Poetry at Round Top - Round Top Festival Institute

April 30 – May 2, 2010

U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser (2004-06)

Harryette Mullen
William Wenthe
Peggy Shumaker
Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Naomi Shihab Nye
Hoa Nguyen
Philip Pardi
Jacqueline Kolosov

Three days of readings, workshops, conversations on craft, and unique performances, all on the idyllic Festival Hill campus at Round Top, Texas, centrally located between Austin, Houston, & San Antonio.

The Festival Hill campus near the scenic village of Round Top is a wondrous place that has been growing amid green rolling Texas hills over the past four decades. Part pastoral retreat of extraordinary beauty and serenity, part world-class fine arts center for study and performance, it is home to one of the world’s leading classical music festivals as well as a variety of programs in fine arts and humanities. Here, over one weekend in spring for the past eight years, a unique poetry festival has gathered leading American poets, readers, writers, and friends in a close community of sharing and discovery.

Round Top Friday for the third year offers a program designed for select secondary school students and teachers, featuring readings, student workshops, and teacher training. This collaboration is planned and underwritten by Austin Community College, Badgerdog Literary Publishing, and Poetry at Round Top, and offers a unique study experience.

Poetry at Round Top and the Round Top Festival Institute gratefully acknowledge the special assistance and support of the Still Water Foundation, The Seton Cove, Writers’ League of Texas, Humanities Texas, Gemini Ink, the James Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin, Texas State University, Austin Community College, and individual donors.

SPEAKERS

Ted Kooser, the highly regarded Nebraskan poet and two-time United States Poet Laureate, was the first poet from the Great Plains to hold the position. The author of twelve full-length collections of poetry, his books include Delights and Shadows, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize; Weather Central; and Valentines, a collection of 22 years of Valentine's Day poems that he printed on postcards and sent annually. His Poetry Home Repair Manual gives tips and inspirations to the beginning poet. Recipient of two NEA fellowships, a Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, and many other honors, he is a professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Brigit Pegeen Kelly is the author of three collections of poetry: To The Place of Trumpets, Song, and The Orchard. Her honors include the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize and Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets. She is a professor of English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a Visiting Writer at the James Michener Center for Writers this spring semester.

Harryette Mullen's collections of poems include Tree Tall Woman, Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T, Muse & Drudge, Sleeping with the Dictionary, and Blues Baby. She teaches poetry and African American literature at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Philip Pardi is the author of Meditations on Rising and Falling, which won the 2008 Bittingham Prize in Poetry. He has published poems in Gettysburg Review, Seneca Review, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere, and his work has been reprinted in Best New Poets 2006 and Is This Forever or What? Poems and Paintings from Texas. A former Michener Fellow at UT’s Michener Center for Writers, he now lives in the Catskill Mountains in New York and teaches at Bard College.

Peggy Shumaker is professor emerita at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and served as director of their MFA writing program. She is the author of several books of poetry, including Blaze and Braided River, and the recently released memoir, Just Breathe Normally. She has held an NEA fellowship and has served at president of the board of the Associated Writing Programs.
Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 25 volumes. Her books of poetry include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls , Red Suitcase, Words Under the Words, Fuel, and You & Yours (a best-selling poetry book of 2006). She is also the author of Mint Snowball, Never in a Hurry, I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are you Okay?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven (essays); Habibi and Going Going (novels for young readers); and Baby Radar and Sitti's Secrets (picture books). Her collection of poems for young adults entitled Honeybee won the 2008 Arab American Book Award in the Children’s/Young Adult category.
William Wenthe is the author of the poetry collections Birds of Hoboken and Not Till We Are Lost. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Georgia Review, Southern Review, and Poetry. The recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the NEA and the Texas Commission on the Arts, he teaches at Texas Tech University.

Hoa Nguyen is the author of Hecate Lochia and numerous chapbooks, including Kiss a Bomb Tattoo, Red Juice, Your Ancient See-Through, and Parrot Drum. For years, she co-edited Skanky Possum, a book imprint and journal, with her husband Dale Smith. Nguyen curates a monthly reading series in Austin.

Jacqueline Kolosov delighted the Round Top audience in her reading three years ago. Her newest book of poetry, Modigliani's Muse, was released last year. The author also of VAGO as well as the novel The Red Queen's Daughter, she teaches creative writing at Texas Tech University. She has written extensively for young and young adult readers.

