The Brandt House, Greenfield, Massachusetts | March 11-14, 2016
Located in the rural town of Greenfield in western Massachusetts, the Brandt House is a 16-room New England estate located on the crest of a hill in a quiet neighborhood of stately Victorian homes boasting views of the Berkshire Mountains and set amidst three and one-half acres of lawns surrounded by gardens. This elegant manor has beautiful, original woodwork and personally selected furnishings and decor, spacious and sunny sitting areas, and fireplaces in the living room, library and many bedrooms. Meals are served in the light-filled dining room.
Please note that we will make all reservations and arrangements for conference participants. Details will be sent to all registrants along with the pre-conference materials.
Arrival
Plan to arrive on Friday, March 11, between 4 and 6 pm. Dinner is at 7 pm, after which introductions and preparation for the next day take place. The conference will begin at 9 am on Saturday and last till 11 am on Monday.
Faculty
You will work with poet-editor-educators Joan Houlihan, Fred Marchant, Stephen Motika, and Martha Rhodes.
Joan Houlihan is the author of four books of poetry, most recently, Ay (Tupelo Press). Her poetry has been anthologized in The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of Iowa Press) and The Book of Irish-American Poetry-Eighteenth Century to Present (University of Notre Dame Press). She is a contributing critic for the Contemporary Poetry Review, associate editor for Tupelo Quarterly, and author of a series of essays on contemporary American poetry archived online at bostoncomment.com. She has taught at Columbia University and Emerson College and currently teaches in the Lesley University Low-Residency MFA Program and Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Houlihan is founder and director of the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference.
Fred Marchant‘s sixth collection of poetry, The Day Later, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2016. He is also the co-translator (with Nguyen Ba Chung) of From a Corner of My Yard, poetry by the Vietnamese poet Tran Dang Khoa, published in 2006 in Ha Noi, Viet Nam and editor of Another World Instead: The Early Poems of William Stafford, 1937-1947 (Graywolf Press, 2008). Fred is Professor Emeritus at Suffolk University in Boston. He is a longtime teaching affiliate of The William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and has taught workshops at various places across the country, including the Veterans Writing Group in the San Francisco Bay area and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Over the past several years he has frequently been a teaching faculty member in the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference.
Stephen Motika, poet and publisher, is the author of Western Practice, published by Alice James Books in 2012. He is also the author of two chapbooks, Arrival and at Mono (2007) and In the Madrones (2011), and editor of Tiresias: The Collected Poems of Leland Hickman (2009). His articles and poems have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, At Length, BOMB, The Brooklyn Review, Eleven Eleven, Maggy, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Poets.org, Vanitas
Martha Rhodes is the director of Four Way Books, a literary press in New York City and author of four poetry collections: The Beds (Autumn House Press), Mother Quiet (Zoo Press, 2004), Perfect Disappearance (winner of The Green Rose Prize, New Issues, 2000), and At the Gate (Provincetown Arts, 1995). She has published widely in magazines and journals including Agni, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and TriQuarterly, and her work has been anthologized in Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women, The New American Poets, Last Call, and many others. Martha has taught at Emerson College, New School University, UC at Irvine, and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence and the Warren Wilson MFA Program. She is core faculty at the Colrain Conferences.
How to Apply
Before you apply, please visit our Conference Criteria page to make certain this conference is right for you. Once you understand the nature and goals of the conference, please submit an application.
Conference Fee
Following successful application, the registration fee is $1,375.00 (for a single). This includes:
- Tuition
- Lodging for three nights *
- Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and beverages on all days (contact us regarding any special needs).
* Rooms at the Brandt House are allotted in order of registration (first nine registrants), and the remainder of participants are lodged nearby.
Location/Directions/Transportation
The Brandt House is located on 29 Highland Avenue in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
The best place to arrive for flight transportation is Hartford’s Bradley International Airport. That airport is about an hour away. There is a shuttle service straight from the airport to the Brandt House. It is called Valley Transporter and is in Amherst, MA. (413) 253-1350. You must make arrangements directly with them for the pick up at either plane, train or bus station, and please do so several days in advance. Make sure and send us your ETA. And don’t forget to arrange for a return shuttle on the final day of the conference, preferably 2 PM or later. Trains arrive at Greenfield, in walking distance from the Brandt House. See the Amtrak web site for schedules and rates. If you don’t want to take a train, there are also buses directly to Greenfield from some places. See the Greyhound Bus website for details. NOTE: From NYC it takes about 5 hours by bus to Greenfield.
