WestConn Summer Literary Festival Set For August

DANBURY — Strawberry festivals, agricultural fairs and music events are the staples of summertime, but this year Greater Danbury will also be the setting for what organizers hope will become a new tradition: a summer literary festival.

The Western Connecticut State University Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Professional Writing program will present nightly literary events from Monday, August 1, through Friday, August 5, at several sites throughout the community. The events will feature renowned novelists and memoirists, a poet and an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker.

A Winter Literary Festival in January will complement the Summer Literary Festival with a similar array of regionally, nationally and internationally known authors.

“The quality of authors at the WestConn festivals will rival the top ten festivals across the country,” said Dr Brian Clements, coordinator of the WestConn MFA in Professional Writing program. “We think there’s something here for all fans of literature.

“There’s no reason why the residents of northern Fairfield County should have to go to New York City to get this kind of programming. Our hope is that this festival will be one of the many ways in which WestConn is able to build bridges to the wider community and to build a stronger sense of shared culture with the community.”

 A diversity of cultural heritages are reflected in the work of the writers to be featured at the Summer Literary Festival. Daniel Asa Rose’s memoir Hiding Places: A Father and His Sons Retrace Their Family’s Escape from the Holocaust tells of growing up in 1950s Connecticut alienated from his Jewish roots and setting off on a quest decades later to discover his family’s tortured history.

WestConn Associate Professor of English Dr Shouhua Qi’s novel When the Purple Mountain Burns takes place during the horrific 1937-38 Rape of Nanking.

Cecilia Woloch’s Tsigan meditates on the history and persecution of the Gypsy culture. Don J. Snyder’s Winter Dreams waxes nostalgic about golf in America, and filmmaker Mimi Kelly delves into ethics in corporate American culture.

The festival participants are the faculty for WestConn’s new MFA in Professional Writing program. Developed in response to the lack of a multi-genre, distance-learning course of study that culminates in a terminal writing degree, it’s the only low-residency MFA in Professional Writing program in the nation. It will launch in August, coinciding with the Summer Literary Festival.

The public is invited to the festival events, which all will begin at 7:30 pm, with the exception of the August 1 film screening, which will start at 7:15. Admission to the film screening will be $9 for adults, and $6 for seniors and children; the other events will be free.

The scheduled speakers and locations will be:

*Documentary filmmaker Mimi Kelly will screen Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room on Monday, August 1, at Bethel Cinema, 269 Greenwood Avenue in Bethel.

Ms Kelly received an Emmy Award for her earlier public affairs documentary Why Johnny Don’t Know. The screening will be followed by a discussion about documentary filmmaking and responsibility in corporate messaging and then a reception.

*Don J. Snyder will talk about his work and read from his most recent novel on Tuesday, August 2, at Tarrywile Mansion, 70 Southern Boulevard in Danbury.

Ms Snyder’s other works include the novels Fallen Angel, Night Crossing, From the Point and Veterans Park; the memoirs Of Time and Memory and The Cliff Walk; and the biography A Soldier’s Disgrace. A reception and book signing will follow.

*Dr Qi will read from his novel on Wednesday, August 3, in Room 218 of the Westside Classroom Building on the WestConn Westside campus, Lake Avenue Extension in Danbury.

The novel details the tragic events in Dr Qi’s hometown, Nanking, during the winter of 1937-38. Co-sponsored by WestConn’s Ruth A. Haas Library, the reading will be followed by a reception and book signing.

*Award-winning poet Cecilia Woloch will read from her book Late and her most recent poems on Thursday, August 4, at Newtown Meeting House, 31 Main Street in Newtown.

Ms Woloch’s other published collections include Sacrifice and Tsigan. A reception and book signing will follow the reading.

*On Friday, August 5, Daniel Asa Rose will read from his memoir as well as from his new, as yet untitled work, in Room 218 on the Westside Classroom Building of the WestConn Westside campus.

Among Mr Rose’s other published work is his novel Flipping for It and his short story collection Small Family with Rooster. A reception and book signing will follow.

The 60-credit MFA in Professional Writing program is licensed and approved by the Connecticut Department of Higher Education. The program will begin accepting applications for the 2006-07 academic year in January 2006.

For more information about the program or the festival, call the MFA in Professional Writing office at 837-8876, visit www.wcsu.edu/English/mfa/, or call the WestConn Office of Public Relations at 837-8486.