By Justin Crawford

Kelly Sundberg and I met in 2008 as we were both finishing up our degrees in English at WVU, and I was immediately drawn to her attentive conversations, kind and informative critiques for creative work, and open kindness. Although we have shared in some of this journey of undergraduate and graduate studies, Kelly’s path to this point has been filled with the life experience that has helped shape her nonfiction and other creative work. She first attended University of Montana and Boise State University. During those years and after, she worked as a barista, ski lift operator, and wilderness river guard. After some needed time off from school, she returned to her undergraduate work at WVU, finished, and enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts/Creative Writing program for nonfiction in 2009. She’s in an incredibly loving marriage and has one son.

Kelly has published poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction. Her most recent publication is forthcoming from Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment at Iowa State. She has been nominated for the AWP Discovered Voices Prize, the AWP Intro Prize, and the Pushcart Prize.

Her writing is wrought with true emotion that saturates the work. The people that inhabit her stories are full, sometimes garish, yet always real and illusively treacherous, tragic, hilarious, or heartbreaking (sometimes all of the above). She crafts immense landscapes that roll off the page, and the environment seems combative with a mind of its own. When I’m done reading a Kelly Sundberg piece, I always want to go to the place she is writing about, but then I realize that I’ve already been there, lived there for years, am neighbors with the characters, and am looking out a window into a world so strangely familiar.

I got the chance to sit down with Kelly to ask her a bit more about her life and writing.

1. Why do you think you started writing personal essays? Was there a particular moment or an evolution?

I had always been a storyteller. As a teenager, I would spend hours crafting tales to tell my family and friends. At the time, I was usually just trying to be funny, but I was never afraid to make myself the butt of the joke, or to be self-deprecating. When I took my first nonfiction class from Karen Uehling at Boise State University, she encouraged me to develop that voice, but to also look for the meaning underneath the joke. My writing evolved from there. It’s not always funny anymore. In fact, it’s often sad, but I still try to be fearless about exposing myself, even if it makes me look bad, while try to be discerning about what I expose. I’m working on reining in my details—on only choosing the most important aspects—so the writing doesn’t get cluttered. If an essay is a collection of artifacts, then I would prefer it be like a nicely presented antiques store, rather the junkyard at the end of the street.

2. As a writer of nonfiction, you craft deeply profound and passionate tales of your life that are meaningful in a larger scope. Do you find that you draw most of your influence or inspiration from the outward world or the inward?

So far, my writing has been pretty inward-looking. In the program, I haven’t really been crafting journalistic-style pieces or research-heavy pieces, although I would like to do more of that in the future. My current project is a collection of linked essays that, hopefully, will unfold in the direction of a memoir, and although it’s inward-looking, it’s very place-based. I rely a lot on observations of the outside world to inform what’s going on in my inner life. For example, I have an essay about a demolition derby, an essay about working in the wilderness, and an essay about babysitting. They seem like different subjects, but they are all, ostensibly, about the complex relationship between people and place. I grew up in an extremely insular town—a town of 3,000 that was hours away from anything larger—so I think that made me hypersensitive to the unease that often lurks underneath everyday interactions.

3. What have been your biggest challenges in the MFA program? Your biggest rewards?

Definitely, my biggest challenge in the MFA program has been negotiating the work/home life. I have a five-year-old, and he was three when I started the program, so he obviously takes up a lot of my physical and emotional energy. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to find the space to create. I have a new understanding of Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own now. I have a tendency to be hiding in my office in Colson on Sundays. Still, the rewards definitely make up for the struggle. I love the WVU MFA program. It has been so supportive. There is just a warmth and inclusiveness in our program that I’m convinced is unusual. I’ve loved being part of a community that encourages and supports me in writing—one of the most private activities—and I’m going to be sad to move on when I graduate.

4. What advice do you have to offer current or incoming MFA students in this program?

I would advise to have a plan when you start the program for what you want to achieve over the next three years. Those three years fly by, and you don’t want to be scrambling in the third year to make something meaningful out of the experience. If you don’t have a project idea or specific aesthetic when you’re starting, then it might be better to wait a few years until you do.

5. In closing, what do you think is next? Where would you like to go from here? Feel free to be as theoretical or philosophical as you like.

