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The Adirondack Center for Writing
ACW Programs
Annual Writing ConferencesACW offers a variety of writing conferences every year. Recently we have offered programs in Children's Literature, Food Writing, First Time Novelist bootcamp, poetry and memoir.
North Country High School Writing RetreatThis highly successful program brings students from all over the North Country to work with acclaimed performance poets. In 2005, ACW brought together 30 students from six school districts, with Roger Bonair-Agard as the instructor. In 2006, we doubled that number and added Rachel McKibbens as an instructor, and we still had to turn away students who were interested. In 2007, we hosted 90 students with three teaching poets.
Through unique and creative writing exercises, students generate poems and essays and learn techniques for reading their work to an audience, skills many students lack. It is stunning to hear the quality of work that gets generated in just one day. This program inspires more than just poetry and public speaking skills. It also ex-poses students to a multitude of diverse writing styles from contemporary and minority writers. Mr. Bonair Agard, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, often writes about Caribbean race history and calypso music and his literary heroes range from Sonia Sanchez and Pablo Neruda to Martin Espada and Amiri Baraka. Rachel McKibbens spent part of her childhood living on the streets of L.A. and is known for her ability to cut to the core of human experience with a deep sensitivity. Meanwhile Patrick Rosal is the son of Philippino immigrants, and his writing often addresses his experiences growing up in New Jersey, balancing pop culture with family history. This program is often the first time students have hard contemporary writing from latino and African-American writers--writing that is soaked in traditions as well as social and political issues. It’s particularly fascinating to hear how students adapt what they hear from Latino poetry to their own experiences and emotions living in the North Country. The other role of this program is to create a place where regional students with a common interest in writing can meet and develop perhaps life-long friendships based on a mutual love of literature. Many of our local school districts are so small that a student interested in writing may not find like-minded kids in their own class. Annual Publishing ConferenceACW offers a publishing conference annually. We change the focus of the program and the venue each year. In early November we presented our Get Published! conference at Silver Bay, bringing up senior editors from Norton and Perseus Books to meet with aspiring writers and offer critiques of their manuscripts.
The Adirondack Writers' Resource Guide
ACW produces the Adirondack Writers' Resource
Guide which lists regional writers, editors, publishers, and local
organizations that present writers' work. We've also included a list of photographers and illustrators.It
is a tremendous resource that helps to unify the widespread literary community
throughout the six-million-acre park.
NEW IN 2007 We are revising and updating our Resource Guide in 2007. You must be a member of the Adirondack Center for Writing to have a listing.
Please be sure to renew (or join!). New in this edition: We will include a category for public readings/presentations so libraries, bookstores and other
presenting organizations can find you more easily! Deadline for new entries is May 15, 2007.
The Resource Guide can also be accessed on our web site; visit our Resource Guide page!
The Adirondack Center for Writing and the Federal Correctional Facility in Ray Brook, NY have partnered to offer a series of writing workshops for inmate students. The workshops, which began in October 2002, explore a variety of topics and genres. These sessions are led by regional writers and educators. At the conclusion of the first year of the residency, the paticipating students held a very moving and inspiring reading at the facility.
Studies have shown that reading and writing instruction to inmate populations increase empathy and introspection in the students, which in turn lowers the rate of recidivism. We believe these workshops will not only inspire and educate the prisoners who attend the classes, but prove just as enlightening and gratifying to the writers who teach them. The Storytelling FestivalACW is proud to help the Old Forge Public Library present its annual Adirondack Storytelling Festival on at McCauley Mountain in Old Forge. This day-long festival features traditional Adirondack storytellers and crafters. Go to the Old Forge Library web site for more information.
Writing Workshops and Readings
The Adirondack Center for Writing hosts a series of workshops designed to provide writers with creative and technical skills, and with a professional knowledge of publishing and marketing issues. ACW also holds readings, to inspire writers and to create opportunities for regional writers to meet with one another. In addition, Paul Smiths College helps us sponsor an annual reading/lecture featuring a nationally acclaimed author. In 2007, we hosted both Alistair MacLeod and Terry Tempest Williams. We also featured a performance poetry night with three of the best spoken-word poets in the country. Check our events page to see when our next workshop will be.
Awards
1.NCPR Contest ACW, in partnership with North Country Public Radio,
sponsors the biennial Writing Contest for young and adult writers.
To encourage different kinds of writing, we change the genres
each time the contest is offered. Click HERE
for more information, submission guidelines, and to read the winning manscripts from our last contest.
2. Adirondack Literary Awards In 2006, ACW established the Adirondack Literary Awards, a juried awards program honoring books published
in or about the Adirondacks in the previous year. Deadline for submissions for 2006 publications was March 1, 2007. Winners were announced at the Awards Ceremony on June 10, 2007 at the Blue Mountain Center. A list of the winners appears on our home page.
ACW publishes a quarterly newsletter that highlights literary and cultural activities held throughout the Adirondack Park, and that features a regional writer every issue in our "Writers' Spotlight."
E-Mail UpdatesACW is now sending out brief e-updates on events & workshops. To join our mailing list (we promise not to clog up your inbox or share your address), please e-mail us at acw@paulsmiths.edu.
Paul Smith's College, PO Box 265
Paul Smiths, New York 12970
Phone: 518-327-6278
Fax: 518-327-6161
Email: acw@paulsmiths.edu
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