Description | On the 10th anniversary of the founding of the MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics, we once again converge—to celebrate community and reconnect with the people whose presence has been central to our thinking and conversations in the last decade. The Fall Convergence and From the Convergence Zone reading series this year invite a return from speakers whose visits have left an indelible mark on our community, including our publication collaboration with Essay Press, with whom the MFA sponsors an annual book contest for a work of innovative prose. The Convergence will be held on zoom to draw widely on the literary and artistic communities with which we seek to be in dialogue, extending the possibility of broad participation from within and beyond our region. In the spirit of community, we invited three returning artists to speak about their recent work and concerns, and we asked each to invite a co-panelist from our list of more than 200 artists who have come to our campus since 2012. These pairings of returning visitors will give each panelist the opportunity for communion with another thinker and maker with whom they feel a kinship and will provide a sense of the many networks and interconnections that shape contemporary poetics. We are also celebrating our 10th anniversary with a reunion of our students, bringing our community together to connect and create during the weekend of September 23-25. We are deeply grateful to the students who have been so instrumental in building our community and are excited to see what we can build together in the next decade! Our 2022 Convergence culminates on Monday, October 3rd with a virtual panel featuring MFA alumni and faculty at the fifth annual Paterson Poetry Festival, a three-day celebration of words, writers, and poetry lovers that takes place in downtown Paterson New Jersey and online October 1st–3rd, 2022. The festival was founded by MFA alum Talena Lachelle Queen’s Word Seed Inc., a 501(c) 3 located in Paterson, New Jersey with a mission to give voice and support to writers of every age and skill level within our diverse communities. Affirming our commitment to experimental writing, poetics, and interdisciplinarity, these events are most of all a celebration of the community-building that is central to all we do and to the work of the MFA in the years to come. We hope you will join us! Organizers/Conveners Amaranth Borsuk and Ching-In Chen Questions? Please contact iasgrad@uw.edu. Schedule: Saturday, October 1, 2022 10:45am–11:00am: Welcome / Opening Remarks 11:00am–12:30pm: Jen / Eleana Hofer & Cecilia Vicuña 1:00–2:30pm: Essay Press Authors: Yanara Friedland & Valerie Hsiung 3:00pm–4:30pm: Andrea Abi-Karam & Philip Metres 5:00pm–6:30pm: Tracie Morris & Kazim Ali Monday, October 3, 2022 3–4pm: Virtual session with MFA faculty and alumni at the Paterson Poetry Festival including Amaranth Borsuk, Ching-In Chen, Aimee Wright Clow, Jeanne Heuving, Stephanie Segura, and Ashley Skartvedt. Register here! |
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