I’m trying not to think of the future right now, because I have a tendency to worry or ruminate too much, and that can stifle my creativity. Right now, I’m just focused on making my syllabi for my Fall courses and completing a thesis draft. I’ll worry about the rest next May!

In the Skin of a Lion/The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

By Rachel King
There’s a kind of intense, charged, numinous quality to Ondaatje’s prose. I hadn’t experienced the same kind of trance-over-sentences since I read Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian a few years ago. In the Skin of a Lion is about the immigrant experience in Toronto at the beginning of the 20th century, and The English Patient is about the intersection of four people’s lives in Italy at the end of WWII. But with prose this great, you won’t care about the about-ness until your second read through.

By Justin Crawford

Those who are fortunate to know Steve Oberlechner would agree that he is kind, generous, and a genuinely good person to know and be around. Those unlucky ones who never knew Steve, those poor souls, wouldn’t know that he is from McClellandtown, Pennsylvania, that he graduated from Duquesne University in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and an Education minor, and that he completed his Master of Fine Arts in Fiction at West Virginia University in 2003. Steve continued his stay at WVU as an adjunct before accepting a tenure-track position at Potomac State College of West Virginia University in Keyser, WV, where he currently works. Those untouched minds wouldn’t be privy to the knowledge that Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen is one of Steve’s all-time favorite musicians, that he spent two months hiking the Appalachian trail where he lost thirty pounds and most of his fear of spiders, and that the Pirates are a team that one must love regardless of ill or fair weather.

Steve’s fiction and essays have shown up in numerous literary magazines. His essay “No Small Thing” was published in The Gettysburg Review, and the essay “Running the Line” was showcased in Prairie Schooner. Two flash fiction pieces, “The Deal” and “Signals” were in The Cortland Review, and the short story “Armwrestling the Slipstream” appeared in Connotation Press.

I first met Steve in 2006 when I took one of his classes, English 212 – Introduction to Fiction, when I was an undergrad. When I joined WVU as an English major, I had no idea that I was going to go into the MFA program for writing, but after having MFA Graduate Teaching Assistants for both English 101 and 102, I was quite drawn to the prospect of creative writing. Steve guided me along my path. As a teacher, he enlightened students through reading choice, analysis, and articulate passion for the craft, and to say that he made me a better writer and person would be an understatement. I owe him a great deal of gratitude for his support and kindness.

I had a chance to reconnect with Steve recently to conduct this interview.

1. I took one of your writing courses when you were an adjunct at WVU. One thing that I will always remember is not just your passion for writing but your passion for teaching the craft. Was that your calling from the beginning, or were there other career goals and professions you tried your hand at first?

Thanks for the kind words about your memory of the class. I grew up in the country with few neighbors, so reading was an enjoyable way to fill time. I read a lot of genre fiction, mostly horror, when I was younger. High school English courses exposed me to better, literary fiction, and I began trying to pay more attention to style, character development, and plot. Based on my love for English classes as a high school student (and my lack of real talent in math and science courses), I worked for a couple years toward my education degree at Duquesne University with the goal to teach English at the secondary level. Ultimately, I found the English courses at Duquesne to be more challenging and enjoyable than the education courses and switched my major to English by the start of my junior year. My intent was to keep studying literature at the graduate level and teach college level English courses. When the MFA program began during my stint as an MA student, I was happy to make the switch. I always felt more skilled at considering how the stories were crafted and took pleasure in writing my own. Despite having a desire to teach the craft since I switched into the MFA program, developing the confidence in my ability to teach creative writing took additional time. Some small successes with publishing and continued observation of the faculty here whom I admire helped instill the proper mindset and formula for doing it effectively.

2. Now that you’ve had time and space to reflect about your stay at WVU, what are things that you still remember, things you still miss? Reminisce about this for a moment, if you don’t mind.

Living in Morgantown and working on my MFA is probably the happiest stretch of years I can remember. I lived just forty minutes south of my family, I gained experience teaching composition at a pace that didn’t pose a major distraction from my graduate course work, and I found value in every workshop that I took. It was a privilege to have my work receive attention from some of the faculty even post-graduation as I continued to live and work in Morgantown as an adjunct instructor. In moving from Pittsburgh to Morgantown, I was pleased with the amount of culture the town provided. Public readings and live music were within walking distance in the evenings, and I was fond of the Metropolitan pool hall and McClafferty’s. Friendships formed with students and faculty in the program remain strong, and I doubt the level of intensity, consistency, and care of the writers group I took part in while living in Morgantown can be recreated elsewhere.

