Nebraska Summer Writers' Conference Prepares for 2nd Year

The second Nebraska Summer Writers' Conference will bring 16 literary experts to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this month to work with about 200 writers from more than 25 states.

The conference will be June 19-25 and will feature these writers, poets and editors as faculty: Jane Barnes, Grace Bauer, Denise Brady, Rita Mae Brown, Robert Olen Butler, Elizabeth Dewberry, Pam Houston, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Carl Phillips, Mary Pipher, Hilda Raz, Emma Sweeney, Marcos Villatoro, Jane von Mehren, Sharon Oard Warner and Wendy Weil.

Jonis Agee, a professor in the creative writing program in UNL's Department of English, will again direct the conference. Weekend workshops will run June 19-20, and the weeklong main sessions will meet June 21-25 at UNL.

This year features four more faculty members than last year's conference, and adds workshops on writing for film and television, Agee said. Also, more time will be available for attendees to meet with New York-based literary agents and publishers because those sessions were popular last summer.

"We think it's great to bring these powerhouses in the literary world to Lincoln and Nebraska," Agee said. "We're proud and determined that people will know Nebraska is a hot place for literature."

The location of the conference is ideal for many writers, said Kati Cramer, assistant director of the conference and a UNL doctoral student. "Midwesterners are delighted that they don't have to travel to the East and West coasts to study under talented, successful writers," she said.

Workshops will be offered on writing novels, short stories, nonfiction, memoirs, poetry, screenplays, documentaries and writing for television. Participants also can attend sessions on self-publishing, creating unforgettable characters, discovering what an editor wants or "writing to change oneself or the world." Individual consultations will be available with Sweeney or Weil, who are New York literary agents, or von Mehren, editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Penguin Books.

Registrations will be accepted as long as space is available in individual workshops. More information is available online or by calling (402) 472-1834 or (402) 797-2416.

The public can attend daytime panel discussions and six public readings. The dates, times and places for the free panels and readings:

JUNE 21: 11 a.m., publishing panel with professional agents and editors, Bailey Library at Andrews Hall, UNL City Campus; 7 p.m., reading by Brown, the Loft at the Mill, 800 P St., Suite 301.

11 a.m., readings by Villatoro and Kercheval, Bailey Library; 7 p.m., readings by Phillips and Houston, Hewit Place, 1155 Q St.

JUNE 23: 7 p.m., readings by Pipher and Warner, Hewit Place.

JUNE 24: 11 a.m., readings by Bauer and Barnes, Bailey Library. 7 p.m., readings by Butler and Dewberry, Hewit Place.

More information about the writers' conference faculty follows:

Barnes has published stories, essays and two novels. She has written feature scripts under contract to Warner Bros, HBO, Lifetime and American Playhouse, among others, and has written and produced documentaries for PBS' "American Masters Series" and "Frontline." Her "Frontline" film "The Choice '96" won an Emmy, a Dupont and a Peabody. She won the Writer's Guild award for "Outstanding Script in a Television Documentary" for "Frontline's" "John Paul II: The Millennial Pope." She is working on a documentary on Mormons for "American Experience" and "Frontline."

Bauer is an associate professor of English and coordinator of the creative writing program at UNL. She is the author of "The Women at the Well" and three chapbooks of poetry. Her poems and stories have appeared in American Literary Review, Arts & Letters, Colorado Review and several others. She has won an Academy of American Poets Prize and grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Nebraska Arts Council.

Brady is a book artist and poet who has produced literary first editions from her Omaha fine press, Bradypress, for nearly 20 years. She has directed the marketing and outreach activities of the Nebraska Book Arts Center since it was founded at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1989 and has taught workshops and courses in book arts, letterpress printing, binding and more.

Brown, a novelist and Emmy-nominated screenwriter, is the author of 29 novels, including the groundbreaking feminist books "Rubyfruit Jungle" and "Southern Discomfort" and the Sneaky Pie Brown mysteries she co-authors with her cat. Her most recent books, "Full Cry" and "Hotspur," are set in the Virginia huntfield.

Butler has published 10 novels and two volumes of short stories, including "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain," winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His new book of stories, "Had a Good Time," will be published in August. He has received the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a National Magazine Award for Fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. He is director of the creative writing program at Florida State University.

