Regular Endless Knotters know that I'm a great fan of Solstice Summer Writers' Conference. And not just because my friends are involved. Three years ago, I attended the inaugural session of the conference; nine months later, I'd finished a novel. Rocket fuel for writers. Among the gifts of the conference, the evening reading series. Here's the line-up for this year's conference, which begins this coming Sunday at Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill, Mass, just outside Boston. Choose any evening and you'll be amply rewarded. Here's the press release:
THE SOLSTICE SUMMER WRITERS’ CONFERENCE ANNOUNCES ITS JUNE READING SERIES
[Chestnut Hill, MA, May, 2008] Pine Manor College announces its annual Solstice Summer Writers’ Conference Reading Series. All readings begin at 7:00 p.m. unless *otherwise noted, and are held in the Founder’s Room of Pine Manor College, located at 400 Heath Street in Chestnut Hill. Copies of the authors’ books will be available for sale after all readings; cash-bar receptions will follow the readings on June 22, 27, & 28. *Plenty of free parking!
Sunday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m. Francisco Aragón & Julia Glass
Francisco Aragón (author of Puerta del Sol; editor of The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry) & Julia Glass (author of The Whole World Over and 2002 National Book Award winner Three Junes).
Monday, June 23 at 7:00 p.m. Cleopatra Mathis & Tor Seidler
Cleopatra Mathis (author of White Sea and What to Tip the Boatman? winner of the 2001 Jane Kenyon Award) & Tor Seidler (author of the forthcoming Gully’s Travels; Publisher’s Weekly Pick of the List The Wainscott Weasel; and Mean Margaret).
Tuesday, June 24 at 7:00 p.m Meg Kearney & Steven Huff
Director Meg Kearney (author of An Unkindness of Ravens and The Secret of Me) & Steven Huff (author of the forthcoming A Pig in Paris and More Daring Escapes).
Thursday, June 26 at 7:00 p.m. Patricia Spears Jones, Lee Hope, & Eric Gansworth
Patricia Spears Jones (author of Femme du Monde and The Weather That Kills), Lee Hope (Pushcart Prize-nominee and winner of the Theodore Goodman Award for Fiction), & Eric Gansworth (author of Indian Summers and Mending Skins, winner of the 2006 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Award).
Friday, June 27 at 3:15 p.m. Brenda Prescott & Tanya Whiton
Program Administrator Tanya Whiton (published in literary journals including Northwest Review and Crazyhorse 63) & Brenda Prescott (published in literary journals including Crab Orchard Review and The Louisville Review).
Friday, June 27 at 7:00 p.m. Marina Budhos & Stephen Dunn
Marina Budhos (author of The Professor of Light and House of Waiting; Rona Jaffe Award winner) & Stephen Dunn (author of fourteen collections of poetry, including Everything Else in the World and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Different Hours).
Saturday, June 28 at 7:00 p.m. Barbara Hurd & Dennis Lehane
Barbara Hurd (author of Walking the Wrack Line: On Tidal Shifts and What Remains and Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling Through the Dark, a Library Journal Best Natural History Book of the Year) & Dennis Lehane (author of the forthcoming The Given Day, Mystic River, Shutter Island, and Gone Baby, Gone).