3. In this competitive field, any window of opportunity is wonderful, yet picking up your life and moving can be rather difficult. Describe the move from WVU to Potomac State. Was this an easy transition?

Given that I only moved an hour and a half east of Morgantown, I don’t expect the transition could have been much easier. My closeness to my family set limits on my willingness to take any job at any location, so I essentially worked part-time after I graduated looking for something full-time to open within a couple hour radius of home. From Keyser, I can still visit my parents, my sister, and my niece and nephew almost as easily as I could from Morgantown, and while the number of courses I’m expected to teach has risen in the move from part-time to full-time instructor, the courses themselves required little adjustment—the same mix of English 101, 102, and creative writing courses I had either taught in Morgantown or had been conditioned to teach.

4. For the grad students finishing up their MFAs, what advice do you have in working the job market as a writer?

My desire to remain within close proximity of my family placed such limitations on the scope of my personal search for full-time employment in teaching that I doubt I’m the best person to give advice to those beginning to test the market fully. Having served on two hiring committees since I’ve moved to Potomac State, though, I can emphasize the importance of a strong cover letter. I witnessed these letters read carefully by other committee members, and the best results stemmed from letters designed to state one’s interest in teaching the courses offered at the particular school in question along with a brief teaching philosophy or description of how the applicant finds success in reaching the students. Research into the school to which one is applying also shows respect and a desire to have that particular job, making one appear likely to be a comfortable fit in the new environment. I’m always happy to help when I can, so if there are particular questions, any student nearing completion of the MFA is welcome to contact me through MIX or Groupwise. If it’s a question I can answer, I won’t keep any secrets.

5. So what happens now? What is in the works for you at the moment?

Aside from gearing up for the fall semester—a semester that has me teaching nineteen credit hours of courses—I’m continuing to work on writing literary nonfiction, with one new essay nearing completion and two ideas in the early, planning stages. Ideally, these new essays will fit comfortably with the two I’ve published recently and help form the beginning of a collection of linked essays that will chronicle most of my early years in southwest Pennsylvania. I’d also like to get something written eventually about the two months I spent living out of a backpack on the Appalachian Trail. I haven’t given up on fiction writing, but nonfiction seems to be where the momentum lies at the moment, so personal essays have been receiving what attention I can give to my personal work around teaching.

By Rebecca Thomas

Growing up in Southern California, I spent summers in my backyard, at the beach, or at Disneyland. At the beach, I’d spread out my towel, read, try to get a tan, and try to see stars. It never worked. I come from pale people. My tans were really variations of the color red, and the biggest star I ever saw was Coolio at Disneyland; although, we always pointed out Dennis Rodman’s house in Newport Beach whenever we drove down PCH, and my dad once lunched with Pauly Shore.

Summers in West Virginia, needless to say, are quite different. There are no sandy beaches, and Dennis Rodman doesn’t own property here. However, I still got a glimpse of celebrity at the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop. In this case, the celebrities were well-respected writers, which, I have to say, is much better than Coolio (although I did love that “Gangsta’s Paradise” song).

Every July, writers converge in Morgantown for the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop. Lead by Mark Brazaitis and founded by Jim Harms, this four day event allows participants to attend craft talks, workshop, read their work, and hear professional writers read. Celebrating its sixteenth birthday, we participants got to do just that. From Thursday to Sunday, we heard craft talks by Jim, Mark, and visiting writers Denise Duhamel and Robert Olmstead; we had the opportunity to workshop with those writers; we wrote. In short, we spent four days entirely submerged in words. I highly recommend it. It’s much better than swimming in the ocean. It’s invigorating, and you don’t have to worry about getting sand in your car.

Indeed, the readings and visiting writers alone are inspiring enough. The author of numerous books such as Ka-Ching, Two and Two, Kinky, and The Star-Spangled Banner, which won the Crab Orchard Poetry Prize. Denise Duhamel’s satiric and playful poetry forces readers to re-see American culture, gender, and Barbie Dolls. Participants got to witness Duhamel’s wit with her reading that Saturday. I, for one, never pictured Barbie and Ken’s love lives before.

