Reprinted with permission of the Times Union, Albany, N.Y.
BY DOUG BLACKBURN
Staffwriter, Times Union, Albany, N.Y.Thanks to the New York State Writers Institute, acclaimed writers pass through Albany on a regular basis.
But this week's annual conference of the national Associated Writing Programs, coming to Albany for the first time, is a different matter altogether.
"I dare say there will be more writers per square inch in Albany during this week than ever before in the history of the world," observed William Kennedy, founder of the Writers Institute. "This is a unique and very special event for the city."
The conference, which kicks off at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Omni Hotel Ballroom A with Dennis Smith reading from his new memoir, "A Song for Mary: An Irish-American Memory," concludes at 8 p.m. Saturday in the hotel's Ten Eyck Ballroom with a reading by Kennedy, followed by a special tribute to the novelist by friends, colleagues and special guests. In between, events are scheduled at both the Omni and Convention Center with as many as 2,000 writers and writing teachers expected. Luminaries such as Russell Banks, Jill McCorkle, Frank McCourt, John Montague, Grace Paley and James Salter will be featured, giving readings and in panel discussions.
Less well known writers, including local authors Mars Hill and Eugene Garber, will have a moment in the sun. Both will give readings.
Many sessions are open to people who have registered for the conference, although day passes are available through the AWP. The Writers Institute is offering a number of free events, including a three-day celebration of Kennedy that begins Thursday afternoon.
Judith Johnson, professor of English and Women's Studies at the University at Albany, is primarily responsible for bringing the AWP to Albany. It is the first time the conference is being held in a city this small. Johnson, a past president of the AWP, is a board adviser to the organization.
"I have been working on this for three or four years,"Johnson said. "It's good for the AWP to come to a town that loves writing and writers more than your ordinary middle-size city or ordinary state capital. We have shown with the Writers Institute and the way we embrace writers here that Albany has a special affection for literature."
This year's conference will have a strong electronic and technical focus, including a technical fair that will run continuously. The book fair, always one of the most popular events at the AWP meeting, will once again be a primary gathering place.
A number of the programs scheduled for the conference will be run by computer- and hypertext-oriented people. These are among the fastest growing segments of the writing world, Johnson explained.
"I really believe that cyber text and the publishing business have strong possibilities for economic growth for Albany," she said. "I'm hoping this conference may act as catalyst."
The theme of the conference is how writing binds people together. Performance and technology and a sense of community can take writing out of the small imaginative space of the mind and allow it to inhabit an entire community's lives, Johnson said. She cited Kennedy as a writer who has become the voice of his community, someone who unites different factions of his hometown.
In addition to the tribute to Kennedy, other mini conferences are being folded into the four-day event. For example, there will be a separate conference for literary magazines and presses.
Don Faulkner, director of the Writers Institute, organized the Kennedy celebration. It is the tradition of the conference to include a tribute to the host city's top writer, so this was the ideal time to bring in friends of Kennedy, as well as scholars who have written academic books about him.
This is the institute's 15th year, Faulkner noted. The first visiting writer to come to Albany in 1984 was Saul Bellow, a Nobel Prize for Literature winner and one of Kennedy's first fiction teachers.
"What we're recognizing here and acknowledging are the efforts of the institute and Bill to make this a place on the literary map," Faulkner said. "Albany has a profile, because of the institute. It says something when a national organization of writers wants to come here."
For more information on the complete AMP conference schedule go to http://www.gmu.edu/departments/awp/confschedule.html or contact AWP at (703) 993-4301 or by e-mail at [email protected]
