TABLE OF CONTENTS CLICK ON AN ITEM TO GO DIREctLY THERE Note from the Editor . .4 2007 Summer Programs . .5 Poetry Staff News . .7 Participant Profile: Amber Flora Thomas . .9 The Sounds of Summer 2006: Music Heard in the Office . .10 PoetWatch: Poetry Participant News . .11 Happy Hour: Poem by Larry Ruth . .23 Summer 2006 Special Thanks . .24 Participant Profile: Kazim Ali . .26 Screenwriting Staff News . .27 An Extraordinary Opportunity for Screenwriters: Eugene Corr . .28 Screenwriting Participant News . .29 Participant Profile: Michael Schulman . .33 Published Alumni Reading Series 2004-2006 . .35 Introduction to Writers Workshop in a Book: Richard Ford . .38 The Follies Set the Stage for Success: The Novelettes . .40 Writers Workshop Staff News . .41 Oakley Hall Voted “New Artist to Watch” by Rolling Stone . .48 omnium gatherum The Colonial Theory of Point of View: Sands Hall . .51 Participant Profile: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie . .54 & newsletter Writers Workshop Participant News . .55 Participant Profile: Alex Espinosa . .75 Coming to Your Senses: Janet Fitch . .76 A Writer’s Sense of Place: James D. Houston . .76 Review of Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been . .77 2 0 0 4 - 2 0 0 6 i s s u e 1 1 Contributors & Magazines to Submit To . .78 COMMUNITY OF WRITERS AT SQUAW VALLEY ABOUT OUR ADVERTISERS OMNIUM GATHERUM & NEWSLETTER A Note from the Editor 2004-2006 Issue 11 The ads which appear in this issue Community of Writers at Squaw Valley represent the work of Community of elcome to the Omnium The Squaw Valley Community of Writ- A Non-Profit Corporation #629182 Writers staff and participants. These Gatherum & Newsletter! ers on the Art of Fiction, due out this P.O. Box 1416, Nevada City, CA 95959 ads help to defray the cost of the WIt has been three years since summer from Chronicle Books. We E-mail: [email protected] newsletter, and help the authors by we had the resources to publish this are excited to publish our first book www.squawvalleywriters.org sharing news of the books’ publication wonderful compendium of the suc- collecting the wit and wisdom of our with Newsletter readers. If you have cesses of our past participants and staff. Now you can enjoy the Commu- Newsletter edited and designed by staff, and so this issue gathers news nity of Writers all year. Maxima Kahn a forthcoming book, please contact us with support and advice from about advertising in our forthcoming from those past three years. And what Brett Hall Jones issue, due out in June 2007. Many pub- a lot of news there is! And how impres- We hope you enjoy this issue. Let us lishers are happy to advertise in this sive it all is. We were delighted to hear know! [email protected] BOARD OF DIRECTORS newsletter, and we also have special from so many of you, and we apologize President Max Byrd rates for authors advertising their own to those of you who were left out of Vice President Joanne Meschery books. this issue . We hope the return of the Send Us Secretary Eddy Ancinas Newsletter will bring many more past Financial OfficerBurnett Miller Deadline: participants out of the woodwork with Your Osvaldo Ancinas Contact Maxima Kahn for a Rate news for our next issue. News! Jan Buscho Sheet and more information. Alan Cheuse In addition to covering three years’ Richard Ford (50) 27-566 Blair Fuller or [email protected] worth of news, this issue has the dis- Diana Fuller tinction of being our first online pub- Barbara Hall This is our first online issue lication. We hope that you will enjoy James D. Houston of the Omnium Gatherum & this new format, which allows us to Edwina Leggett save trees and substantial cost and, we Christopher Sindt Newsletter. Every effort was hope, to reach more people by mak- Kevin Starr made to make the websites ing the newsletter available on our Amy Tan and email addresses men- website. For those who still love to Donovan Thayer tioned in the ads and text hold something in their hands while PAST-PARTICIPANT OR STAFF? John C. Walker Do you have news you would like us interactive, so that you can reading, or who want a copy of this to Harold Weaver keep, you can print out this newsletter to include in the newsletter? We print Nancy Wendt click on the link to go to the publishing credits, awards and similar Al Young on 8.5 x 11 paper. Just be sure you’ve book or site selected landscape/horizontal orienta- writing-related achievements, and also include births. News should THE WORKSHOPS that is men- tion in your page setup dialogue box. Director Emeritus Oakley Hall tioned. Roll be from the past year only. Please compose it in third person, using Executive Director Brett Hall Jones your pointer IN THIS ISSUE, you’ll find profiles of some Writers Workshops: of our past participants, as well as en- complete sentences. Include titles, pe- Lisa Alvarez over the link joyable tidbits of news