Writers’ Conference Begins 26th Year

Celebrating its 26th summer session, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference will run from Tuesday, July 21, through Saturday, Aug. 1, and feature readings, panels and lectures by distinguished faculty and nationally recognized editors, publishers and literary agents.

The conference will begin with a reading by author Randall Kenan at 8:15 p.m., Tuesday, July 21, in the Mary Sue Cushman Room of the Bairnwick Women’s Center. 

Kenan is the author of a novel, “A Visitation of Spirits” (Grove Press), and a collection of stories, “Let the Dead Bury Their Dead” (Harcourt, Brace), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a nominee for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction and a New York Times Notable Book. He has written a young adult biography, “James Baldwin: Author” (Chelsea House), and two works of nonfiction, “Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century” (Alfred A. Knopf), which was nominated for the Southern Book Award, and “The Fire This Time” (Melville House Books). Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Sherwood Anderson Award and the 1997 Rome Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Kenan was the John and Renée Grisham Writer-in- Residence at the University of Mississippi. He teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The program will also feature readings by National Book Award winners Tim O’Brien (4: 15 p.m., Wednesday, July 22) and Alice McDermott (4:15 p.m., Friday, July 24), and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel (8:15 p.m., Monday, July 27).

Best-selling and critically acclaimed fiction writers will also offer public readings during the conference: Christine Schutt (8:15 a.m., Thursday, July 23); Tony Earley (4:15 p.m., Saturday, July 25); Richard Bausch (4:15 p.m., Sunday, July 26,); Erin McGraw (4:15 p.m., Tuesday, July 28); Adrianne Harun (4:15 p.m., Wednesday, July 29); Allen Wier (8:15 p.m., Thursday, July 30); Jill McCorkle (8:15 p.m., Friday, July 31); Kevin Wilson (4:15 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 1) and Steve Yarbrough (8:15 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 1). 

Award-winning poets’ readings are open to the public: A.E. Stallings (8:15 p.m., Wednesday, July 22); founder of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference Wyatt Prunty (4:15 p.m., Thursday, July 23); B.H. Fairchild (8:15 p.m., Friday, July 24); Mary Jo Salter (8:15 p.m., Saturday, July 25); Maurice Manning (8:15 p.m., Sunday, July 26); Sidney Wade (4:15 p.m., Monday, July 27); Daniel Anderson (8:15 p.m., Tuesday, July 28); Charles Martin (4:15 p.m., Thursday, July 30) and Andrew Hudgins (4:15 p.m., Friday, July 31). 

Acclaimed playwright Dan O’Brien (8:15 p.m., Wednesday, July 29) will also read a selection of his work. 

Editors from numerous publications, including Algonquin Books, the American Scholar, Blackbird, Copper Canyon Press, Grove/Atlantic, the Hopkins Review, the Kenyon Review, Knopf, LSU Press, the Oxford American and Poetry, will discuss publishing. Agents participating include Georges Borchardt Literary Agency and Brandt and Hochman Literary Agents, Folio Literary Management, and Renée Zuckerbrot Literary Agency. Representatives from HowlRound and ArtsEmerson and the Alliance Theatre will meet with playwrights. 

A complete conference schedule can be found on page 11, or online at <www.sewaneewriters.org/conference/schedule>. Books are available at the University Book and Supply Store.

Supported by the Walter E. Dakin Memorial Fund established through the estate of the late Tennessee Williams, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference offers instruction and criticism to writers through a series of workshops, readings and craft lectures in poetry, fiction, and playwriting. Lectures and readings will be held in the Mary Sue Cushman Room of the Bairnwick Women’s Center on Mississippi Avenue. Admission to all public events is free, but space may be limited.