Noted Navajo poet and University of Arizona professor Luci Tapahonso will lead a weekend poetry workshop for young adults at the sixth annual UNM Taos Summer Writers' Conference July 10-16. The focus of the workshop, scheduled July 10-11, will be fashioning poetry.
The nationally-recognized Taos Summer Writers' Conference offers writing workshops and special events during a single week in July and draws participants from around the country and, increasingly, from around the world.
“In 2003, more than 150 people from 30 states and Canada took part in the weeklong event,” said Sharon Oard Warner, UNM associate professor of English and conference director.
This year's conference features a distinguished faculty teaching a wide range of workshops in poetry, fiction, memoir, screenwriting, playwriting, travel writing and special topics. Visiting editors, publishers, agents and authors will provide practical information on the writing life.
“The new young adult workshop is intended to address a perceived need. I regularly receive inquiries from New Mexico teachers, parents and high school students interested in workshops on writing, but not much is available in this part of the country,” Warner said. To begin addressing this need, the Teacher's Institute in the UNM College of Arts & Sciences will sponsor two scholarships to cover tuition and lodging, for New Mexico high school teachers attending the conference.
In a separate but related initiative, the conference will sponsor the workshop for young adults led by Tapahonso. This workshop is open to those 16-22 years of age with class size limited to 12 students . The cost is $250, but Taos and Santa Fe area high-school students may apply for full or partial scholarships.
The author of eight books, Tapahonso writes out of her own cultural and geographical history. Her poetry is rooted in the remote country of the Navajo reservation, and her poems evoke not only the beauty of the area but also the social issues of racism, alcoholism and poverty that face her people. She has given numerous lectures on Native American issues such as American Indian education and stabilizing indigenous languages—humanities issues important to the Pueblo people of Taos.
On Sunday evening, July 11, Tapahonso opens the conference with a public lecture, supported in part by the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities.
Contact: Carolyn Gonzales (505) 277-5920
Posted by kwentworth at April 30, 2004 08:17 AM