Bread Loaf Writers' Conference - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is a writers' conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain

Bread Loaf Mountain (Vermont)

Bread Loaf Mountain is a mountain located in Addison County, Vermont, in the Green Mountain National Forest. The mountain is part of the central Green Mountains...

, east of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1926, it has been called by The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

"the oldest and most prestigious writers' conference in the country." Bread Loaf is sponsored by Middlebury College

Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...

and at its inception was closely associated with Robert Frost

Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...

, who attended a total of 29 sessions. (Frost lived in nearby Ripton

Ripton, Vermont

Ripton is a town in Addison County, Vermont, United States. The population was 556 at the 2000 census. The Bread Loaf Writer's Conference is held annually in Ripton. Jessica Ravitz of CNN said that the town "is the kind of place where cell service fails more often than it works and the country...

Workshop

Every other day for ten days, the 220 participants attend ten-person workshops, where their writing is assessed by the faculty and others in the workshop, including Scholars and Fellows. Numerous readings, craft classes, events, and agent meetings are also included. Michael Collier

Michael Collier (poet)

Michael Robert Collier is an American poet, teacher, creative writing program administrator and editor. He has published five books of original poetry, a translation of Euripedes' Medea, a book of prose pieces about poetry, and has edited three anthologies of poetry. From 2001 to 2004 he was the...

, a poet and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park

University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

and director of the conference, told Seven Days
Seven Days (newspaper)
Seven Days is an alternative weekly newspaper that is distributed every Wednesday in Vermont. Seven Days is published by Da Capo Publishing, Inc., and owned by Pamela Polston and Paula Routly. It is distributed free of charge throughout the following areas: Burlington, Middlebury, Montpelier,...

newspaper of Vermont the event should not be confused with the more leisurely model of a writers' retreat. It's "designed for learning rather than for on-site writing." USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

in an article on summer literary gatherings, said of Bread Loaf, "There is nowhere in America where you can hear more great writers reading more great work in such a short space of time." Seven Days
Seven Days (newspaper)
Seven Days is an alternative weekly newspaper that is distributed every Wednesday in Vermont. Seven Days is published by Da Capo Publishing, Inc., and owned by Pamela Polston and Paula Routly. It is distributed free of charge throughout the following areas: Burlington, Middlebury, Montpelier,...

notes that participants are warned to pace themselves to avoid exhaustion.

Admission

According to Seven Days
Seven Days (newspaper)
Seven Days is an alternative weekly newspaper that is distributed every Wednesday in Vermont. Seven Days is published by Da Capo Publishing, Inc., and owned by Pamela Polston and Paula Routly. It is distributed free of charge throughout the following areas: Burlington, Middlebury, Montpelier,...

, the likelihood of general admission to Bread Loaf (in 2005) stood at about 17 percent, given a total applicant pool of 1,500. Of those accepted, 170 students pay full fare. These people are called Contributors (because they contribute to the workshops with their writing). The New Yorker wrote that the most coveted scholarships to Bread Loaf are the 25 "Waiterships", in which promising writers earn their keep by serving three meals a day to the paying guests. Besides the Waiterships, applicants who have been published can try for tuition scholarships, and those with a published book can become Bread Loaf Teaching Fellows. Waiters, Tuition Scholars, and Fellows are given the opportunity to give public readings.

Authors

Noted authors who have been associated with the conference over the years include James Brown

James Brown (author)

James Brown is an American novelist who has also written short fiction and nonfiction.His acclaimed memoir, The Los Angeles Diaries is an intimate portrait of his dysfunctional family, covering his childhood, Hollywood script meetings, his splintered marriage and life with his older brother, the...

, John Ciardi

John Ciardi

John Anthony Ciardi was an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet, he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry editor, and...

, Bernard DeVoto

Bernard DeVoto

Bernard Augustine DeVoto was an American historian and author who specialized in the history of the American West.- Life and work :He was born in Ogden, Utah...

, Robert Frost

Robert Frost

, John Gardner, Richard Gehman

Richard Gehman

Richard Boyd Gehman born 20 May 1921 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania died 12 May 1972 was a prolific American author of 3,000 magazine articles , five novels and fifteen nonfiction books...

, Donald Hall

Donald Hall

Donald Hall is an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2006.-Personal life:...

, John Irving

John Irving

John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...

, Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...

, Barry Lopez

Barry Lopez

Barry Holstun Lopez is an American author, essayist, and fiction writer whose work is known for its environmental and social concerns.-Biography:...