Dewberry is the author of three novels: "Sacrament of Lies," "Break the Heart of Me" and "Many Things Have Happened Since He Died: And Here Are the Highlights." She is a novelist and playwright whose work has been produced in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere. She is playwright-in-residence at Florida State.

Houston's best-selling collection of short stories, "Cowboys Are My Weakness," was published in 1992. Her stories have also appeared in Mirabella, Mademoiselle, The Mississippi Review and Best American Short Stories, while her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Elle and Vogue. Her stories have been selected for Best American Short Stories of the Century, the O. Henry Awards and The Pushcart Prize.

Kercheval, fiction writer, memoirist and poet, is the author of six books, including the novel "The Museum of Happiness" and the writing text "Building Fiction." Her second poetry collection, "Dog Angel," was published this spring by the University of Pittsburgh Press. She teaches at the University of Wisconsin, where she directs the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and the MFA program in creative writing.

Phillips is the author of seven books of poems, most-recently "Rock Harbor" and "The Rest of Love," as well as a prose book, "Coin of the Realm: Essay on the Life and Art of Poetry." He has received the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Library of Congress. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

Pipher received her B.A. in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and her Ph.D in clinical psychology from UNL. Three of her books, "Reviving Ophelia," "The Shelter of Each Other" and "Another Country," were New York Times bestsellers. Her most recent books are "The Middle of Everywhere" and "Letters to a Young Therapist." She is working on a book called "Writing to Change the World."

Raz's books include "Trans," "Divine Honors" and "Living on the Margins: Women Writers On Breast Cancer" and the two anthologies: "The Best of Prairie Schooner: Essays" (with Kate Flaherty) and "Fiction and Poetry." She is editor of the Prairie Schooner and professor of English at UNL. She has taught in the Goucher MFA Program, Breadloaf and the Antioch MFA program.

Sweeney is a writer who also works as a literary agent for Harold Ober Associates and has worked in the publishing business for the last 20 years. Her clients include Chinua Achebe, Christopher Hibbert, Penelope Lively and Sandra Scofield. Her own books include "Tulipa: A Photographer's Botanical," "Perennials: A Growing Guide for Easy, Colorful Gardens" and "Annuals: A Growing Guide for Easy, Colorful Gardens." In April 2002, Little, Brown published her memoir, "As Always, Jack: A Wartime Love Story."

Villatoro is the author of several books of fiction, poetry and nonfiction, including "Home Killings," which was named a Los Angeles Times "Best Book," and "The Holy Spirit of My Uncle's Cojones," which was an Independent Publishers Book Award Finalist. His other books include "They Say that I Am Two: Poems," "A Fire in the Earth" and the memoir "Walking to La Milpa: Living in Guatemala with Armies, Demons, Abrazos and Death." His most recent book, "Minos," was released last fall. He teaches at Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles and hosts a program on Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles called "Shelf Life."

Von Mehren is vice president, editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Penguin Books, where she has overseen the publication of National Book Award finalists and New York Times bestsellers. She oversees the editorial direction of the Penguin trade paperback list and acquires books for Viking Press. She has received several awards for her work, including the Tony Godwin Memorial Fellowship in 1989, the Jerusalem Book Fair Editorial Scholarship in 1993 and the Frankfurt Book Fair Fellowship in 2000.

Warner is the author of a novel, "Deep in the Heart" and a short-story collection, "Learning to Dance and Other Stories." She is also the editor of an anthology, "The Way We Write Now: Short Stories from the AIDS Crisis." She is director of creative writing at the University of New Mexico and founding director of UNM's Taos Summer Writers' Conference.

Weil is a veteran agent who represents established writers including Alice Walker, Rita Mae Brown and Philip Lopate, as well as newer writers including Beth Gutcheon and Joseph Skibell.

Agee, the conference director, is the author of 10 books, including four novels and five collections of short fiction, among them her most recent, "Acts of Love on Indigo Road," and a reprinted novel, "Sweet Eyes." She is professor of English and creative writing at UNL.

CONTACT: Jonis Agee, Professor, English, Conference Director, (402) 472-1834 or (402) 797-2416; and Kati Cramer, Doctoral Student, Asst. Conference Director, (402) 472-8830