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The Christopher Newport University Writers Conference brings together people who love words as a hobby and as a vocation so that they can learn from agents, editors, publishers, accomplished authors, poets, professional teachers and from each other.
While the in-person interaction between wordsmiths is a treasured attribute of the conference, this year, in the midst of a pandemic, it isn’t possible.
The full one-day conference will be held online in a way that provides conference attendees the ability to see, hear and interact with the speakers.
The program this year includes a keynote talk by Rita Sims Quillen, widely admired novelist and one of six semifinalists for 2012-14 poet laureate of Virginia. Also on the agenda is a panel discussion with agents, an editor and a publisher led by Mary Batten, popular children’s science writer.
Four one-hour presentations include talks by Jean Klein on why all writers should write a play, Bill Glose on writing for magazines, Kindra McDonald on the art of found poetry and Sylvia Liu on writing fiction.
This is the 39th annual conference and it has a long tradition of helping writers learn the skills needed to transfer their thoughts and imagination with clarity and heart to the written page and to understand the many facets of professionally publishing and marketing their work in a fast-changing technological world.
The conference is sponsored by Warwick Forest, Writers Advisory Council, Christopher Newport’s English Department, Muse Writers Center and the LifeLong Learning Society.
Registration information is available at cnu.edu/writers.