, Robie Macauley

Robie Macauley

Robie Mayhew Macauley was an editor, novelist and critic whose literary career spanned over 50 years.-Early life:...

, Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers was an American writer. She wrote novels, short stories, and two plays, as well as essays and some poetry. Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South...

, Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...

, Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...

, Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan is an American poet of Jewish background. From 1991–1995 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland. She is known for writing short poems that address topics like family life, domesticity, motherhood, the female experience, aging, death, loss and the fear of loss, as well as the...

, May Sarton

May Sarton

May Sarton is the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton , an American poet, novelist, and memoirist.-Biography:...

, Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967...

, Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty

Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...

, and Richard Yates

Richard Yates (novelist)

Richard Yates was an American novelist and short story writer, known for his exploration of mid-20th century life.-Life:...

Faculty

Recent Faculty have included Julia Alvarez

Julia Álvarez

Julia Alvarez is a Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. Born in New York of Dominican descent, she spent the first ten years of her childhood in the Dominican Republic, until her father's involvement in a political rebellion forced her family to flee the country.Alvarez rose to...

, Andrea Barrett

Andrea Barrett

Andrea Barrett is an American novelist, and short story writer. Her Ship Fever collection of novella and short stories won the National Book Award in 1996...

, Charles Baxter, Linda Bierds

Linda Bierds

Linda Louise Bierds is an American poet and professor of English and creative writing at the University of Washington, where she also received her B.A...

, Robert Boswell

Robert Boswell

-Life:Robert Boswell is the author of eleven books. His stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, Best Stories from the South, Esquire, Ploughshares, Harvard Review, Colorado Review.He has been faculty at the Bread Loaf...

, Lan Samantha Chang

Lan Samantha Chang

Lan Samantha Chang , born 1965, is an American writer of novels and short stories. She is Professor of English at the University of Iowa and Director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop- Life and career :...

, Ted Conover

Ted Conover

Ted Conover is an American author and journalist. A graduate of Denver's Manual High School and Amherst College and a Marshall Scholar, he is also a distinguished writer-in-residence in the of New York University...

, Mark Doty

Mark Doty

Mark Doty is an American poet and memoirist.-Biography:He was born in Maryville, Tennessee, earned his Bachelor of Arts from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and received his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Goddard College in Vermont.In 1989, his partner Wally Roberts tested...

, Percival Everett

Percival Everett

Percival Everett is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.-Life:Everett lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, novelist Danzy Senna and their two sons....

, Lynn Freed, Linda Gregerson

Linda Gregerson

Linda Gregerson is an American poet and member of faculty at the University of Michigan .-Life:Linda Gregerson received a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1971, an M.A. from Northwestern University, an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, and her Ph.D. from Stanford University...

, Patricia Hampl

Patricia Hampl

Patricia Hampl is an American memoirist, writer, lecturer, and educator. She is a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and is one of the founding members of the Loft Literary Center.-Life:Hampl was...

, Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published eight books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems , which brings together thirty-five years of work. He is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial...

, Brigit Pegeen Kelly

Brigit Pegeen Kelly

Brigit Pegeen Kelly is an award-winning American poet.-Life:She is married to , a poet and fiction writer.She taught at the University of California at Irvine, Purdue University, and Warren Wilson College....

, William Kittredge

William Kittredge

William Kittredge is an American writer from Oregon, United States. He was born in Portland, Oregon, and grew up on a ranch in Southeastern Oregon's Warner Valley in Lake County where he attended school in Adel, Oregon, and later would attend high school in California and Oregon...

, Antonya Nelson

Antonya Nelson

Antonya Nelson is an American author and teacher of creative writing who writes primarily short stories.-Life and education:Antonya Nelson was born January 6, 1961 in Wichita, Kansas....

, Carl Phillips

Carl Phillips

Carl Phillips is an American writer and poet. He is a Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis....

, Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey is an American poet who won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her 2006 collection, Native Guard.Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi. She earned the A.B. in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in poetry from Hollins University, and an M.F.A. in poetry from...

, Ellen Bryant Voigt

Ellen Bryant Voigt

Ellen Bryant Voigt is an American poet. She has published six collections of poetry and a collection of craft essays. Her poetry collection Shadow of Heaven was a finalist for the National Book Award and Kyrie was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her poetry has been...

, Daniel Wallace

Daniel Wallace (author)

Daniel Wallace is an American author, best known for his 1998 novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, the basis for the Tim Burton film Big Fish. His other books include Ray in Reverse and The Watermelon King...

