The 28th Napa Valley Writers’ Conference July 27—Aug 1, 2008

Lan Samantha Chang

is the author of a novel, Inheritance, and a collection of short fiction, Hunger, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, and The Best American Short Stories. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, Chang is the recipient of fellowships from the Princeton University, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the NEA. She teaches at Harvard University and in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

Chang was named director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, succeeding Frank Conroy.

Claire Messud

’s most recent book of two novellas, The Hunters, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, as was her first novel, When the World Was Steady. She is the author of a second novel, The Last Life, and recipient of the Straus Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute. She has taught at the University of Maryland at College Park; Warren Wilson College MFA program; University of the South; Amherst College; and Kenyon College.

Joan Silber

is the author of Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories, selected in 2004 as a Finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. Her four other books of fiction are Lucky Us, In My Other Life, In the City, and Household Words, winner of a PEN/Hemingway Award. Her work has been chosen for the O. Henry Prize Stories and The Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and The Paris Review. She has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and has taught in the Warren Wilson MFA Program.

Christopher Tilghman

is author of the novels Roads of the Heart (2004) and Mason’s Retreat and two story collections: The Way People Run and In A Father’s Place. His stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, The New Yorker, and other magazines. He teaches at the University of Virginia, and has served as Writer in Residence at Emerson College and as a faculty member at several summer writing programs, including the Fine Arts Work Center.

Jane Hirshfield

is the author of Given Sugar, Given Salt, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and four other poetry collections. Her other books include Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. Of her many honors, the most recent are an NEA Literature Fellowship and the Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement from the Academy of American Poets.

Brigit Pegeen Kelly

has published three collections of poetry: The Orchard (2004); Song, a Lamont Poetry Selection and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist; and To the Place of Trumpets, which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize. She is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and a Pushcart Prize, among other awards.

Kelly’s latest collection, The Orchard, was named a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award.

J. D. McClatchy

has written many books of poetry and prose, including Hazmat, Ten Commandments, Twenty Questions, and, most recently, American Writers at Home. He is also a translator and opera librettist. His distinguished editing career includes The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, The Collected Poems of James Merrill, and the audio series The Voice of the Poet, among others.

C. Dale Young

is the author of two books: The Day Underneath the Day, a finalist for the Norma Farber Award from the Poetry Society of America; and The Second Person (2005). He is also a practicing physician. His poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, The New Republic, and Poetry.