Groundbreaking Journalism, Award-Winning Poetry and More: Washington College's 2008-2009 Literary Line-Up Announced

Chestertown, MD — From Shakespeare to sports to a Pulitzer Prize-winner and a U.S. Poet Laureate, a rich and varied literary line-up graces Washington College's events calendar in 2008-2009.

The College's writing-related traditions run deep; between the annual Sophie Kerr Lecture Series and a full slate of offerings from the Rose O'Neill Literary House, the historic Chestertown campus welcomes a bounteous array of literary events with the advent of the school year.

The Sophie Kerr Lecture Series honors the legacy of the late Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, Md., whose generosity has enriched Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, Kerr left the bulk of her estate to Washington College, specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most "ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor"—the famed Sophie Kerr Prize—and the other half be used to bring visiting writers to campus, to fund scholarships and to help defray the costs of student publications.

The Rose O'Neill Literary House, which underwent an extensive restoration and renovation last spring, is known far and wide as the hub of Washington College's writing community. For nearly 25 years it has served as the venue for co-curricular activities that bring together students and faculty with visiting writers, scholars, editors and other literary artists; theWashington Post dubbed it "the Carnegie Hall of literary readings."

The 2008-2009 Washington College itinerary of literary events will feature:

Historical Lit with Henry Wiencek "'A Paradox to Posterity': Jefferson and Slavery at Monticello"

Casey Academic Center Forum, Monday, September 8, 4:30 p.m.

Henry Wiencek, a leading American historian, is the author of The Hairsons: An American Family in Black and White (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award) and An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for history). In 2008-2009, Wiencek is the debut Patrick Henry Fellow at Washington College. The Patrick Henry Fellowship, co-sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and the Rose O'Neill Literary House, brings a top historical writer to Chestertown for a year of writing, reflection and engagement with students and faculty. Wiencek will address the topic of his forthcoming book, a study of Jefferson and his slaves.

Wiencek's lecture is the opening event in the Rose O'Neill Literary House's "Literature of the Fact: Masters of Topical Non-Fiction" Series.

Helen Cooper Lecture: "Shakespeare and the Canterbury Tales: The Case ofA Midsummer Night's Dream"

Casey Academic Center Forum, Tuesday, September 9, 4:30 p.m.

Helen Cooper is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge, and fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. She is the author of numerous works of scholarship including The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare, Pastoral: Mediaeval into Renaissance,and The Structure of the Canterbury Tales. Her Washington College presentation opens this year's Sophie Kerr Lecture Series.

Sports Lit with Stefan Fatsis

Rose O'Neill Literary House, Tuesday, September 16, 7:30 p.m.

The Rose O'Neill Literary House's "Literature of the Fact" series continues with a presentation by one of America's leading writers on the business and culture of sports. A staff writer for theWall Street Journal and a regular commentator to National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," Stefan Fatsis is the author of three books. Wild and Outside: How a Renegade Minor League Revived the Spirit of Baseball in America's Heartland followed a troupe of antiestablishment baseball entrepreneurs. Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players chronicled the obsessive subculture of the iconic board game. And Fatsis's most recent work, A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-foot-8, 170-pound, 43-year-old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL is the Plimptonian story of his summer as a training-camp placekicker for the Denver Broncos.

Fiction Reading with Alexis Stamatis

Casey Academic Center Forum, Wednesday, September 17, 4:30 p.m.

The Sophie Kerr Lecture Series continues with a reading by Alexis Stamatis, author of 14 books: eight novels and novellas as well as six collections of poetry. His work appears in many leading Greek magazines and newspapers. He has worked as Chief Editor for foreign literature for the Metaixmio Publishing House in Greece, and as a journalist, literary critic and architect. American Fugue, from which he will be reading at Washington College, is his first book published in the United States.

The Paris Review and War Lit with Philip Gourevitch

Rose O'Neill Literary House, Thursday, October 2, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m.

The Goldstein Program in Public Affairs joins the Rose O'Neill Literary House in presenting the third offering of the "Literature of the Fact" series—a two-part appearance by celebrated journalist Philip Gourevitch. His searing account of the Rwandan genocide, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, won the 1998 National Book Critics Circle award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the George K. Polk Award for Foreign Reporting.

A long-time staff writer for The New Yorker, and the editor of The Paris Review, Gourevitch is also the author of Standard Operating Procedure, with Erroll Morris, about the prisoner abuse at Abu Graib in Iraq.

At 4:30 p.m. on Oct 2, Gourevitch will offer an in-depth look at The Paris Review and working in publishing and the literary field (open to members of the Washington College community.) At 7:30 pm, he will give a reading from his works (open to the public).

Poetry Reading with Jehanne Dubrow

Rose O'Neill Literary House, Tuesday, October 7, 4:30 p.m.