and trivia, and riodicals, publisher, and publication Louis B. Jones slowly and a passage from Sands Hall’s invalu- dates, as needed. See examples in Michael Carlisle click in order able writing guide, Tools of the Writ- this issue. Deadline: April 1, 2007 for Poetry Robert Hass to activate it. ers Craft . We also bring you next issue. We are moving to Screenwriting Diana Fuller excerpts from the upcoming an annual Spring/Summer Writers Workshop in a Book: publication date. ~ ~ ~ ~ COMMUNITY 2007 “One of the best hotels in San Francisco.” OF WRITERS POETRY WORKSHOPS National Geographic’s “10 Best of Everything, 2006” July 21 - 28 For individual reservations, call 800.433.4434 Jimmy Santiago Baca · Robert Hass Brenda Hillman or visit www.thehotelrex.com Sharon Olds · Claudia Rankine 562 SUTTER STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, 94102 FICTION & NARRATIVE NONFICTION: August 4-11, 2007 Squaw Valley Max Byrd · Michael Carlisle · Ron Carlson Alan Cheuse · Mark Childress Alev Lytle Croutier · Leslie Daniels California Gill Dennis · Karen Joy Fowler · Lynn Freed Dagoberto Gilb · Sands Hall James D. Houston · Michael Jaime-Becerra SUMMER Sue Miller · Varley O’Connor Gregory Spatz · Al Young WRITING Literary Agents · Editors With Alumni Readings by: WORKSHOPS Alex Espinoza · Beatrice Motamedi Katayoon Zandvakili and more Plus Special Guests: Rabih Alameddine · Oakley Hall Financial Aid available Diane Johnson · Persis Karim · Amy Tan Application Deadline: May 10, 2007 SCREENWRITING WORKSHOPS: August 4-11, 2007 [email protected] Eugene Corr · Pamela Gray (530) 470-8440 Michael Lehmann · Christopher Monger Judith Rascoe · Tom Rickman Lisa Rosenberg · Camille Thomasson www.squawvalleywriters.org Tom Schlesinger ~ 5~ ~ 6~ UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS thea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize for a work in progress from the Center for Documentary Squaw Valley Community of Writers Studies at Duke University. She is a 2004 POETRY recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, and is newly elected to the American Academy of STAFF Arts and Sciences. NEWS Dean Young: His collection, Elegy on Toy Piano, was published by Pittsburgh University Press in 2005. A new book, em- bryoyo, will be published by McSweeney’s in 2007 . Lucille Clifton: BOA Editions published About the Moon was published by W. W. her collection, Mercy, in 2004 . Norton in 2005 . Robert Hass: His new book of poems, Li-Young Lee: Earl Ingersol edited and Eye of Water Time and Materials, will be published by BOA Editions will publish Breaking the Al- by Amber Flora Thomas Ecco Press and a collection of his columns abaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young ISBN 0-8229-5893-7 • Paper $14.00 • 96 pp. for the Washington Post, Now & Then: The Lee in September 2006. Poets Choice Columns 1997-2000, will be Sharon Olds: Her most recent collec- out this spring from Shoemaker & Hoard. tion, Strike Sparks, was published in 2004 He recently co-edited, with Jessica Fisher, by Knopf. She was named the 2003 James The Addison Street Anthology: Berkeley’s Merrill Fellow of The Academy of American Poetry Walk, published by HeyDay Books Poets . in 2004 . Harryette Mullen: Her collection, Recy- Brenda Hillman: Her collection, Pieces clopedia, was published by Graywolf Press Galway Kinnell of Air in the Epic, was published by Wes- in October 2006. leyan University in 2005. Len Roberts: University of Illinois Press Strong Is Your Hold Richard Howard: His newest collection, published his book of poems, The Disap- Elegy on Toy Piano Inner Voices: Selected Poems 1963-2003, pearing Trick, in late 2006. He won first This striking was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and various by Dean Young prize (“Poison Sumac’) in River Styx’s In- ISBN 0-8229-5872-4 • Paper $12.95 • 105 pp. in 2004 . ternational Poetry Contest and second collection by Galway Kinnell: Strong is Your Hold was prize (“Wassergass, 2006”) in the Paterson Galway Kinnell, published by Houghton Mifflin in Novem- Review’s Allen Ginsberg International Po- whom the New ber, 2006. etry Contest. York Times has called “one of Yusef Komunyakaa: In 2004 his collec- Gerald Stern: His collection, Everything tion Taboo: The Wishbone Trilogy, Part Is Burning: Poems, was published by W. the true master 1 was published by Farrar, Straus and W. Norton in December 2006. Not God Af- poets of his Giroux. Pleasure Dome: New And Col- ter All was published in 2004 by Autumn generation,” lected Poems was published by Wesleyan House Press. includes a bound-in CD of poems read by the author. University Press, also in 2004. With drama- C.D. Wright: Her book, Cooling Time: An turg and theater producer Chad Gracia he American Poetry Vigil, was published by Book & CD; 80 pages; $25.00 wrote a dramatic adaptation of The Epic of Copper Canyon Press in 2005.