Renee Nicholson, the assistant to the WVWW, was taken by how personal the reading was: “Denise Duhamel’s reading felt like an intimate conversation with her. Her poems, which have been heralded for their ability to refocus our gaze on popular culture, have an intimate quality, and her delivery like that of an old friend.”

West Virginia poet, John McKernan’s reading was also a study in intimacy. He read from an upcoming collection of forty-five poems about his father—one for each year of his father’s life. At the end of each imagistic poem, I remember the woman behind me gasping, ohhing, and awing. She wasn’t the only one to do so.

McKernan wasn’t the only guest reader at WVWW. Besides our visiting writers, participants were able to hear WVU’s own Jim Harms, Mark Brazaitis, and Renee Nicholson. Each afternoon and evening, we settled down in Colson 130 and were reminded of the wonder of words. It’s no wonder that Renee Nicholson considers the readings one of the highlights of the workshop.

Participants were also able to hear our other visiting writer, Robert Olmstead read from two of his six novels, Bright Star and Coal Black Horse. The latter book was the recipient of the Heartland Prize for Fiction, the Ohioana Award, and was chosen for Borders Original Voices. With such prizes under his belt, not to mention a Guggenheim fellowship and an NEA grant, it would be easy to think that workshop with Robert Olmstead could be a bit intimidating.

It wasn’t.

“Bob Olmstead’s approach to workshop is completely organic,” says Renee Nicholson. “He never lets the conversation tilt towards bloodless discussion of the work, but rather, teases out of the participants the ability to react to stories by bearing down on the language. In his workshop every word counts, as it should in good fiction. He’s not afraid to give tough criticism, but he doesn’t shy away from kindness either. In fact, I’d say that kindness permeates the workshop, even when the discussion is critical. His advice to me outside the workshop on how to edit and revise my novel was invaluable.”

Fellow participant and MFA candidate in fiction, Shane Stricker, agrees. “Gaining Robert Olmstead’s insight into my fiction gave me a renewed passion to work on the piece and seeing everyone’s enthusiasm about writing gave me yet another reason to keep working, to keep writing.”

That theme of kindness and inspiration in workshop drives the WVWW experience. Renee Nicholson has been the assistant for the workshop since 2007, but she’s been attending long before that. She insists that this generosity isn’t isolated to just this year. She says, “Both Jim and Mark have influenced the workshop in so many positive ways. But also, it is the people who come to our workshop that make it what it is. We get many return participants, if not every year, then often, and so the workshop also has the feel of a family reunion. One participant who attends yearly with his wife describes it as his ‘literary shot in the arm.’ I’ve been to others where the atmosphere is not as supportive and heard stories of those where the posturing made the workshops almost unbearable. But I think what Jim and Mark have created is a sense of community, an outpost in the often lonely world of those aspiring to the writing life.”

While I might not get to read on the beach here in West Virginia, I got the opportunity to read in the mountains. Even better, here, I could hear amazing writers read their work, receive critiques from writers that I admire, and be reminded of what I love to do: write. When the weekend was over, that’s exactly what I did.

To sign up for next year’s WVWW, please contact Mark Brazaitis at Mark.Brazaitis@mail.wvu.edu.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

By Rachel King
This was my third time reading this book (though I’ve never made it through Mrs. Dalloway). I like to study how quickly Woolf switches focus between inner and outer worlds of a character and between different characters themselves. And what other writer, even these days, could pull off a lyrical a section as “Time Passes” smack in the middle of a novel? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think in this book Woolf experiments in ways writers haven’t since then.

This is Not Your City

By Connie Pan
Caitlin Horrocks astonishes with her debut collection, This is Not Your City. Her eleven heart wrenching stories display a master of fiction with diverse point of view and mesmerizing style. Even though her characters range from a child who inhabits the excruciatingly confusing world of playgrounds to a tired soul sleepwalking her 127th incarnation, the characters all long for connection while inhabiting an array of solitary worlds such as lost language, spinsterhood, and hate mail. Whether their station in life is an elementary school teacher who hates children and threatens students with conditionals scrawled on the chalkboard and then displayed in the classroom to a parent escaping the curveball trials of parenthood with a cruise hijacked by Somali pirates, all make shrewd emotional and intellectual growths. Horrocks illustrates ordinary worlds vibrantly with a mother who quietly curses her ten-year-old’s feet for getting all the grooves their brain lacks by charting their unlived life yearly with paint, poster board, and footprints. It shows her ability to skillfully uncolor, to make the fantastical mundane. Coincidentally, she revives her characters while displaying her keen writerly ability to both familiarize then estrange in just a few span of pages.

