Faculty and Guest Speakers

Teaching Faculty:
 

Roxana Robinson	Alexander Chee	Josip Novakovich
Katha Pollitt	Lis Harris	Jonathan Schell
Ravi Shankar

Guest Speakers:
 

Ha Jin	Robert Stone	William Finnegan
Alexandra Peers	Jess Row	Johnny Temple
Eiko Otake	Amanda Stern
Roya Hakakian	Paul LaFarge
Honor Moore	Lisa Cohen

Editors and Agents:
 

Julie Barer	John Kulka
Daniel Mandel	Denise Roy
Esmond Harmsworth	and others

The publishing panels will feature an expanded group of editors and agents and members of the new publishing world.

Contact Anne Greene, conference director, if you have questions: agreene@wesleyan.edu
 

FACULTY

The Short Story

ROXANA ROBINSON is the author of eight books: four novels, three collections of short stories, and a biography of Georgia O'Keeffe, of which five have been named Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper's, Daedalus, Best American Short Stories and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post and Vogue. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Her most recent books include the short story collection A Perfect Stranger and the new novel Cost, forthcoming in 2008.

The Novel

ALEXANDER CHEE's first novel, Edinburgh, won the Michener/Copernicus Prize, the Asian American Writers Workshop Literary Award, the Lambda Editor's Choice prize, and was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly. His stories and personal essays have been anthologized in Best American Erotica 2006, A Fictional History of the US (With Huge Chunks Missing), Boys Like Us, The Man I Might Become, and From Boys to Men. He is a recipient of the 2003 Whiting Writer's Award, a 2004 NEA Literature fellowship, and a 2005 MacDowell Colony fellowship. He teaches fiction as the Visiting Writer at Amherst College. His second novel, The Queen of the Night, is forthcoming in 2008.

Fiction Techniques

JOSIP NOVAKOVICH moved from Croatia to the US at the age of twenty. He has published a novel, April Fool's Day, three story collections (Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust, Yolk, and Salvation and Other Disasters) and two collections of narrative essays. His work was anthologized in Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize collection, and O. Henry Prize Stories. He has received the Whiting Writer's Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Ingram Merrill Award, and an American Book Award, and he has been a writing fellow of the New York Public Library. He teaches in the MFA program at Penn State University.

RAVI SHANKAR is the producer/founding editor of Drunken Boat, International Online Journal of Arts and Literature. His first volume of poetry, Instrumentality, was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award for Poetry in 2005. He has read his work in many venues, including the National Arts Club, the Asia Society, and Columbia University and has served as a commentator on National Public Radio. He has received the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize and a New York State Council for the Arts grant. He recently co-edited an anthology, Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East, and Beyond (2008),, featuring 400 poets writing in 40 different languages.

Literary Journalism and Memoir

LIS HARRIS is now at work on a book about three generations of a Palestinian family and three generations of an Israeli family.  Her previous books include Holy Days: The World of a Hasidic Family, Rules of Engagement, and Tilting at Mills: Green Dreams, Dirty Dealings and the Corporate Squeeze, the story of an eight-year struggle to build a paper mill in the South Bronx. As a staff writer at The New Yorker for more than two decades, she wrote on a wide range of social and cultural matters, and she has received awards from the Woodrow Wilson, Rockefeller, and J. M. Kaplan foundations.  She teaches in the graduate writing program at Columbia University.

Literary Journalism

KATHA POLLITT is a poet, essayist, and columnist/blogger for The Nation.  She is the author of four collections of essays including Virginity or Death! and Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time, and a new collection of personal essays, Learning to Drive and Other Life Stories.   The title essay from that collection was chosen for Best American Essays 2003.  Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, and she has receive two National Magazine Awards for essays and criticism, a Whiting Writers' Award, a National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and a Guggenheim fellowship.

Literary Journalism

JONATHAN SCHELL is the author of twelve books including The Fate of the Earth, The Time of Illusion, A Hole in the World and most recently The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker and a columnist for Newsday. He is currently a columnist for The Nation magazine, a Fellow at The Nation Institute, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Study of Globalization at Yale University, where he is also a visiting lecturer. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and awards from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the MacArthur Foundation.

Teaching Fellows in Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction

Fellows provide informal manuscript readings and offer their own short workshops.

Fellows in previous years: Steve Almond, Amy Bloom, Amanda Davis, Paul LaFarge, Suji Kwok Kim, Bruce Bond, Judy Jordan, G.E.Patterson, Tom Hallman (Pulitzer winner), John D'Agata, Beverly D'Onofrio, Jennifer Haigh, Daniel Handler (author of Lemony Snicket), Wendy Rawlings, Jess Row, Jim Tomlinson, Elizabeth Kadetsky, Ravi Shankar, Alexandra Peers, and Roya Hakakian.

GUEST SPEAKERS

Our 2008 guest speaker series features talks and readings by, among others, the distinguished fiction writers Ha Jin, Robert Stone, Paul LaFarge, and Amanda Stern; nonfiction writers and biographers William Finnegan, Honor Moore, and Lisa Cohen; and poets Ravi Shankar and others.

Editors and agents include Esmond Harmsworth, Julie Barer, John Kulka, Daniel Mandel, Denise Roy, and Johnny Temple.

