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Monday, April 2, 2012

More Details in for Mark Twain Writers' Weekend

Lewis Lapham
The Mark Twain House & Museum has announced details of its Writers' Weekend, which celebrates and extends the Writing at the Mark Twain House program that has helped dozens of adult participants progress in the arts of memoir, general non-fiction and fiction.

The event, which includes a reception and keynote speech on Friday, April 20, and a full day of events on Saturday, April 21, brings together a broad range of authors, editors, and teachers in a number of disciplines.

The event is headlined by its renowned keynote speaker, Lewis Lapham, editor emeritus of Harper's and editor of Lapham's Quarterly. Saturday kickoff speaker is novelist Jon Clinch, author of Finn and Kings of the Earth. A star-studded panel of playwrights winds up the day : Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy), A. R. Gurney (Love Letters), and Donald Margulies (Dinner with Friends).

Fifteen sessions over the course of the day Saturday will explore many aspects of writing, all of which Mark Twain practiced: memoir, fiction, travel writing, and even playwriting and poetry -- and though yes, he didn't blog, he kept a journal which in its breadth and brilliance has a kinship with the best blogs online today.

Topics include the art of memoir, the pleasure of poetry, the craft of mystery writing, writing synopses for agents or publishers, new ways of storytelling in the Internet age, finding voice in fiction -- and finding a way to get your work published. (See list of sessions at right.)

The event will run from 7 to 9 pm April 20, and 9 am to 7 pm April 21. A box lunch will be provided on Saturday, and the weekend winds up Saturday evening with a reception. 

Books by faculty members and others will be available in the Mark Twain Museum Store.

The cost of the Writers' Weekend for participants is $100. This includes the Friday night reception and lecture, all Saturday sessions, lunch and the Saturday night closing reception. Participants will also receive a voucher good for a tour of the Mark Twain House at any time. Space is limited to 100 participants, so advance registration and payment is a must: Call 860-280-3130 to register.  

There are a limited number of tickets available for the Lewis Lapham keynote on Friday night and the Playwrights' panel on Saturday afternoon. Tickets for each of these events are $30 ($25 for Mark Twain House & Museum members).
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1 comment:

Amanda said...

This looks fantastic, and I so wish I could go. Maybe next year!

April 2, 2012 at 4:05 PM

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Lauren Yarger with playwright Alfred Uhry at the Mark Twain House. Photo: Jacques Lamarre)

My Bio

Lauren Yarger has written, directed and produced
numerous shows and special events for both secular and Christian audiences. She co-wrote a Christian musical version of “A Christmas Carol” which played to sold-out audiences of over 3,000 in Vermont and was awarded the 2000 Vermont
Bessie (theater and film awards) for “People’s Choice for Theatre.”

Yarger trained for three years in the Broadway
League’s Producer Development Program, completed the Commercial Theater Institute's Producing Three-Day Training and produced a one-woman musical about Mary Magdalene that toured nationally and closed with an off-Broadway
run.

She was a Fellow at the National Critics Institute at the O'Neill
Theater Center in Waterford, CT. She writes reviews of Broadway and off-Broadway theater (the only ones you can find in the US with an added Christian perspective) at http://reflectionsinthelight.blogspot.com/. She
is editor of The Connecticut Arts Connection (http://ctarts.blogspot.com), CT Press Club's award winner of first place for web editing and second place in feature writing for the web in 2012.

She is a contributing editor for BroadwayWorld.com and is a theater reviewer for the Manchester Journal-Inquirer. She previously served as Connecticut theater editor
for CurtainUp.com and as Connecticut and New York reviewer for American Theater Web. Yarger is a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly and freelances for other sites. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

She is a freelance writer and playwright and member of The Drama Desk, The Outer Critics Circle, The American Theater Critics Association and The League of Professional Theatre Women. She served as a judge for the SDX Awards presented
by the Society of Professional Journalists. She also is a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle (awards committee).

A former newspaper editor and graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, Yarger also worked in arts management for the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts,
the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and served for nine years as the Executive Director of Masterwork Productions, Inc. She lives with her husband in West Granby, CT. They have two adult children.

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