, and Dean Young

Dean Young (poet)

Dean Young is a contemporary American poet in the poetic lineage of John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and Kenneth Koch. Often cited as a second-generation New York School poet, Young also derives influence and inspiration from the work of André Breton, Paul Éluard, and the other French Surrealist poets,...

.

The Conference is currently administered by director Michael Collier

Michael Collier (poet)

and assistant director Jennifer Grotz

Jennifer Grotz

Jennifer Grotz is an American poet and translator who teaches English and creative writing at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers and at the University of Rochester, where she is Assistant Professor...

Fellows

Recent Fellows at the Conference have included Christopher Castellani

Christopher Castellani

Christopher David Castellani is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, A Kiss from Maddalena and The Saint of Lost Things...

, Geri Doran

Geri Doran

Geri Doran was born in Kalispell, Montana in 1966. Doran has attended Vassar College, the University of Cambridge, the University of Florida , and Stanford University, where she held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry...

, Thomas Sayers Ellis

Thomas Sayers Ellis

Thomas Sayers Ellis is a poet, photographer, and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, and a core faculty member of the Lesley University Low Residency MFA Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts...

, Ilya Kaminsky

Ilya Kaminsky

Ilya Kaminsky is a Russian-American poet, critic, translator and professor. He began to write poetry seriously as a teenager in Odessa, publishing a chapbook in Russian entitled The Blessed City. His first published poetry collection in English was a chapbook, Musica Humana...

, Suji Kwock Kim

Suji Kwock Kim

-Life:She graduated from Yale College; the Iowa Writers' Workshop; Seoul National University, where she was a Fulbright Scholar; and Stanford University, where she was a Stegner Fellow....

, Naeem Murr

Naeem Murr

Naeem Murr is a British-born novelist and short story writer of Lebanese descent. He is the author of three novels acclaimed for their dark portraiture and stark, original prose...

, Peter Orner

Peter Orner

Peter Orner is an American writer of fiction. He is the author of the novels Love and Shame and Love and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo and the short story collection Esther Stories...

, Eric Puchner

Eric Puchner

-Life:His short stories have appeared in Chicago Tribune, The Sun, The Missouri Review, and Best New American Voices. He was a fellow at Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.He attended Chadwick School high school...

, Richard Siken

Richard Siken

Richard Siken is an American poet. He is the author of a collection of poetry, Crush, which won the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 2004, and is the editor of spork literary magazine...

, Monique Truong

Monique Truong

Monique T.D. Truong is a Vietnamese American writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Truong left Vietnam for the United States in 1975 and graduated from high school in Houston, Texas...

, Vendela Vida

Vendela Vida

Vendela Vida is an American novelist, journalist, and editor who lives in the Bay Area.-Books:Vida has written four books....

, and C. Dale Young

C. Dale Young

C. Dale Young is an American poet and writer, physician, editor and educator.-Life:Young writes and publishes poetry and short stories, practices medicine full-time, edits poetry for New England Review, and teaches in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers...

Waiterships (Work-Study Scholarships)

Well-known recipients of waiterships have included Julia Alvarez

Julia Álvarez

, Amanda Davis

Amanda Davis

Amanda Davis was an American writer. She released one collection, Circling the Drain, and one novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me. Davis died at the age of 32 in a plane crash; the plane was piloted by her father and crashed on Old Fort Mountain in McDowell County, North Carolina. She had just...

, Carolyn Forche

Carolyn Forché

Carolyn Forché is an American poet, editor, translator, and human rights advocate.-Life:Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 28, 1950, to Michael Joseph and Louise Nada Blackford Sidlosky. Forché earned a B.A...

, Jonathan Galassi

Jonathan Galassi

Jonathan Galassi born in Seattle, Washington, is the President and Publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, one of the eight major publishers in New York. He began his publishing career at Houghton Mifflin in Boston, moved to Random House in New York, and finally, to Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He...

, Jean Kwok

Jean Kwok

Jean Kwok is a contemporary Chinese American writer and the author of the national bestseller Girl in Translation.-Biography:Jean Kwok was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Brooklyn, New York when she was five years old. While living in a roach-infested apartment without central heating, she...

, Tama Janowitz

Tama Janowitz

Tama Janowitz is an American novelist and a short story writer. The 2005 September/October issue of Pages magazine listed her as one of the four "brat pack" authors, along with Bret Easton Ellis, Mark Lindquist and Jay McInerney.-Life:Her parents, a psychiatrist father, Julian Janowitz, and...