Scribblers Come Back

After a Year Up Island, the Southampton Writers Conference Returns

By Christian McLean

The Pulitzers, Pushcarts and Emmys mean nothing. That’s obvious the second you walk through the doors of Chancellor’s Hall. Everything rests solely on the brilliance, energy and knowledge of the faculty and participants of the SUNY Stony Brook Southampton Writers Conference being held there. For those who have never attended, it is a gathering of some of the most accomplished writers in their fields, who have achieved both popular and literary success, but as I said, that weighs little on the event. The emphasis is, and always has been, based on a respect for “the writer,” any writer, regardless of their phase in life or career. It is this mutual respect that attracts poet Billy Collins, memoirist Frank McCourt, and short story writer/journalist Matt Klam, year after year. But it isn’t just the faculty who make the annual trip; many of the participants return as well.

For the past thirty-one years, the Writers Conference has existed in one form or another. Like the Hamptons, it had modest beginnings. The faculty was talented, the attendees were talented, but it was not the affair it is today. Though it progressed and evolved, it wasn’t until 2002 when the program exploded. Capitalizing on the fact that skilled writers wanted to come to lead workshops and that students had an opportunity to spend almost two weeks in Southampton at the height of the summer, the staff worked doggedly to stoke the creative flame that was already burning. In doing so they built it into a first-rate conference.

While in a state of flux last summer, with SUNY Stony Brook purchasing the Southampton campus from LIU, the conference was held in an abbreviated, lecture-based form at the Charles B. Wang Center on Stony Brook’s main campus in Stony Brook. This year the conference will be back to its traditional form. The great Southampton migration of the literati will occur on July 18th, lasting until the 29th. Robert Reeves, with the help of others, is working on arranging lectures, play/musical readings, and exciting panels which augment the rigid workshop-minded conference. In recent years, evening events have included theatrical readings of new works by noted the playwrights Christopher Durang, Marsha Norman, Jules Feiffer, and Roger Rosenblatt. But the pillar of the 12-day event has always been the workshops. While additions and alterations may occur, this summer’s workshops are as follows:

The Novel with Ursula Hegi, Playwriting with Marsha Norman, Poetry with Billy Collins, Literary Essay with Roger Rosenblatt, Short Fiction with Melissa Bank, Memoir with Frank McCourt, The Novel with Meg Wolitzer, Poetry with Carol Muske-Dukes, and Creative Nonfiction with Matthew Klam.

With a faculty whose ability to inspire and educate is second to none — and now EVERYONE is welcome at the Conference if accepted — choosing just one workshop is incredibly difficult. Simply put, the entire faculty is brilliant, funny, touching, witty, and moving. It is this environment that breeds growth in the craft of writing and the genesis of storytelling.

Now that the dust has settled and the SUNY Stony Brook Southampton MFA Writing Program is in full swing, standing at the forefront of the renaissance of the Southampton Campus, outsiders as well as those in the writing “family” have a chance to see the incredible success and future potential for a university of the highest level in the Hamptons. The Writers Conference will accept an enrollment of roughly 100. Workshops will range from 10-14 students, creating very intimate groups and allowing everyone ample time for review and critique. Renovations to the dormitories will be complete by July, offering, once again, the full morning to night experience that places this program in the upper-echelon of writing conferences the world over. Its price is comparable to that of the Breadloaf Conference at Middlebury College at roughly $2000, which includes room, board, and tuition. With heavy fundraising, the conference is able to establish several partial scholarships that help ease tuition. SUNY Stony Brook Southampton MFA students can even get course credit. The 2007 application, which all must complete, will be released in the coming weeks and will require the submission of a writing sample and a workshop preference.

Unlike many programs which are more like clearing houses stacked with agents, editors and fame-crazed students, Southampton focuses on the words, structure; the nuts and bolts. Through this honing and sculpting, great writers are produced. No one chases Frank McCourt around with a manuscript asking for his agent’s email address. Instead they speak about life, about text, emotion, about understanding the gravity and levity of the noble art of writing.

For updated information about this year’s program as well as a downloadable application visit www.stonybrook.edu/writers in mid-February.