You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett

By Rachel King
These stories recount relationships between mentally ill people and their non-mentally ill acquaintances who may not be better off than they are. A bi-polar old man and his estranged son, a depressed middle-aged woman and the emotionally needy undefined116122.undefined116123.undefined116124.undefined116731.undefined213152.doctor who attends to her, a lonely teenager who asks a psychotic woman for sex advice. My type of fiction precisely! Haslett has a novel out, now, called Union Atlantic. It seemed too political for me, until I read a review that insists it’s more about messed-up people than politics. Now I plan to read it.

The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems by Robert Hass

By Rachel King
If you write or read poetry and are not acquainted with Robert Hass, you should be. This book compiles his best poetry over the last thirty or so years. His poems’ rhythm is comfortable and casual, message poignant or ecstatic, lines and word choices precise. “Time:/thick honey, and no one saying goodbye.” I’ll return to this book again and again, to study its craft and be refreshed by its beauty.

By Heather Frese

AWPed, verb. To be strolling through the Washington D.C. Marriott, heading to a panel, a bookfair, or a reading, only to be happily diverted from your target by running into a former classmate, friend, editor, or mentor. Usage: “I was headed to this panel on using witchcraft to get your book published when I was AWPed by the poetry editor of my undergrad journal, and somehow ended up at an Irish pub with Mary Gaitskill and Sandra Cisneros.”

I was AWPed more times than I can count at this year’s conference (though I never did end up at a pub with Mary Gaitskill and Sandra Cisneros). The term was, in fact, coined by a dear friend of mine who is now doing her PhD in Florida; we AWPed each other a lot. Sponsored by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the annual conference and bookfair takes place at a different location in North America every year. According to the AWP website, “The Annual Conference typically features 350 presentations: readings, lectures, panel discussions, and Forums plus hundreds of book signings, receptions, dances, and informal gatherings. The conference attracts more than 8,000 attendees and more than 500 publishers.” Dang. This year’s AWP in Washington, D.C. saw record attendance. The list of panel descriptions literally filled a book, and the keynote address was given by Jhumpa Lahiri. Other readings were given by Junot Diaz, Charles Wright, and Claudia Rankine, among many other literary luminaries. Many of WVU’s faculty and MFA candidates attended the conference, soaking up four days of writerly chaos, bliss, and canvas bags.

Panels are scheduled at back-to-back intervals during AWP, so it was usually a sort of roulette game to see where I ended up, as I’d often plan on one panel, get AWPed, and end up somewhere completely different. With the docket full of everything from publishing, teaching, editing, agent-ing, and craft-oriented panels in every genre, decisions were difficult. I ended up having two favorite panels of the conference. The first was a panel of first-time authors talking about the practical issues surrounding publishing a book, things like when to listen to editors (most always), how to promote your book (nicely and genuinely), and what to do if you hate the book jacket the publisher gives you (use one of your two shots at standing your own ground and ask for a new one). The panelists were friendly, funny, and very helpful. My other favorite panel was hosted by the Southeast Review’s Katie Cortese, and was structured around the idea of falling in literary love with an agent, and the agent with you. Full of practical tips and hints, the panelists addressed such things as how to write a good cover letter, what to do if you and your agent fall out of literary love, and how to find a match in the first place (think Match.com for writers).

If you imagine two or three football fields filled with tables, and these tables piled with literary journals, books, and swag like pens, bookmarks, and magnets, then you’ve got an idea of what the AWP bookfair is like. I used the map, and I still got lost. I think I would’ve gotten lost even if I’d had Gavin, my GPS (I usually do). A person could spend the entire conference at the bookfair and still not see everything. It’s overwhelming, in a noisy, crowded, yet wonderful “I’m surrounded by books” sort of way. My personal highlight of the bookfair was having a conversation with someone (nametag hidden) at the Michigan Quarterly Review table, only to realize midway that I was chatting with the editor-in-chief. My other highlight was meeting a girl named Hannah Fries, talking about our similar last names, and drinking the Dunkin Donuts coffee she had at her table. AWP necessitates much coffee.