The Sophie Kerr Series' October offering features Jehanne Dubrow, a Visiting Professor of English at Washington College. Dubrow's work has appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, The New England Review, Shenandoah, Barrow Street and Gulf Coast. She is the author of a chapbook, The Promised Bride (Finishing Line Press). Her full-length collection won the 2007 Three Candles Press First Book Prize and will be published in 2008.

"Navigate Your MFA" and a Poetry Reading by Deborah Landau

Rose O'Neill Literary House, Monday, October 27, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m.

The Rose O'Neill Literary House, the Sophie Kerr Committee and the Office of Career Development come together to present an appearance by award-winning poet Deborah Landau. Her 2004 collection, Orchidelirium, was a National Poetry Series finalist. Director of the Creative Writing Program at NYU, she is a two-time winner of the Los Angeles Poetry in the Windows Contest and was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

At 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 27, Landau will provide tips and information about choosing and pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree (the event is open to members of the Washington College community). At 7:30 p.m. she will give a poetry reading (open to the public).

Food Lit with Amanda Hesser

Rose O'Neill Literary House, Friday, November 14, 4 p.m.

"Literature of the Fact" explores the art of culinary prose with Amanda Hesser, former food editor of The New York Times. She is the author of the award-winning The Cook and the Gardener, Cooking for Mr. Latte and Eat, Memory. It will be a special afternoon of readings, conversation and freshly made treats from Hesser's recipes.

Rock Lit with Dan Kennedy

Norman James Theatre, Thursday, November 20, 8 p.m.

From writing about food culture to writing about music culture, "Literature of the Fact" next plays host to rising literary star Dan Kennedy. With his pieces in McSweeney's and his memoir Loser Goes First, Kennedy established himself as one of the funniest writers in America. With his follow up, Rock On: A Corporate Office Ballad, he has cemented that reputation and also shown his chops as a first-rate writer on music and the music scene. TheNew York Times called Rock On "a succession of gently mordant vignettes, with hilariously spot-on asides about media image-making, music-biz hierarchies and sensitive singer-songwriters... Neither Kennedy nor the music business will ever be the same."

Annual Freshman Reading

Rose O'Neill Literary House, Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 7 p.m.

Washington College's newest crop of up-and-coming literary talents will present their annual reading, with a reception to follow. The event is co-sponsored by the Department of English, the Writers' Union and the Rose O'Neill Literary House.

Poetry Reading with Thom Ward

Casey Academic Center Forum, Thursday, February 26, 2009, 4:30 p.m.

The Sophie Kerr Series presents poet Thom Ward on February 26. In addition to penning his own verses, Ward is editor for BOA Editions, Ltd., an independent publishing house of American poetry and poetry in translation. Ward's poetry collections include Various Orbitsand Small Boat with Oars of Different Size. His poetry chapbook, Tumblekid, was the winner of the 1998 Devil's Millhopper Poetry Contest.

Poetry Reading with Ted Kooser

Norman James Theatre, Friday, March 27, 2009, 4 p.m.

The jewel in the crown of the Sophie Kerr Series each year is Sophie Kerr Weekend, and the keynote event of Sophie Kerr Weekend 2009 will be a much-anticipated reading by two-time U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. The highly regarded Nebraskan poet was the first poet from the Great Plains to hold the Laureate position. A professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kooser is the author of 11 full-length collections of poetry, includingDelights and Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004) and Weather Central (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994). His newest book, The Poetry Home Repair Manual, gives beginning poets tips for their writing.

Over the years Kooser's works have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Hudson Review, The Nation, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, and Antioch Review. He has received two NEA fellowships in poetry, the Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, The James Boatwright Prize, and a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council. He is the winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for his bookDelights & Shadows.

Lisa Couturier on "Urban Animals Unveiled"

Casey Academic Center Forum, Tuesday, April 14, 2009, 4:30 p.m.

The Center for Environment & Society joins forces with the Sophie Kerr Committee to present a program on environmental journalism during Earth Month. Lisa Couturier is a nature writer who has worked as an environmental journalist and as a magazine editor, during which time she traveled to remote parts of South America, Central America and Southeast Asia. Her work has appeared in the well regarded American Nature Writing series, in National Geographic's Heart of a Nation: Writers and Photographers Inspired by the American Landscape, in the PBS series "Writers Writing," and in other anthologies and magazines. She is the author of The Hopes of Snakes: And Other Tales from the Urban Landscape.

Annual Senior Reading

Rose O'Neill Literary House, Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 7 p.m.

An enduring rite of spring at Washington College is the annual Senior Reading, an occasion to bid farewell to the budding authors of the graduating class while hearing them read from their original pieces. Followers of the Sophie Kerr Prize generally regard the Senior Reading as a key early indicator of who the front-runners for the prize will be. The event is co-sponsored by the Department of English, the Writers' Union and the Rose O'Neill Literary House.

