Winter Literary Festival—

University’s MFA In Professional Writing Program

To Host Author Readings Next Month

DANBURY, CONN. — Novelist Roger Boylan, memoirist Elizabeth Cohen, essayist and poet J.D. Scrimgeour and his father, biographer and poet James R. Scrimgeour, are among the authors who will present public readings of their works during Western Connecticut State University’s second annual Winter Literary Festival from Tuesday, January 2, through Saturday, January 6.

The festival will offer the university and greater Danbury communities an opportunity to hear selected poetry, fiction and nonfiction readings by nationally renowned authors who serve as faculty members, writers in residence or writing mentors for the university’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Professional Writing program, sponsor for the event.

Readings will begin at 7:30 pm each evening in Alumni Hall on the university’s Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. Admission will be free and open to the public, with a book-signing session and reception following each reading.

The festival is part of an intensive weeklong WestConn program of workshops, lectures, readings, professional counseling and informal discussion planned for students enrolled in the MFA in Professional Writing program. The master’s curriculum launched in 2005 enables participants from across the nation to continue working while pursuing MFA studies in a diverse range of creative and nonfiction writing genres through distance learning, coming together for sessions at WestConn in January and August. The program will graduate its first degree recipients in May 2007.

Dr Brian Clements, associate professor of English and coordinator of the MFA program, noted the January festival will “highlight the talent of our excellent faculty. Each evening will showcase two authors, pairing poets with nonfiction writers, satirists with memoirists, and essayists with novelists.”

The schedule of Winter Literary Festival readings will feature:

*Tuesday, January 2: Elizabeth Cohen and Peter Streckfus.

A veteran journalist who has written for Newsweek, Rolling Stone, The New York Post, and The Press and Sun Bulletin of Binghamton, N.Y., Ms Cohen’s 2003 memoir The House on Beartown Road was named The New York Times’ Notable Book of 2003.

Mr Streckfus currently teaches writing and literature in Texas and earned the Yale Younger Poets Prize as author of The Cuckoo.

*Wednesday, January 3: Roger Boylan and Oscar de los Santos.

A native of Ireland, Mr Boylan has drawn from his farflung travels and richly varied life experiences in contributions to Boston Review’s New Fiction Forum and various literary journals, as well as his books Killoyle and The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad.

Mr De los Santos, professor of English at WestConn and co-director of English graduate studies, is the author of works including Hard Boiled Egg and Infinite Wonderlands.

*Thursday, January 4: Shouhua Qi and Paola Corso.

A WestConn associate professor of English who has published extensively in the United States and his native China, Mr Qi has written numerous nonfiction works and the acclaimed 2005 novel When the Purple Mountain Burns.

Ms Corso, a 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, bridges a wide range of writing fiction and nonfiction genres. Her published works include the poetry collection Death by Renaissance and the short story collection Giovanna’s 86 Circles.

*Friday, January 5: James R. Scrimgeour and his son, J.D. Scrimgeour.

WestConn Professor of English James R. Scrimgeour has published a critical biography of Sean O’Casey and seven books of poetry.

J.D. Scrimgeour is coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at Salem State College in Salem, Mass. He has published the poetry collection The Last Miles and the essay collection Themes for English B, and he was winner of the 2005 Association of Writers and Writing Programs prize for best creative nonfiction work.

*Saturday, January 6: Peter Selgin and Don Snyder.

Mr Selgin has published numerous short stories, essays and an autobiographical novel, Life Goes to the Movies. He is widely acclaimed as a children’s writer and illustrator whose works include the Lemme Award-winning S.S. Gigantic Across the Atlantic.

A former newspaper editor, Mr Snyder’s varied works include five novels, two memoirs, a biography and a television screenplay.

The authors featured in the festival readings exemplify the depth of talent that has come together in the MFA faculty to build the national reputation of the WestConn program, said Dr Celements.

“Already our students are publishing, finding work as freelance writers, and interning at broadcast, newspaper and publishing companies across the country,” he observed. “WestConn is at the forefront not only of innovative, low-residency MFA programs, but also of a widespread move toward writing programs that provide writers with practical career training as well as creative development.”

For more information, call the MFA in Professional Writing office at 837-8876, visit WCSU.edu/English.MFA, or call the Office of Public Relations at 837-8486.