Topic: writing

Journalist John Seigenthaler to speak at annual Clarksville Writers’ Conference

July 1, 2008 |

Journalist and author John Seigenthaler will be a featured speaker at the 4th annual Clarksville Writer’s Conference to be held July 10-12 at Austin Peay State University. Seigenthaler is the current host of WNPT’s book-review program “Word on Words”.

Joining Seigenthaler will be Young Adult author Tracy Barrett (Anna of Byzantium), author/editor Sonny Brewer (The Poet of Tolstoy Park, Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe: An Anthology of Southern Writers), poet/editor Leigh Anne Couch (Houses Fly Away, The Sewanee Review), poet Blas Falconer (The Perfect Hour, A Question of Gravity and Light), fiction and nonfiction author Joe Formichella (Murder Creek: The “Unfortunate Incident” of Annie Jean Barnes), and novelist Suzanne Hudson (In a Temple of Trees, In the Dark of the Moon). «Read the rest of this article»

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Of pens, peonies and summer rain…

By Christine Anne Piesyk | June 29, 2008 |

‘On the Road in America’ is an occasional column of meanderings and musings, written during my semi-annual sojourn north.

After the first bursts of near tropical heat in Clarksville, the cooling summer rain in Vermont is a gift to cherish. It began last night, after a day of haze and clouds. It ushered in coolness somewhere around sunset, and by nightfall I could hear the raindrops lightly kissing the brick sidewalks, dripping lightly from the eaves. No blustering wind, no storms. Just that gentle rain.

This morning I walked by a bank of peonies, damp and brightened by that rain, slightly bent by the weight of water. The temptation to pick a few stems was strong.

We are a large group this semester at Goddard College, writers all of poetry, prose, fiction and non, memoir, plays and screenplays, even graphic novels. Unlike other residencies here, this one — by its very nature as an MFA writing program — requires a certain amount of solitude in and around such activities as workshops, advisor sessions, seminars, and sometimes heated discussions abut things like style, form, voice, perspective, language… Students meet, interact and retreat for the solitary task that is composition. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Education, Opinion, Spirituality | No Comments

Education outside the box

By Christine Anne Piesyk | January 7, 2007 |

Today is graduation day. Not for me, but for thirty other students from across the country. Writers all. Writers of plays, books, poems, non-fiction, memoir and more. I’m on the early side of this academic journey.

I’m in Vermont, on an abnormally warm day in Vermont. No jackets, not even a sweater needed. In just two days of a January heat wave, the snow is all but gone, even here in the mountains. The first snowdrops and crocus are making a precipitous and dangerous arrival, since we are expecting snow and ice tomorrow. Maybe there’s a poem in there.

I’m at Goddard College, a low-residency master’s program in creative writing, where thinking and working outside the box are the norm. Each student has an individual curriculum, crossing paths via master classes, workshops, seminars, individual advising sessions, student and faculty readings or the staging of works in progress. «Read the rest of this article»

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