The 2011 Colgate Writers' Conference will feature many familiar faces and a few welcome new additions to our conference family. Workshop leaders Peter Balakian (poetry), Jennifer Brice (memoir intensive), Brian Hall (novel intensive), John Robert Lennon (short fiction), and Jennifer Vanderbes (novel intensive) will be joined by newcomer Carrie Brown (novel intensive). Additionally, Betsy Andrews will join veterans Bruce Smith (poetry) and Jennifer Smith (young adult novel) as readers. Please check back as we announce additional readers and presenters throughout the spring.
1/3/2011

Colgate alum Dan Wald will join us for a shop talk on the ways in which the digital explosion is affecting the publishing world. He'll talk about e-readers, e-books, Kindles, Nooks, iTabs, and self-publishing, as well as how to market a book via web sites, social networking, and good old-fashioned pounding the pavement and speaking engagements.
3/8/2010

We are proud to announce a number of commitments for the 2010 Colgate Writers' Conference: Peter Balakian (poet, memoirist), Jennifer Brice (creative non-fiction), Patrick O'Keeffe (fiction), Brian Hall (novel intensive), Jennifer Smith (young adult novel intensive), John Robert Lennon (novel intensive), and Paul Cody (novel intensive). We will keep you updated as we get closer to the conference, to be held June 20th - 26th, 2010.
12/31/2009

We now have additional photos from the 2009 conference! Thank you to both Jennifer Pooley and Anthea Hubanks for sharing their pictures, which you can find here and here, respectively.
8/3/2009

The videos for the 2009 Colgate Writers' Conference are now available! Please take a look at this year's readings and craft talks by clicking on the Video Archive link to the left.
7/23/2009

John Robert Lennon and Thomas Gamburg have been kind enough to share pictures of the 2009 conference with us here (from John) and here (from Thomas). Please take a look!
7/3/2009

Jennifer Brice, whose most recent work, Unlearning to Fly, has been described at "riveting" (New West Books), will lead an intensive memoir workshop at the 2009 conference. Note: enrollment in the workshop will be limited to five participants, so that the teaching and sharing truly will be "intensive," in all good ways.
11/19/2008

Poet and fiction-writer Alice Fulton will read at the 2009 CWC. Learn more about Alice Fulton and the insight she will bring to the conference here.
11/19/2008

CWC alum and author of The Comeback Season, Jennifer Smith, will return for the 2009 conference to provide a talk and round table discussion of Young Adult fiction. Her second novel will come out in summer 2009; meanwhile, The Comeback Season continues to receive well-deserved praise.
11/19/2008

Congratulations to Willy Vlautin whose second novel, Northline, was released by Harper Perennial last month. SF Weekly reviewed both the book and a performance by Willy's band Richmond Fontaine; you can read that review here.
5/22/2008

The fourth episode of the Colgate Conversations: Writers and Their Craft podcast series features Conference alum Tim Suermondt. The podcast is currently being advertised on Colgate University's homepage, and you can read about it here.
5/19/2008

We are proud to announce that Brian Hall, author of I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company and Saskiad, among others, has agreed to teach a third intensive novel workshop.
4/18/2008

Ryan Fischer-Harbage will be returning for the 2008 Colgate Writers' Conference to speak on writing book proposals and finding an agent. Please check out his website at www.fischerharbage.com.
4/17/2008

The 2008 Conference is blessed to have Karen Novak return to teach one of the intensive novel workshops.
3/4/2008

Conference veteran Peter Balakian is the first guest for a new podcast series produced by Colgate University. The series, Colgate Conversations: Writers and Their Craft, is hosted by Conference Director Matt Leone.
2/22/2008

We are proud to announce that Kelly Cherry will be joining the Colgate Writers’ Conference staff this summer, teaching the fiction workshop.
2/18/2008

Alumni updates now have a separate page, which you can access from the homepage or by clicking here.
1/2/2008

We’re proud to announce that we already have a number of commitments for the 2008 Colgate Writers’ Conference staff. Jon Clinch, author of Finn: A Novel, will join us for both a reading and a craft talk about publishing a first novel. Finn is on the shortlist for both the National Book Critic Circle’s Best Recommended List and the Sargent First Novel Prize. Additionally, it has been named one of the Washington Post’s top five novels of 2007.

The 2008 CWC is also blessed to include Jennifer Haigh, author of Baker Towers and Mrs. Kimble. Baker Towers is a New York Times bestseller and the 2006 PEN/L.L. Winship Award winner, while Mrs. Kimble won the PEN/Hemingway Award for outstanding first fiction.