Festival Staff
Jack Brannon and Dorothy Barnett, Co-directors
Abe Louise Young, Assistant Director
Phaidra Harper-Vega, Assistant Director & Volunteer Coordinator
Planning Committee: Bob Ayres, Judy Jensen, D’Arcy Randall, Frances Schenkkan, Terry Sherrell, Hazel Ward, Jack Brannon, Dorothy Barnett, Abe Louise Young, Phaidra Harper-Vega
Graphic Design: Judy Jensen
Festival-Institute staff: James Dick, Founder & Artistic Director; Lamar Lentz, Alain Declert; Vickie Hillman, registrar
Badgerdog Publishing staff: Melanie Moore, executive director; Giuseppe Taurino

FOR INFORMATION: (979) 249-3129, OR VISIT: www.festivalhill.org
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Preliminary Festival Schedule

FRIDAY – April 30

10:00 a.m. Round Top Friday – a program for secondary school students & teachers

4:00 p.m. Festival registration opens

6:00 p.m. Welcome Fiesta Supper (optional; off-campus dining available)

8:00 p.m. Featured Readings: Harryette Mullen, Philip Pardi

SATURDAY – May 1

9:00 a.m. Morning Praises: Naomi Shihab Nye

9:30 a.m. Featured reading: Jacqueline Kolosov

10:30 a.m. Living & Writing Beyond Borders: A Conversation
Naomi Shihab Nye, Philip Pardi, Hoa Nguyen

11:30 a.m. New Voices Rising: Texas State University & Round Top Scholars

12:00 Noon Picnic lunch under the Festival Hill oaks (optional; off-campus dining available)

12:45 p.m. Optional workshops

2:00 p.m. Featured reading: William Wenthe

2:30 p.m. Conversation on Craft: Ted Kooser
with Harryette Mullen & Brigit Pegeen Kelly

3:30 p.m. Featured Reading: Peggy Shumaker

4:00 p.m. Fresh Words: Open Mic Participants’ Reading

6:00 p.m. Dinner at Menke House for residents
(optional; off-campus dining available)

8:00 p.m. Featured readings: Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Ted Kooser

9:00 p.m. Festival Reception
Wine, Coffee, & Desserts, Kafé Kaffeine

SUNDAY – May 2

9:00 a.m. New Voices Rising
U.T. Michener Fellows, Texas Tech Scholars

9:30 a.m. Distance Avails Not! Celebrating Friends & Heroes
Speakers & Participants

10:00 a.m. Writing Buddies: 3 Essential Friends!
Jeff Stumpo and Guests

10:30 a.m. Featured reading: Hoa Nguyen

11:00 a.m. Optional Workshops

1:00 p.m. Picnic & closing ceremony

Optional Workshop Sessions. Required additional fee, $25 per workshop, except where indicated below. Workshop descriptions can be found on line at: www.festivalhill.org

Crossing Borders in Our Writing – Naomi Shihab Nye
Mining Memories: Poetry & Memoir – Jacqueline Kolosov
Writing Workshops – Peggy Shumaker, Philip Pardi
Discovering Plot: Plotting Discovery – William Wenthe
Collaboration: Being a Good Critic – Jeff Stumpo
Individual Manuscript Consultation ($50) – Hoa Nguyen
Advance manuscript submission & private appointment.

Directors:

Jack Brannon, Director, received his MFA at The University of Texas, where he was a James A. Michener Fellow. His volume of poetry, Vigil, was a finalist for the Violet Crown Book Award and his poems are included in the anthologies Urban Nature and What Have You Lost? In 2006, he was commissioned by the Blanton Museum of Art to write a poem, What Starts Here, for the grand opening of the museum's new gallery building in Austin.

Dorothy Barnett, Associate Director, founded and chairs the Creative Writing Program at Austin Community College. She has been a founder and editor of two literary journals: Borderlands and The Rio Review. A James A. Michener Fellow, she writes screenplays, memoir, poetry and fiction.

Acknowledgments:

Poetry at Round Top and the International Festival-Institute gratefully acknowledge the special assistance and support of the Shield-Ayres Foundation, The Seton Cove, the Writers' League of Texas, the Texas Commission on the Arts, Humanities Texas, Gemini Ink, the James Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin, Texas State University, Austin Community College, and Lee Robinson and Jerry Winakur.

Created on 10/16/2006 10:06 AM by ad
Updated on 01/30/2010 10:23 PM by ad

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