Third Annual Winter Literary Festival

Concludes This Weekend

DANBURY — Stage and screen have taken the forefront in Western Connecticut State University’s third annual Winter Literary Festival this week. The event, hosted by the university’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Professional Writing program, has featured readings, a film screening and discussions by writers about their work at several Danbury locations since opening on January 6.

While most programs have already been held, there are still a few scheduled for this coming weekend. Most events are free (there is a ticket charge for the film screening) and all are open to the public. A book-signing session and reception follows each reading.

The film screening will be at Bethel Cinema, 269 Greenwood Avenue in Bethel. Tickets for the matinee will be $6.75.

The schedule of events includes:

*Friday, January 4, at 7:30 pm: Ron Samul and Anne Witkavitch will read in the Ballroom of the Westside Campus Center on the WestConn Westside campus, Lake Avenue Extension in Danbury.

Mr Samul and Ms Witkavitch are residents of Connecticut and recent graduates of the MFA in Professional Writing program. Mr Samul is a fiction writer, boxing reporter and scuba diver. Ms Witkavitch is a magazine writer and professional communicator for a major corporation.

*Saturday, January 5, at noon: My Kid Could Paint That will be screened at Bethel Cinema

 Director Amir Ben-Levi will discuss his controversial documentary about the work and surprising success of a 4-year-old painter. The story was the subject of a New York Times story and a 60 Minutes exposé. The film was an Official Selection of the 2007 Toronto Film Festival.

Writer in Residence Elizabeth Cohen, who wrote the original newspaper article that eventually resulted in the documentary, will discuss her involvement with the story.

*Saturday, January 5, at 7:30 pm: Don Stitt’s The Voices in My Head Have Formed a Choir and Somebody’s Singing Flat! will be staged in the Reimold Theatre in Berkshire Hall on the WestConn Midtown campus, on Osborne Street.

Mr Stitt has been writing and performing professionally since 1965 with roles in Irving Berlin in Review, Man of La Mancha, Grease, My One and Only, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, Anything Goes, Seussical and Godspell. He wrote and stars in this one-man show.

*Saturday, January 6, at 7:30 pm: Aaliyah Miller’s Finding Patience will be read in the Westside Campus Center Ballroom on the WestConn Westside campus, on University Boulevard (off Mill Plain Road).

Ms Miller, a student in the MFA program, saw her play have its premiere reading for the National Academy for TV Arts & Sciences in New York in December.

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 graduated its first degree recipients in May 2007.

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