HURSTON/WRIGHT FOUNDATION SEEKS SUBMISSIONS FOR SUMMMER WRITING WORKSHOP
Submissions from African American Writers Needed
Washington, DC (BlackNews.com) - The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation is accepting applications for its annual Writers' Week summer workshop for Black writers. It is the nation's only multi-genre summer writer's workshop for writers of African descent with a tuition-free component for high school students. The workshop will be held on the campus of American University in Washington, DC from July 16 to July 22, 2006. To participate, writers must submit an application along with samples of their work by April 21, 2006.
The week brings together Black writers from around the United States, as well as Black writers from the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe, who create a nurturing, safe space to discuss their work, its meaning, and unique aesthetics. Hurston/Wright Writers' Week is distinguished by the diversity of the writers it attracts: published, unpublished, college students, high school students, seniors, retirees, professionals-all chosen to participate in the Week on the strength of their writing.
"The Hurston/Wright Writers' Week workshop allows Black writers to create a space where our unique story is completely understood," said Marita Golden, founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation. "Participants build relationships with mentors and become part of a supportive community that sustains them long after the week has ended."
All courses during the week are taught by published authors and include workshops on fiction, memoirs, creative writing, and poetry. Confirmed workshop leaders include:
* Marita Golden, acclaimed author of 12 works of fiction and nonfiction, including the popular best sellers Long Distance Life, Migrations of the Heart and Don't Play in the Sun. She has been a member of the graduate creative writing faculties at George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University.
* Wil Haygood, author of Two on the River; King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.; The Haygoods of Columbus: A Family Memoir; and In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr. He is currently a staff writer for the Style section of the Washington Post.
* Venise Berry, author of best selling novels, So Good: An African American Love Story, All of Me, A Voluptuous Tale, and Colored Sugar Water. Berry is an associate professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa City, Iowa.
* Patricia Elam, author of the novel Breathing Room. Her fiction and nonfiction writings have been published in The Washington Post, Essence, Emerge, Newsday, and in such anthologies as Father's Songs and New Stories from the South.
* Steven Barnes, author of best selling novels such as Dream Park (with Larry Niven), Legacy of Heorot and Beowulf's Children (with both Niven and Jerry Pournelle). His solo novels include Streetlethal, Gorgon, Child, Firedance, The Kundalini Equation, and Blood Brothers. He has been nominated for the Hugo and Cable Ace Awards, and is the writer of "A Stitch In Time," the Emmy-winning episode of Showtime's The Outer Limits.
* Tyehimba Jess, a winner of the 2004 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was a 2004-2005 Winter Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. His first book of poetry, Leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. Jess is an assistant professor of English at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
* Kenny Carroll, a creative writing teacher at Duke Ellington School of the Arts. For the past 10 years he has been the executive director of DC Writers Corps, a non-profit organization committed to engaging middle and junior high school students in the literary arts.
Participants may choose from a base tuition of $650 or for advanced writers, the tuition is $800. Room and board is available at an additional cost. Qualifying high school students will receive a full scholarship including room and board.
Hurston/Wright Writer's Weeks is made possible with the support of American University, Verizon Foundation, Broadway/Doubleday Group, and the generous support of individual donors.
For more information about the Hurston/Wright Foundation and its annual Writer's Week or to download an application, visit www.hurston-wright.org or call 301-683-2134.
About the Hurston/Wright FoundationThe Hurston/Wright Foundation is a nonprofit resource center for readers, writers and supporters of Black literature. The mission of this literary organization is to discover, develop and honor Black writers for the purpose of preserving the legacy and ensuring the future of Black writers and the literature they create. Since its inception in 1990, the Hurston/Wright Foundation has grown from serving only one segment of the community of Black writers, college writers of African descent, to providing culturally sensitive services and guidance for Black writers and their readers at every stage of their development.
