Bennington Writing Seminars

Picking out your AWP panels? Allow us to suggest one of the 20+ panels featuring our Faculty, alumni and students.

Jill McCorkle, MFA Faculty member in Fiction, recommends:

"Dorianne Laux’s 'Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems' is a beauty. It is a chance to revisit her earlier masterful works as well as sink into the new poems under the umbrella of the title. These new poems focus on the life of Laux’s mother, a complex portrait that renders one unsure which way to run: into her arms or away from her sharp eyes. It is the journey of a daughter’s grief—the grief of her mother’s death coupled with a child’s longing for what was lost or missing in life. Along with sadness and loss, she finds grace and redemption and love, most notably in objects as simple as her mother’s slippers or her old colander: 'Bowl daylight fell through/ onto freckled faces, noon stars on the pavement…’

Mark Wunderlich, Rilke Scholar and Director of Bennington Writing Seminars, will deliver a special seminar for LA friends of the program.

Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke is one of the most widely-read German-language poets; his poems speak to the eternal human conditions of grief and longing, of love and faithfulness, and his work meditates on a series of core poetic concerns which we will exploreI in this brief seminar. We will look at five poems from his collected work and discuss the central ideas that animated Rilke's poetry and prose over the course of his lifetime. No advance preparation is necessary for the seminar; texts will be provided for attendees. The seminar will conclude with a series of writing prompts based on Rilkean ideas for getting poems (and prose) started, and keeping them going.

Clifford Thompson, MFA Faculty member in Creative Nonfiction, recommends THE CHANEYSVILLE INCIDENT.

“But there are times — especially after I have watched certain romantic movies — when I panic and think my life is all wrong because our last candlelight dinner consisted of cold leftovers during an electrical blackout...”

Donald Hall, former United States poet laureate, and longtime Bennington Writing Seminars writer-in-residence, was deeply involved in our program since the very beginning.

The Donald Hall Scholarship for Poets provides full tuition support to the top #poetry candidate, as identified by Bennington’s admissions committee. Apply today for the term beginning in June.

SAVE THE DATE for LITinPDX, an off-site dance party during AWP19 ! Join us Friday, March 29, from 7-10pm at Friendly House Portland.

The best part? Your favorite writers will drop in on our MC, Patrick Boyle (Poetry ‘14), to guest DJ. PREPARE YOURSELF for playlists from Hanif Abdurraqib, Eloisa Amezcua, Alexander Chee, and Melissa Febos.

“To be a writer in America today means living a life for which there’s not really a pattern. Writing is hard because one measure of our seriousness as writers is the extent to which we make ourselves vulnerable in those hours.”

We were honored to have novelist, poet, and literary critic Garth Greenwell deliver our 47th Commencement address in January.

Critically acclaimed, award-winning authors and faculty of the Bennington College Writing Seminars will offer an evening reading series during the MFA program's winter residency—Thursday, January 3 through Friday, January 11, 2019.

If you are in the area of North Bennington, please come! Or tune into our live stream on Friday, January 4.

SCHEDULE:

Douglas Bauer and Carmen Gimenez Smith 7PM on THURSDAY, JAN 3

Jenny Boully and David Gates 7PM - Live Stream on Facebook on FRIDAY, JAN 4

Benjamin Anastas and Lynne Sharon Schwartz 7PM on SATURDAY, JAN 5

Deirdre McNamer and Natalie Scenters-Zapico 7PM on SUNDAY, JAN 6

Jill McCorkle and Clifford Thompson 7 PM — followed by Alumni Fellows J. Mae Barizo, Hannah Howard, and Erin Kate Ryan 8 PM on MONDAY, JAN 7

Derek Palacio and Craig Morgan Teicher 7 PM on WEDNESDAY, JAN 9

Sarah Messer and Alice Mattison 7:30 PM on THURSDAY, JAN 10

Garth Greenwell and Mark Wunderlich 7 PM on FRIDAY, JAN 11

Tishman Lectur Hall

Bennington College

One College Drive

Bennington, VT 05201-6003

802-442-5401

Thank you, 2018, for another great year of literature — including these gems from the Bennington MFA community:

A Carnival Of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety by Donald Hall, friend and longtime Writer-in-Residence

Changelings & Omen Birds by Claire Clube, Poetry ‘08

Patterns by Sandra Worsham, Fiction '06

Well-Read Black Girl with an essay by Morgan Jerkins, Fiction ‘06

We Begin in Gladness: How Poets Progress by Craig Morgan Teicher, Faculty