The Rose O'Neill Literary House has three other spring 2009 events to watch for: a Graphic Narrative Festival (featuring comic-book legend Neil Gaiman), a Creative Arts Career Fair and a Songwriting Workshop. More details will be forthcoming.

Throughout the fall and spring, the Rose O'Neill Literary House will host periodic community meetings; for more information on these and all other Literary House events, call 410/778-7899 or visit lithouse.washcoll.edu.

Admission to all Sophie Kerr Lecture Series events is free and open to the public. For more information, call 410/778-7879.

September 3, 2008

New Visiting Historian Speaks on 'Jefferson and Slavery' at Washington College

Chestertown, MD — Award-winning historian Henry Wiencek, newly arrived in Chestertown for a year's residence as Washington College's first-ever Patrick Henry Fellow, will share little-known stories about the daily experience of slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello on Monday, September 8, at 4:30 p.m., in the Casey Academic Center Forum.

Wiencek, whose honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and theLos Angeles Times Book Prize in History, is the first recipient of the highly competitive new fellowship, which is provided by the College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, and co-sponsored by the Rose O'Neill Literary House.

The Patrick Henry Fellowship offers a yearlong residency to authors engaged in innovative work on America's founding era and its legacy. As part of the fellowship award, Wiencek and his wife, writer Donna Lucey, are residing in the heart of Chestertown's colonial historic district, in the newly restored 1735 Buck-Chambers House, now the Patrick Henry Fellows' Residence. He will use the fellowship year in Chestertown to complete his forthcoming book about the master of Monticello and the men, women, and children whose labor was the lifeblood of the estate.

"We've seen Jefferson's relations with slaves entirely through the eyes of Sally Hemings and her family," Wiencek said. "But she was just one of 600 slaves at Monticello. Life for the Hemings family was one thing. Life for those laboring farther down the hill was quite different."

For the past three years, Wiencek has immersed himself in Jefferson's papers and plantation documents, in the oral histories of slave descendants, in Ablemarle County court records, and in the papers of Jefferson's extended family. Drawing also on recent archaeological discoveries at Monticello, he has documented the everyday realities of life on Jefferson's mountain. The book is under contract with Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

A resident of Charlottesville, Va., Wiencek is perhaps best known for An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, which was published in 2003 to superlative reviews and named Best Book of that year by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. The historian Gordon Wood, writing in the New York Times, called it "superb" and the Washington Post said, "It must be read by all who wish to understand early America."

Wiencek has written and/or edited more than a dozen books. The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White (St. Martin's, 1999)—the epic story of two extended southern families who share a surname and a legacy, though one is black and the other white—was a selection of the Book of the Month Club and the History Book Club. "Not since Mary Chesnut's Civil War has nonfiction about the South been as compelling as fiction," wrote a reviewer for Time magazine.

"I can't think of a better person to be the inaugural recipient of the new Patrick Henry Fellowship than Henry Wiencek," said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the Starr Center. "His work exemplifies everything that we had hoped the Henry Fellowship would stand for: innovative research, brilliant writing, and a commitment to grappling with some of the biggest and most difficult subjects in American history." The Henry Fellowship's funding will be permanently endowed as part of a $2.5 million challenge grant package that the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded last year through its nationwide "We the People" initiative, dedicated to strengthening the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. Wiencek will teach a spring course at Washington College.

Wiencek's September 8 lecture, "A Paradox to Posterity: Jefferson and Slavery at Monticello," offers a unique opportunity to hear from one of the most insightful commentators on the American past—and present—writing today, as well as peek inside the process of researching a major work of history. A book signing and reception will follow; admission is free and open to the public.

About the C.V. Starr Center

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience explores our nation's history—and particularly the legacy of its Founding era—in innovative ways. Through educational programs, scholarship, and public outreach, and especially by supporting and fostering the art of written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between past and present, and between the academic world and the public at large. From its base in the circa-1746 Custom House along Chestertown's colonial waterfront, the Center also serves as a portal onto a world of opportunities for Washington College students. Its guiding principle is that now more than ever, a wider understanding of our shared past is fundamental to the continuing success of America's democratic experiment. For more information on the Center and on the Patrick Henry Fellowship, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

August 22, 2008

Award-Winning Historian Henry Wiencek Named Washington College's First Patrick Henry Fellow

Chestertown, MD — He is a renowned author, a prodigious researcher, and a compelling speaker, whose work has been praised by literary critics and academic historians alike. And now Henry Wiencek, whose honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History, has been named the first Patrick Henry Fellow at Washington College, launching a new program that will provide annual writing fellowships to nationally prominent historians.

