Lakeland to host Writers Festival
The Great Lakes Writers Festival, Lakeland College’s 12th annual celebration of the written word, will be held on Lakeland’s campus, Nov. 5-6.
This two-day event features several readings and workshops with guest authors David Lehman and Stacey Harwood, along with members of the Lakeland faculty.
The Great Lakes Writers Festival is free and open to the public. Hosted by Karl Elder, Lakeland’s Fessler professor of creative writing, this event provides both seasoned and emerging writers the opportunity to talk with peers, to discuss their work and to learn from the pros in workshops.
Lehman and Harwood will both join the Lakeland community for conversations about their art and craft.
Lehman, an accomplished poet, serves as series editor of “The Best American Poetry,” which he initiated in 1988. The general editor of the University of Michigan Press’s Poets on Poetry Series, he delivered Lakeland’s commencement address in 2008.
He is the author of several collections of poems, including “When a Woman Loves a Man” (Scribner, 2005), “Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man” (with James Cummins, Soft Skull Press, 2005), “The Evening Sun” (2002), “The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry” (2000), “Valentine Place” (1996), “Operation Memory” (1990), and “An Alternative to Speech” (1986).
A native of New York City, Lehman graduated from Columbia University and attended Cambridge University in England as a Kellett Fellow. He also received a doctorate in English from Columbia University.
Harwood’s poems, essays and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Saveur, The International Journal of Humor Research, Lit, www.poets.org and elsewhere.
Paul Muldoon selected her poem, “Contributors' Notes,” for “The Best American Poetry 2005.” She is a contributor to the dining out pages of Time Out New York and is the managing editor of The Best American Poetry website and on-line magazine.
Harwood is a policy analyst with the state of New York.
The festival includes a writing contest that features two categories — high school participants and all remaining participants. Anyone who attends a festival workshop is eligible. First place in both categories will receive cash awards in each of three genres — poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction.
For further information or to register, contact Elder at (920) 565-1276 or elderk@lakeland.edu. For a complete schedule of both days and additional information, visit the festival’s Web site, www.greatlakeswritersfestival.org.
