NYSWI Initiates The Conversation 

In a recent post on the NYS Writers Institute’s website, Paul Grondahl interviewed Community Poets Workshop participant Melissa Hurt.

ALBANY, N.Y. (April 14, 2020) -- Join The Conversation.

That is, stay connected to the work of the New York State Writers Institute as it pivots to The Virtual Writers Institute in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

"At The Conversation, which began on March 13, we have generated dozens of comments and shares, a few thousand views, an uptick in traffic to the Writers Institute’s YouTube channel and excellent traction on social media," said NYSWI Director Paul Grondahl.

As part of The Conversation, the institute is recording Zoom interviews, podcasts, digital archival clips, Q&As and also offering new poems and creative work spurred by this unsettling time of quarantine, self-isolation and devastating loss.

"We are presenting a new offering each weekday that celebrates the creative imagination and the transformative power of literature as a way of coping during the coronavirus pandemic," Grondahl said.

The Conversation offers Q&As, excerpts, comment sections and interactivity with noted writers that underscore the institute's role of community engagement. It is also a resource for students, faculty and staff. The institute's community poetry workshop now meets remotely via Zoom.

The Writers Institute team meets by Zoom each morning to discuss what authors they want to reach out to and whom they have heard from. They have done Q&As by email, recorded Zoom interviews and are looking at live streaming. They have also engaged students through Zoom interviews with authors and poets in their community poetry workshop.

In addition to bestselling authors Sister Helen Prejean, actor-novelist Sean Penn and sportswriter Rick Reilly, The Conversation has featured faculty and administrators including School of Public Health Dean David Holtgrave, alumnus Mark Nepo, emerita English faculty Judith Johnson and students in English 350 whose class became a Zoom session with author Jerome Charyn, whose novel “The Adventures of the Cowboy King” they had read.

The institute has offered timely new content and Q&As with noted science writer Ed Yong on “How with the Coronavirus End?” and bestselling author David Quammen on “Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic.”

"We don’t think this recent pivot to a Virtual Writers Institute will ever replace our live events, where audiences relish the opportunity to ask writers questions, chat with them afterward and get a book signed," Grondahl said. "We view this online community engagement as an extension of what we already do and we are reaching a different audience, including students, people who live outside the Capital Region and international residents who might follow certain favorite authors."

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