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Updated: February 15, 2008, 12:37 pm	Share    Print    Email

Annette Handley Chandler, director of the Southampton Screenwriting Conference, Robert Reeves, director of the Southampton Writers Conference, and Lou Ann Walker, the director of the Southampton Children’s Literature Conference, left to right, announced plans for “A Writer’s Summer” at a press conference at Stony Brook Southampton on Thursday. Photos by Mariah Quinn

Southampton - "It's a party for writers. What could be better?" said Annette Handley Chandler, director of the inaugural Southampton Screenwriting Conference. The screenwriters conference, to be held this July and August in conjunction with the long-established Southampton Writers Conference, will be joined by another new addition, the Southampton Children's Literature Conference - all at Stony Brook Southampton in what has been dubbed "A Writer's Summer."

"We're taking advantage of the success of the Southampton Writing Conference to extend it to two other theatres," Robert Reeves, director of the Southampton Writers Conference explained. Reeves is director of the M.F.A. in Writing and Literature Program at Stony Brook Southampton.

Robert Reeves holds the "The Southampton Review," a journal featuring fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art, edited by Lou Ann Walker, right. Another issue will be published this summer in conjunction with the conferences.

"We're in a culture that has largely discounted the written word," he commented during the a press conference announcing the new events. Through the expansion of the writing programs "we're trying to support the people who care."

The new programs are serious writing business, designed to enrich the writing skills of participants; however, Reeves said, the "tone of New York wit that we bring to it" enhances both conferences and the M.F.A. program, setting them apart from other "terribly earnest" programs elsewhere.

The Writers Conference's small workshops - class size is generally limited to no more than 12 people - will be led by Frank McCourt, Billy Collins, Derek Walcott, Kaylie Jones, and Alan Alda, among others. Participants in the workshop series will receive three credits towards an M.F.A., and despite celebrity status of some of the participants, Reeves noted the conference is "seriously about writers and writing as art. Though we have done a fair amount of name dropping, that is not the point."

"We have a good time, but we hold people to a very high standard," he said. The Writers Conference will be held from July 16 through July 27.

Annette Handley Chandler will direct the Southampton Screenwriting Conference.

Lou Ann Walker, the director of the Children's Literature Conference, said the participants represent a "nice balance of editors, agents, and local writers." Topics of the Children's Literature Conference, which will run from July 9 through July 13, will include Chapter Books, Picture Books, and Young Adult Novels. Tor Seidler, author of "The Wainscott Weasel" and Mitchell Kriegman, creator of the television show "Bear in the Big Blue House" are slated to lead workshops, and "The New Yorker" cartoonist, Gahan Wilson, who designed the posters for each of the conferences, will direct a seminar for illustrators.

The addition of the Children's Literature Conference comes at a time when more and more writers are entering the field. "Agents are pushing writers to consider children's books more seriously," Walker said.

Although previous Writers Conferences have included screenwriting workshops, this year the medium will have the stage all to itself from July 30 to August 3. "Our focus is really on the art of screenwriting, and really using the language of film to tell a story," Handley Chandler said. In addition to screenwriters Malia Scotch Marmo ("Hook and Madeline"), Andrew Bienen ("Boys Don't Cry") and Bette Gordon, the co-chair of the School of Arts at Columbia University, "we may have a few surprises as well," Handley Chandler said. The conference fills a necessary niche in the area, as "there is a dearth of screenwriting conferences on the East Coast," she explained.

The setting is indicative of the tone of the conference as well - it will be "three or four days of pure writing," with very little of a Hollywood component, Handley Chandler added.

Robert Reeves said the Southampton Writers Conference addresses "writing as art."

Writers Abound
The pool of writing and artistic talent already in place in the area is "unique to the East End and we're simply taking advantage of it, which we have an obligation to do," Reeves said. Each conference is limited to 120 participants in an effort to keep the workshops to 12 people or fewer. Admission is not restricted solely to participants in the M.F.A. program. The conferences will accept a limited number of non-matriculated students who will be admitted on the basis of a submitted writing sample.

Now that the Writers Conference and the M.F.A. program are under the auspices of Stony Brook University, "We're within an institution that makes us feel completely supported," Reeves said. Facilities have been renovated and funds are available to hire faculty for the M.F.A. program. "We're in a position now where things are happening."

The current renovation of the campus's Avram Theatre will provide a state-of-the-art venue in which to stage performances and lectures during the conferences, and offers the possibility of adding a playwriting or theatre-oriented conference to the mix in the future.

The expanded conference line-up is part of Stony Brook Southampton's overall expansion of the Masters in Fine Arts program. At a recent conference in Manhattan, "We got the word out that we are among the best two or three M.F.A. programs in the country," Reeves said, with an "all-star faculty." Now that the transfer of the M.F.A. from the auspices Long Island University to Stony Brook is complete, Reeves said the school expects to offer six to eight courses in the M.F.A. program in the fall. Twenty-seven students are currently enrolled in the program and Reeves said they expect to add 15 to 20 more in the fall semester.

Cartoonist Gahan Wilson designed the posters for each conference. Above, the Children's Literature Conference poster.

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