And then there were the readings. Jhumpa Lahiri gave the keynote address, encouraging us to follow what we love and write. Junot Díaz gave a hilarious reading of a new story that he’s still working on (props for second person, Junot), and the poets tell me that Charles Wright and Claudia Rankine were equally fantastic. That’s not even touching on the multitude of off-site readings, my favorite of which was sponsored by Bat City Review, featuring a colleague of mine from Ohio (and Michael Martone!). And Mark Brazaitis’ mother opened the family home for a party and reading in celebration of our MFA program’s tenth anniversary, featuring readings by faculty, alumni, and current students.

The panels, the bookfair, the rubbing elbows or staring in awe at successful authors whose work you admire, all of this was amazing, yes. And I learned a lot, yes. But I think the biggest thing I took away from this year’s AWP was how important it is be part of a thriving community of writers. It was incredible to be surrounded by 8,000 other people who also used to be the weird, quiet kid who lived with his or her nose in a book. It was affirming to know that it’s not just a pipe dream to get a book out into the world, and to meet people (the formerly weird, quiet ones with their noses in books) who’ve done it, who are doing it. It was amazing to realize that I’m part of this weird, wonderful, world of writers.

By Renee Nicholson

Several past participants noticed changes with the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop—positive changes. A new celebration of participant writing, in the form of an open mic reading was one change that capped off a wonderful long weekend of writing last year. The enthusiasm and energy has spilled over to the 15th Annual West Virginia Writers’ Workshop, with applications already coming in for the event.

This year’s West Virginia Writers’ Workshop (WVWW) will run July 21-24, 2011, and applications are due by Friday, June 17th. Potential participants can register online at http://english.wvu.edu/centers/projects/wvww/. As well, the Workshop’s website has complete author bios, a schedule of events, information on lodging, etc. Very reasonably-priced accommodations for the workshop are available on campus at Stalnaker Hall, which is walking distance to Colson Hall, the Mountainlair, and Downtown Morgantown.

Many participants in the workshop return year after year, which is one of the things that gives the WVWW its friendly atmosphere. John Thelin, a regular participant who recently had success publishing a collection of poems, has called it his yearly “literary shot in the arm.” With this year’s excellent faculty—Mark Brazaitis (also the WVWW Director), Jim Harms, Denise Duhamel, Robert Olmstead, and guest reader John McKernan—the quality of instruction, feedback, and readings will be top caliber. Between them, this year’s faculty has won the Guggenheim Fellowship, Pen/Revson Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, The Crab Orchard Poetry Prize, Iowa Short Fiction Award, Pushcart Prizes, and other prestigious national and international prizes.

Mark Brazaitis, Jim Harms and Denise Duhamel have served as faculty for past workshops, and Jim Harms has run the event in the past and is the Founding Director of the event (I’ve had the opportunity to work with both Mark and Jim as Director). Denise Duhamel is very popular among participants, and her warmth and wit make her reading a must-attend event. Robert Olmstead is an exciting new addition, as he has taught writing workshops at many prestigious programs, including UC Irvine, Boise State University, and the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia. The quality of the faculty is just one reason why the WVWW is such a tremendous value for the tuition.

After successfully moving the event from the Mountainlair, Colson Hall will serve as the center of activity for the workshop, continuing to strengthen the WVWW’s ties to the Department of English. Readings and book signings, which have always been a mainstay of the conference, will continue much as they have in past years. A large portion of the workshop is dedicated to working with faculty, and to honing craft through suggestions and discussion of submitted work.

Participants have the option to stay on campus at Stalnaker hall, which will also serve as the location of the literary journal display. Publishers of journals and magazines from across the country donate copies for this display, and at the end of the workshop participants are encouraged to take a volume or two with them, helping to familiarize participants with the places to send and to read. The low cost of housing at Stalnaker Hall also include continental breakfast in the morning, and several gathering places for participants to discuss their work, socialize, and, as it has happened on occasion, participate in impromptu readings. It’s the spirit and dedication of the participants that make the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop such a unique event. For four days, participants, faculty, and staff of the workshop will get to immerse themselves in the craft of writing, a wonderful long weekend vacation into the world of words and those who wield them so well.

Renée K. Nicholson is the Assistant to the Director of the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop. For information about the 2011 WVWW, feel free to contact her at renee.nicholson@mail.wvu.edu.