We will be adding more workshops led by teaching fellows and emerging writers: keep reading this space for updates.

Contact Anne Greene, conference director, if you have questions: agreene@wesleyan.edu.

Long-Form Nonfiction

WILLIAM FINNEGAN, a staff writer at The New Yorker, has reported for the magazine from Africa, Latin America, and Europe and from many places across the United States.  He is the author of four books including Crossing the Line and Cold New World.  He has twice been a finalist for the National Magazine Award, and he has received a citation for excellence from the Overseas Press Club, the Sidney Hillman Award for Magazine Reporting, and the Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.

Poetry Reading

To Be Announced

Writing a Memoir: Memory, Fact, and Imagination

HONOR MOORE's memoir The Bishop's Daughter will be published this year.  She is the author of three collections of poems, including Red Shoes and Darling, and of a biography, The White Blackbird, a life of her grandmother, the painter Margarett Sargent.  She has received awards in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission for the Arts as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction.  She teaches in the graduate writing programs at the New School and Columbia University.

Graphic Novels

PAUL LAFARGE is the author of two novels, The Artist of the Missing (FSG, 1999) and Haussman, or the Distinction (FSG, 2001). He has also published a book of short fiction, The Facts of Winter (McSweeney's, 2005). He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and of the Bard Fiction Prize. He is currently working on two novels and teaching at Wesleyan University.

Fiction

JESS ROW taught English for two years at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; his first collection of stories is The Train to Lo Wu.  He is currently at work on a novel and a new collection of stories,  The recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a Pushcart Prize, and NEA fiction fellowship, he was selected in 2007 as one of Granta magazines Best Young American Novelists.

Social Issues

ROYA HAKAKIAN- Born and raised in a Jewish family in Tehran, Roya Hakakian is the author of two collections of poetry in Persian.  Her memoir, Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran, was selected as Elle magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2004, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, and the CT Center for the Book's Best Memoir.  A former TV journalist and documentary filmmaker, she is now a fellow at Yale's Whitney Humanities Center.

Freelance Writing

ALEXANDRA PEERS, a freelance writer, has been news editor, features editor, and Leisure and Arts columnist at the Wall Street Journal, where she  founded the Weekend section.  She began at the paper as a reporter covering Wall Street, insider trading, and personal finance.  She is a member of the White House Council on Culture and Diplomacy.  Recipient of a University of Missouri School of Journalism Award and a Front Page Award, she teaches at the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Biography

LISA COHEN's poetry and nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals, including Ploughshares, Lit, Barrow Street, GLQ, Fashion Theory, Bookforum, The Boston Review and Voice Literary Supplement.  She is currently completing a group biography of three early twentieth century figures- the fashion professional Madge Garland, the fan and collector Mercedes de Acosta, and the eccentric scholar Esther Murphy.

New Publishing/Multimedia Forms

JOHNNY TEMPLE is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Akashic Books, an award-winning Brooklyn-based independent company dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction. Temple won the American Association of Publishers' 2005 Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. He plays bass guitar in the band Girls Against Boys, which has toured extensively and released numerous albums.

Fiction and Mixed Media

AMANDA STERN is the author of the novel, The Long Haul. Her non-fiction, fiction and poetry has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, The Believer, Swink, and elsewhere.  In 2003 she founded the critically acclaimed Happy Ending Music and Reading Series, which she continues to curate and host. She is working on her second novel, The Guthrie Test.

Publishing: Agents and Editors

Agent

JULIE BARER, after working for six years at the literary agency Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, started her own agency, Barer Literary.  She represents a wide range of fiction writers, including debut novelist Joshua Ferris, and short story writer Gina Ochsner, author of the collection People I Wanted to Be, stories from which have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, and Best American NonRequired Reading.  Barer also represents nonfiction clients whose specialties include biography, memoir, narrative nonfiction, history, and popular culture.

Agent

DANIEL MANDEL of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, Inc. represents authors known for their innovative fiction or for their unique perspectives on current events. His list includes books by academics, experienced authors, and many first-time novelists. He is looking for both literary and commercial fiction, as well as nonfiction books about business, art, new media, politics, and popular culture.

Editor

JOHN KULKA is founding editor for the annual short story anthology Best New American Voices. As executive editor-at-large at Harvard University Press, he acquires projects in literary studies, literary translations, and literary biography as well as politics and current affairs.  Previously he was senior editor at Yale University Press, sponsoring editor for the Yale Younger Poets Series, and the founding editor of the new Yale Drama Series.

Editor

DENISE ROY is Senior Editor at Simon & Schuster, where her recent books include The Disagreement by Nick Taylor and The God of War by Marisa Silver, previous winner of an LA Times award for best book of the year.  Roy's books include several she refers to as "Adventures in Americana,"  including The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (released as a DreamWorks film starring Julianne Moore); First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R. Hansen; Finding Betty Crocker by Susan Marks; Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins; and the best-selling Elm Creek Quilt series by Jennifer Chiaverini.

Agent

ESMOND HARMSWORTH, a literary agent for the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency, represents literary fiction, mysteries, and suspense and psychological thrillers.  In nonfiction, he represents books about business, psychology, medicine, international affairs, history, politics, religion, literary food writing and pop culture.