecco Press published her translations of The Selected Poetry of Robert Desnos (with William Kulik). Her articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Esquire, Mother Jones, and others. Forché has held three fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, and in 1992 received a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship.