Public readings & lectures start July 26
Elizabeth Alexander, President Obama’s Inaugural Poet, will read with novelist Peter Ho Davies, on Tuesday, July 28, 7:30 pm, at the Napa Valley Opera House. For this event only, please reserve your seat by calling the Opera House box office: 707-226-7372. Tickets are $15.
Faculty readings begin Sunday evening, July 26, and lectures begin Monday morning. Reservations are recommended (967-2900-x1611), but you may also purchase tickets at the door. High school and college students are admitted free.
2009 faculty
Elizabeth Alexander, Carl Dennis, Jane Hirshfield, and David St. John will teach in the poetry program. Robert Boswell, Peter Ho Davies, Antonya Nelson, and ZZ Packer will teach in the fiction program.
Elizabeth Alexander read her poem at Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20 (see more below).
Community hosts & volunteers
You can support the Conference by donating, volunteering, or hosting a visiting student.
News
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Community Housing May 12, 2009 February 7, 2009
Through our Community Housing program, participants may stay during conference week in the homes of Napa Valley residents, at no charge other than a $30 administrative fee. We consider these placements scholarships and give priority to those who apply for a scholarship. We anticipate having a few places for other participants, providing they can show they have need. Please complete an application for Community Housing and include with it a statement explaining your need.
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Find the conference on Facebook! January 31, 2009
Our group is called Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. Anyone can join, write on the Wall, or post photos.
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Elizabeth Alexander Spoke at Presidential Inauguration January 12, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Elizabeth Alexander to read at the Inauguration on January 20. Alexander is a regular faculty member at the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference.
“She was a faculty poet in July 2007, and was such a success we asked her back this summer. She’ll be teaching, reading and lecturing from July 26 to July 31. We’re enormously pleased for her and proud that President-elect Obama has picked one of our favorites,” said Anne Evans, Managing Director.
Elizabeth Alexander’s most recent collection of poems, American Sublime, was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. Her other books of poetry are Antebellum Dream Book, Body of Life, and The Venus Hottentot. Also a scholar of African-American literature and culture, she has published a book of essays, The Black Interior.
Alexander is only the fourth poet in American history to read at an inauguration. Writing an “occasional poem” to commemorate a specific event is not precisely what Alexander does, according to an interview published in the New York Times on December 21, 2008. She declares herself to be ready for the challenge, however. “Writing an occasional poem has to attend to the moment itself,” the Times article quotes her as saying. “But what you hope for as an artist, is to create something that has integrity and life that goes beyond the moment.”
“Those of us who heard her read at Rubicon Winery in July, 2007, will be very excited to hear what she comes up with for the Inauguration. Her work is beautiful and very direct, very kinesthetic too,” said Evans.
Elizabeth Alexander is currently Professor of African-American Studies at Yale University. Her short stories and critical prose have been widely published in such periodicals and journals as Signs, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Village Voice, The Women’s Review of Books, and The Washington Post, and her poems are widely anthologized.
Among her many honors and awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, the George Kent Award, and the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr., Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.”
Contents
Calendar
- Through June 15
- Admissions will be announced on a rolling basis at intervals of about two weeks
- June 26
- Tuition balance, community housing fee, and workshop and tutorial manuscripts (poetry, fiction) due.
- July 26–31
- Conference, public readings & lectures
Contact
Napa Valley Writers’ Conference
Napa Valley College
1088 College Avenue
St. Helena, CA 94574
(707) 967-2900 x1611
Fax: (707) 967-2909