Chris Kennedy, a colleague, guest, and friend of the Conference, where he last read in 2006, will return to read. He is the author of three full-length collections of poetry (Nietzsche’s Horse, Trouble with the Machine, and Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death) as well as three chapbooks (Greatest Hits, King Cobra Does the Mambo, and “B” Sides). The latest of these, Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death, recently won The Isabella Gardner Poetry Award for 2007. He directs Syracuse University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.

We actually have some exciting news to announce for one of our returning staff members as well: Peter Balakian was recently awarded the Movses Khorenatsi medal at the behest of President Robert Kocharian of Armenia. The medal is one of Armenia’s highest civilian honors, given for creative achievements in Armenian culture, arts, literature, education, and the humanities.

In addition to Jon, Jennifer, Chris, and Peter, we are proud to announce the return of Jennifer Brice, Justin Cronin, Bruce Smith, Tim Suermondt, David Thoreen, Hannah Tinti (whose new book will be coming out just a week after the conference), and Jennifer Vanderbes. You can find bios for all of them, as well as Peter Balakian, in the Staff section of our website. We hope to have bios for all of our new staff members uploaded shortly.
12/19/2007

Videos of readings and craft talks from previous conferences are once again available in our video archives. Our apologies to anyone who has tried to access the archives in the past few months and found most of the videos unavailable. Everything should be up and running now.
4/6/2007

The annual Writers’ Conferences & Centers Scholarship Competition has begun accepting submissions. Each year the competition offers writers a $500 scholarship in both poetry and fiction to attend one of the WC&C member programs (including the Colgate Writers' Conference). For complete guidelines please visit the "scholarship" section of the WC&C web site at writersconf.org/scholarship.
1/15/2007

CVWC.net has been updated for the 2007 Colgate Writers' Conference. We hope you like what you see and choose to join us this year. Please contact us if you notice any problems with the site.
12/22/2006

The New York Times Book Review has chosen The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel as one of the Five Best Fictions of 2006. Amy will join us to read in 2007, as will Erin Soros who recently won the Commonwealth Short Story Competition 2006. Former conference instructor Rebekah Mosby has been nominated for a Grammy award in the category of Best Historical Album for her work as compilation producer for Poetry On Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work (1888-2006). Also, Anything He Wants, stories by conference alumnus Richard K. Weems, is now available from Spire Press.
12/22/2006

We are pleased to announce that the Chenango Valley Writers' Conference will now be known as the Colgate Writers' Conference. The 2007 Conference will be held June 17-23, and more information will be available on this site later this year.
10/10/2006

Rescue Missions, a collection of stories by Frederick Busch, founder of the Chenango Valley Writers' Conference, is now available from W.W. Norton & Company. A tribute to Busch and readings from the collection will be held at The New School in New York City on October 23rd.
Click here for more information on the tribute.
10/10/2006

Conference alumna Rayne Debski's story "Roseland" has been published in The Rose and Thorn, an online Ezine.
Click here to visit The Rose and Thorn and read the story.
10/10/2006

CVWC Instructor Bruce Smith was interviewed by Conference veteran Amy Small-McKinney for this month's issue of The Pedestal Magazine.
Click here to read the interview.
4/25/2006

Kerry Bakken's first book, a collection of short stories titled Necessary Lies, will be published in June by University of Missouri-Kansas City/BkMk Press where it received the Chandra Prize for Fiction. Kerry was a participant in one of the first years of the Chenango Valley Writers' Conference.
4/25/2006

Conference veteran Tim Suermondt's full-length Trying to Help the Elephant Man Dance has been accepted by Backwaters Press. Look for it in the Fall!
4/20/2006

Frederick Busch, renowned novelist and founder of the Chenango Valley Writers' Conference, died of a heart attack Feb. 23rd at the age of 64. He was a mentor to many, among whom we are privileged to count our own Karen Novak, and he will be sorely missed by his colleagues, his friends, his family, and the larger writing community to which he meant so much.
Click to read the Colgate Press Release.

CVWC Instructor Hank Lewis’s collection of short stories - I Got Somebody in Staunton - was one of four finalists for the 2006 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Click to read the Colgate Press Release.

Conference alumna Valerie Ann Leff's novel, Better Homes and Husbands, has been purchased by NBC for development as a television series. Congratulations, Valerie!
Click to read the Citizen-Times news story.