From July 18–30, 2017, the University of the South will host the 28th session of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Thanks to the generosity of the Walter E. Dakin Memorial Fund, supported by the estate of the late Tennessee Williams, the Conference will gather a distinguished faculty to provide instruction and criticism through workshops and craft lectures in poetry, fiction, and playwriting.
This year’s faculty includes fiction writers Jeffery Renard Allen, Richard Bausch, Tony Earley, Randall Kenan, Margot Livesey, Jill McCorkle, Alice McDermott, Tim O’Brien, Christine Schutt, and Steve Yarbrough; and poets B.H. Fairchild, Mark Jarman, Maurice Manning, Charles Martin, Marilyn Nelson, Mary Jo Salter, A.E. Stallings, and Sidney Wade. Naomi Iizuka and Dan O’Brien will lead the playwriting workshop. Charles Martin, A.E. Stallings, and N.S. Thompson will offer a supplemental poetry translation workshop. Allan Gurganus, Ken Weitzman, and Wyatt Prunty will read from their work.
In addition, a group of distinguished writers, critics, agents, and visitors will take part. Those who will discuss writing from the point of view of editing or publishing include Jin Auh (The Wylie Agency), Anna Lena Phillips Bell (Ecotone and Lookout Books), Millicent Bennett (Grand Central Publishing), Glenn Blake (Boulevard), Valerie Borchardt (Georges Borchardt Literary Agency), Michelle Brower (Aevitas Creative Management), MaryKatherine Callaway (LSU Press), George David Clark (32 Poems), David Scott Cunningham (University of Arkansas Press), Barbara Epler (New Directions), Gary Fisketjon (Alfred A. Knopf), Mary Flinn (Blackbird), Gail Hochman (Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents), Parneshia Jones (Northwestern University Press), Allison Joseph (Crab Orchard Review), Mike Levine (Mike Levine Editorial), Speer Morgan (The Missouri Review), Kathy Pories (Algonquin Books), Adam Ross (The Sewanee Review), Elisabeth Schmitz (Grove Atlantic), Philip Terzian (The Weekly Standard), Liz Van Hoose (5E), Michael Wiegers (Copper Canyon Press), Robert Wilson (The American Scholar), David Yezzi (The Hopkins Review and The New Criterion), and Renée Zuckerbrot (Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents).
Other prominent visitors will include literary agents Sarah Burnes (The Gernert Company), Emily Forland (Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents), Anna Stein (ICM Partners), and Amy Williams (The Williams Company). Beth Blickers, theatre agent with APA, and Les Waters, artistic director of the Actors Theatre of Louisville, will meet with playwrights.
A native of Los Angeles, Hilary Zaid is an alumna of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and the Tin House Writer’s Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in print and online in publications including Lilith, Southwest Review, Utne Reader, and CALYX and The Santa Monica Review. Her short story “For Non-Speakers of the Mother Tongue” (Tahoma Literary Review, Winter 2017) has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her story “My Triple X Valentine’s at the Far Point Senior Villas” is a top-selling short read in Amazon’s Kindle store. Hilary’s short story “The Dark Between the Stars” won Bloom’s chapbook contest for short fiction (judged by Lucy Jane Bledsoe). Bywater Books will publish her debut novel, Paper is White, in March 2018.
Hilary works as a freelance editor in Oakland, California, where she lives with her spouse, their two sons, and two terriers.
For more about her writing, visit www.hilaryzaid.com.