The highly competitive new fellowship, which is provided by the College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, offers a yearlong residency to authors doing innovative work on America's founding era and its legacy. The fellowship's funding will be permanently endowed as part of a $2.5 million challenge grant package that the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded last year through its nationwide "We the People" initiative, dedicated to strengthening the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. As part of the fellowship award, Wiencek and future recipients will live in a newly restored 1735 house in the heart of Chestertown's colonial historic district.

Wiencek, who will teach a class at the College and be involved in many of its programs, will have an office at the Starr Center, just down the street from the Patrick Henry Fellows' Residence in Chestertown's 18th-century Custom House. He will use the fellowship year to complete a forthcoming book about Thomas Jefferson and his slaves.

"It is an honor indeed to be the first Patrick Henry Fellow," said Wiencek, whose book is under contract to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. "With its dynamism and imaginative leadership, the C.V. Starr Center is becoming a major force in the study of American history, and I very much look forward to being a contributor to the excellent work going on there."

Wiencek, who lives in Charlottesville, Va., is perhaps best known for An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, which Farrar, Straus & Giroux published in 2003 to superlative reviews and which was named Best Book of that year by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. The historian Gordon Wood, writing in the New York Times, called it "superb" and the Washington Post said, "It must be read by all who wish to understand early America."

"I can't think of a better person to be the inaugural recipient of this fellowship than Henry Wiencek," said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the Starr Center. "His work exemplifies everything that we had hoped the Henry Fellowship would stand for: innovative research, brilliant writing, and a commitment to grappling with some of the biggest and most difficult subjects in American history."

Wiencek has written and/or edited more than a dozen books. The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White (St. Martin's, 1999)—the epic story of two extended Virginia families who share a surname and a legacy, though one is black and the other white—was a selection of the Book of the Month Club and the History Book Club. "Not since Mary Chesnut's Civil War has nonfiction about the South been as compelling as fiction," wrote a reviewer for Time magazine.

His work-in-progress, on Jefferson and his slaves, promises to shed new light on a subject that has received much attention, but often only through the narrow prism of the Sally Hemings controversy or the intellectual paradox of Jefferson's views on race and liberty. Wiencek has done major new archival research and drawn on archaeological discoveries to document the daily experience of slavery at Monticello. "We've seen Jefferson's relations with slaves entirely through the eyes of Sally Hemings and her family," Wiencek said. "But she was just one of 600 slaves at Monticello. Life for the Hemings family was one thing. Life for those laboring farther down the hill was quite different." Wiencek will give two public lectures on his work during the fellowship year, the first on September 8.

In this inaugural year, the Henry Fellowship drew applications from a number of nationally renowned historians. By supporting writers who are completing books on this period, the Patrick Henry Fellowship is meant to encourage reflection on the links between American history and contemporary culture, and to foster the literary art of historical writing. The fellowship is co-sponsored by the Rose O'Neill Literary House, Washington College's center for literature and the creative arts. The Henry Fellowship complements the George Washington Book Prize, which is also administered by the Starr Center and awarded annually to an author whose work advances public understanding of the Revolution and its legacy.

The restored Patrick Henry Fellows' Residence will be opened with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 18, shortly after Wiencek and his wife, Donna Lucey—also a writer on history, whose books include Archie and Amélie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age(Macmillan, 2006)—move in. The College bought the house in January 2007 with a $1.05 million gift from the Barksdale-Dabney-Patrick Henry Family Foundation, established by the Nuttle family of Talbot County, direct descendants of the patriot Patrick Henry. The gift has also allowed the house to be extensively restored and furnished, and will endow its longterm maintenance. Known as the Buck-Chambers House, it is one of the oldest buildings in Chestertown, and has historic connections with Washington College stretching back to the 1780s. An early owner, Gen. Benjamin Chambers, who had served as an officer in the Revolutionary army under George Washington, became the College's first treasurer in 1782, and later served as president of its Board of Visitors and Governors.

About the C.V. Starr Center

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience explores our nation's history—and particularly the legacy of its Founding era—in innovative ways. Through educational programs, scholarship, and public outreach, and especially by supporting and fostering the art of written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between past and present, and between the academic world and the public at large. From its base in the circa-1746 Custom House along Chestertown's colonial waterfront, the Center also serves as a portal onto a world of opportunities for Washington College students. Its guiding principle is that now more than ever, a wider understanding of our shared past is fundamental to the continuing success of America's democratic experiment. For more information on the Center and on the Patrick Henry Fellowships, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

About the The Rose O'Neill Literary House

The Rose O'Neill Literary House, hub of Washington College's writing community, is the venue for co-curricular activities that bring together students and faculty with visiting writers, scholars, editors and other literary artists. The creative writing culture here is grounded in the College's longstanding commitment to foster good writing across all disciplines, and to connect students and faculty to the wider culture of literature and the creative arts.

July 9, 2008