Matthew Leone

Once again, I have an embarrassment of riches to report. Do you see me blushing in this photo? First, we are fortunate to have returning, after a year’s hiatus, Conference veterans Kelly Cherry, who will be workshopping fiction, and Karen Novak, who will lead the intensive novel gang. Then there are the newcomers about whom to brag. Jon Clinch, of Finn fame, will visit and read for us; Jennifer Haigh, whose first novel, Baker Towers won the Pen/Hemingway Award, will take time from a tour promoting her latest work, The Condition, to read to us as well. Hannah Tinti will interrupt a tour promoting The Good Thief to share her insights and her newest fiction; and Jennifer Vanderbes (Easter Island) will return as well to read from her latest work. G. Bruce Knecht is a Colgate alum and author of Hooked and The Proving Ground, renowned non-fictions both; with luck, Alma Mater will lure him into our midst.

Poet and Director of the Syracuse University MFA Program in Creative Writing, Chris Kennedy, about whose latest book of poetry, Encouragement for a Man Falling to his Death, Amy Hempel remarked, “Some people write novels to arrive at what he lays down in a single line,” will read, and read more than one line, we hope, of his latest poetry. Justin Cronin, another Pen/Hemingway Award winner (for Mary and O’Neil, which also won the Stephen Crane Award), and another Conference stalwart, will return to read as well.

These creative souls and others will join workshop leaders and faculty members Peter Balakian, Bruce Smith, Kelly Cherry, Karen Novak and Jennifer Brice. All are masterful writers and teachers. They are passionate about their craft and influence their students profoundly. That they do so here is a source of pride. It is also no accident. Every minute of the week is shaped by the demands that teaching - the sort of exploratory collaboration that truly deserves the name - exacts. When our faculty isn’t teaching they are writing. Bruce Smith, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Finalist in Poetry in 2001, saw the University of Chicago Press publish Songs for Two Voices in '05. He’s now completing an autobiographical novel. Jennifer Brice’s memoir, Unlearning to Fly, was published to enthusiastic, deeply appreciative reviews this past Fall. She will no doubt once again inspire the creative nonfiction and memoir workshop.

In the last month, Peter Balakian, Colgate’s Poet-in-Residence, has won the Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry for three of his poems published in the Virginia Quarterly Review: they are part of what will become an extensive autobiographical poem. With luck, we will persuade Peter to share a part of it with us. As you may know, other of his recent works, such as the non-fictional account of the Armenian genocide, The Burning Tigris, has garnered well-deserved and highly favorable attention: Tigress rose as high as fourth on the NY Times Best Sellers’ list and was awarded the Raphael Lemkin Prize. His memoir, Black Dog of Fate, a Pen/Albrand Award winner, continues to resonate. His works are increasingly being published in translation, most recently in Turkish, remarkably enough. The prolific Kelly Cherry will lead the fiction workshop; we forgive her for having her latest publication this past Fall be poetic: Hazard and Prospect: New and Selected Poems. Shall we plead with her to be prosaic in her public reading?

Conference news is all good. The Colgate University Press should have its Crafting Fiction, Poetry and Memoir: Talks from the Colgate Writers’ Conference published and ready for us to snatch up by Conference-time. It will be a fine companion for all of us, and lastingly helpful to all who indulge in the writing craft.

Our participant alums are also, and equally unsurprisingly, actively creative. Jessica Anthony has been published in Best Young American Writers. Tim Suermondt won a bronze medal in the River Styx International Poetry Competition; he has also published recently in The Georgia Review. Michele Battiste publishes fiction and poetry, while James Balme (Ohio Farewell) and Doug Buchs (Mescalero Project) novelize. Sherry Fairchok's book of poetry, The Palace of Ashes, has been published to acclaim by Cavankerry Press; and her "James Street Bus" appeared in The Southern Review. Toby Hecht has had short fiction online and in The Baltimore Review, and Amy Small-McKinney’s chapbook, Body of Surrender, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Lorraine Berry is the Editor-in-Chief of a new online publication for undergraduates, Neo-Vox.org. Frederick Reiken's The Lost Legends of New Jersey (Harcourt) has been noted by The Boston Globe as a "wise, wonderful" work of "mythic beauty.” Jennifer Pooley, Chase Bodine, Jenny Smith, Sarah Montante and others continue to write and to work in publishing in the City. And, happily, on and on.

Surely I'm omitting lots of equally good news. And surely it is not only publishing that constitutes good news: many alumni stay in touch with us, and with each other, and continue to partake of the essential creative efforts by which we live more fully. We like to think that the quality of the Colgate Conference experience has something to do with the continued success and loyalty of our alums. The accessibility of the senior instructors - an accessibility that makes personal guidance the norm and not the exception - causes superb and encouraging instruction to occur consistently. The intimate nature of the workshops - each having ten or fewer participants (and the intensive novel workshop having five or fewer), with each member remaining in a designated workshop for the entire week - encourages the sort of dialogue that brings out the best in everyone. Consultation and conversation are at the core of what we do: readings, workshops, meals, walks to and fro are all vital, happily productive conversational opportunities. Why does our conference work so well in this regard? Because we keep things small. We are able to do so because Colgate University supports us generously. Do other conferences match our ratio of participants to senior writers? That is for you to investigate. Our ratios are enviable because we have the support of a university committed to creative writing. That our Founder and recently departed Frederick Busch has been granted a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters speaks to our pedigree, and more, to the sorts of standards to which we hold ourselves.

Our conference should be without parallel. We believe that it is. Your presence may help to make it so. New participants should know that you are warmly welcome, and that there will be time to write, to talk, to create and to re-create. The food will be good, the residences comfortable. Classrooms and the library are air-conditioned. Tennis courts, an Olympic-sized swimming pool with a retractable roof, a fitness center, miles of wooded paths for running or walking, a boathouse, an 18-hole championship golf course, computer facilities with in-room access, all the resources of a major university are ours. In the evening, many of us will meet in the Faculty Club or Pub to socialize, or for the tireless among us, to talk shop. For all, the summer evenings will be long, and the week far too short.