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This year’s Southampton Writers Conference will boast a larger cast of writers and characters than ever before, with almost three times as many workshops and events.
Now in its 33rd year, the conference, which will be held at Stony Brook Southampton, has been extended to include nearly a month of instruction from world-class writers and artists, including novelists, poets, playwrights, children’s book authors, illustrators, non-fiction authors, screenwriters, memoirists and more. The annual event, including two new tracks, on children’s literature and screenwriting, will run from July 9 to August 3.
According to Robert Reeves, director of the conference and also the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, increased demand from students led to organizers “bookending” the traditional conference with two additional weeks of children’s literature and screenwriting workshops.
“The Writers Conference is still at the very center of it, but students have been asking for more offerings, so we added the children’s literature and screenwriting components,” Mr. Reeves said last week. “We will be following the same basic, very successful template in these new arenas.”
Lou Ann Walker, director of the Children’s Literature Conference, began lining up authors last October and said that she is very excited about the expansion of the conference. “Many of the authors who have participated in the regular conference have written children’s books,” she said on Thursday. “It was a natural for us to incorporate this aspect.”
As for the added cinema-themed workshops, Screenwriting Conference director and 30-year film industry veteran Annette Handley Chandler said that she thinks her program is also a natural extension of the Writers Conference. “From my point of view, screenwriting is a craft that has the same basic elements of storytelling and writing, it just focuses on the visual. But writers still need to understand the craft of telling a story well,” she said last week. “Coming to a conference like this is another way to learn how to illustrate how a story is told.”
In addition to the workshop classes for writers, this year a slate of six evening theater events will be held at the newly refurbished Avram Theater. The public events include the musical “The Phantom Tollbooth;” readings of two one-act plays written by Roger Rosenblatt and performed by Alan Alda and Sigourney Weaver; previews of new plays by Winnie Holzman and Christopher Durang; an evening with former New York State Poet Laureate Billy Collins; a master class with legendary screenwriter and director Robert Benton; and a tribute to director Alan J. Pakula.
According to Mr. Reeves, the performance events promise to be a real treat for those who attend. “The theater evenings will be amazing ... ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’ sold out Kennedy Center. We have Alan Alda and Sigourney Weaver performing staged readings and people will get to see works in progress,” he said as he ticked off some of the highlights. “It’s going to be really special.”
Mr. Reeves reported that the level of teaching talent at the conference this year is another success story. “There are some glorious well-known writers and a fair number of celebrities that really sets us apart,” he said. “I’m impressed, and I don’t impress easily.”
Among the faculty who will teach at the Writers Conference are literary hotshots such as Melissa Bank, Billy Collins, E.L. Doctorow, Christopher Durang, Kenneth Lonergan, Frank McCourt, Joyce Carol Oates, Mr. Reeves, Mr. Rosenblatt, Garry Trudeau, Ms. Walker and Meg Wolitzer, to name just a few.
Mr. Collins, who has published eight collections of poetry and been awarded numerous prizes and fellowships for his work, said that it is a combination of elements that have drawn him back to the conference as a “repeat offender” to teach poetry workshops the last six years.
“It’s the right season, the right place and the cast of characters is always very interesting ... For me it’s about catching up with old friends and I’m eager to get together and spend time with the other bards,” he said on Thursday. “It’s also a great place to debut new work because it is such a comfortable and welcoming forum.” Mr. Collins added that he plans to “trot out” work from his newest book of poetry, “Ballistics,” which will be on bookstore shelves in September.
Mr. Durang, whose play “Beyond Therapy” is also playing at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, will return to the Writers Conference for the second time this year. He is scheduled to teach a playwriting class and to share a still-in-the-works play. On Saturday, he said that he is not only looking forward to reconnecting with his colleagues, but also learning a few things himself.
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