The West Virginia Writers’ Workshop will be celebrating its 19th anniversary when it hosts writers from around the country on WVU’s downtown campus July 16 to July 19. Visiting writers include Paula McLain, best-selling author of “The Paris Wife,” a novel about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson.

The workshop is designed to give writers at any stage of their careers the opportunity to improve their craft. Participants work with nationally and internationally acclaimed authors, editors, and publishers in classes of no more than 12 students. In addition, the workshop features readings, craft talks, writing exercises and a publishing panel.

Spots in the workshop are open until June 1. Sign up can be done on line: http://english.wvu.edu/centers-projects/west-virginia-writers-workshop

“This is great chance for writers at any stage of their careers to work on their craft with outstanding professional writers and peers from across the country,” said Mark Brazaitis, a professor in WVU’s Department of English and the workshop’s director. “Anyone with an interest in creative writing—poetry, fiction, or nonfiction—should sign up. No experience necessary.”

This year’s visiting writers and workshop leaders are McLain, David Hassler, Katherine Matthews Erin Murphy, and Howard Owen. They will be joined by WVU faculty Mark Brazaitis, James Harms, Renee Nicholson, and Natalie Sypolt.

In addition to “The Paris Wife,” McLain is the author of the forthcoming “Circling the Sun,” a novel about Beryl Markham, a pioneer in aviation who, in Kenya in the 1920s, was caught up in a love triangle with safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, who (as Isak Dinesen) wrote “Out of Africa.”

“Paula’s new novel is bound to be a critical and popular success, and it will released about the same time as our workshop,” Brazaitis said. “The timing is perfect.”

Owen is the author of a dozen novels, including “Oregon Hill,” which won the 2012 Hammett Prize for best crime literature in the U.S. and Canada. Murphy is the author of six award-winning collections of poetry, and her work has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac.

Hassler is the director of the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University, and Matthews is an editor at PageSpring Publishing.

For more information, contact Mark Brazaitis at 304-293-9707 or Mark.Brazaitis@mail.wvu.edu or go to the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop Web site at http://english.wvu.edu/centers-projects/west-virginia-writers-workshop.

-WVU-

mb/05/20/15

CONTACT: Devon Copeland, Director of Marketing and Communications, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
304-293-6867; Devon.Copeland@mail.wvu.edu

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