The Tenth Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival's

Conference Day 2017

 

Keynote Speaker

Paul Lisicky

 

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Paul Lisicky is the author of five books: The Narrow Door (a New York Times Editors’ Choice), Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Conjunctions, Fence, The Offing, Ploughshares, Tin House, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, among others. He teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden.

 

and

 

Featured Readers

 

Aracelis Girmay

 

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Aracelis Girmay is the author of the poetry collections Teeth, Kingdom Animalia, The Black Maria, and the collage-based picture book changing, changing. Teeth was published by Curbstone Press under the generous and brilliant stewardship of Sandy Taylor. For Teeth, Girmay received the GLCA New Writers Award, and the book was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. Kingdom Animalia was the winner of the Isabella Gardner Award (BOA Editions) and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Most recently, Girmay's poetry and essays have been published in Granta, Black Renaissance Noire, and PEN America, among other places. She has received grants and fellowships from the Jerome, Cave Canem, and Watson foundations, as well as Civitella Ranieri and the NEA

 

 

 

Rachel Eliza Griffiths

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Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a poet and photographer. She received the MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. A Cave Canem and Kimbilio Fellow, she is the recipient of fellowships including Yaddo, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Cave Canem Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, The Millay Colony, and others. In 2011, Griffiths appeared in the first ever poetry issue in Oprah’s O Magazine.

 

Her literary and visual work has been widely published in journals, magazines, anthologies, and periodicals including Callaloo, Poets & Writers, The New York Times, American Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, The Writer’s Chronicle, Transition, American Poet, Mosaic, Indiana Review, Ecotone, Puerto Del Sol, Crab Orchard Review, RATTLE, Brilliant Corners, Kweli Journal, PMS: poem memoir story, The Drunken Boat, Salt Hill Journal, THRUSH, Folio, Hambone, Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, and many others.

 

She is widely known for her literary portraits, fine art photography, and lyric videos. Griffiths recently completed her first extensive video project, P.O.P (Poets on Poetry), an intimate series of micro-interviews, which gathers nearly 100 contemporary poets in conversation, is featured online at the Academy of American Poets’ website. Recently, Griffiths was selected by the Poetry Society of America to curate the Poetry Walk, featuring the poetry of Octavio Paz, for the New York Botanical Garden's exhibit, Frida Kahlo: Art Garden Life.

 

Griffiths is the author of Miracle Arrhythmia (Willow Books 2010) and The Requited Distance (The Sheep Meadow Press 2011). Griffiths’ third collection of poetry, Mule & Pear (New Issues Poetry & Prose 2011), was selected for the 2012 Inaugural Poetry Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her most recent full-length poetry collection is Lighting the Shadow (Four Way Books 2015), which was a finalist for the 2015 Balcones Poetry Prize and the 2016 Phillis Wheatley Book Award in Poetry.

 

Currently, Griffiths teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts). She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

 

Previously featured:

 

Ninth Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival (2016)

 

Kenneth Sherwood, Keynote Speaker

 

Jennifer Michael Hecht, Featured Author

 

Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith, Featured Author

 

Eighth Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival (2015)

 

Spiro Carras, Keynote Speaker

 

Amy Leach, Featured Author

 

Will Schutt, Featured Author

 

Seventh Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival (2014)

 

Colum McCann, Keynote Speaker

 

Kelly Daniels, Featured Author

 

Allison Seay, Featured Author

 

 

Sixth Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival (2013)

 

Tim Albaugh, Keynote Speaker

 

James Arthur, Featured Author

 

Katha Pollit, Featured Author

 

 

Fifth Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival (2012)

 

Cornelius Eady, Keynote Speaker

 

Judith Baumel, Featured Author

 

Rachel Eddey, Featured Author

 

 

Fourth Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival (2011)

 

Kris Bigalk, Keynote Speaker

 

Daniel Nester, Featured Author

 

L.B. Thompson, Featured Author

 

 

Third Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival (2010)

 

Enzo Surin, Keynote Speaker

 

Stephanos Papadopoulos, Featured Author

 

Dava Sobel, Featured Author

 

 

Second Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival (2009)

 

Julie Sheehan, Keynote Speaker

 

David Hajdu, Featured Author

 

Sam Lipsyte, Featured Author

 

 

First Annual SCCC Creative Writing Festival (2008)

 

Judith Baumel , Keynote Speaker

 

Brock Clarke, Featured Author

 

Victor D. Lavalle, Featured Author