Captain Whidbey Inn, Whidbey Island, WA | October 6 – 9, 2017
The Captain Whidbey Inn, located in the heart of Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve is surrounded by forest on the shore of Whidbey Island’s Penn Cove. Stepping through the Inn’s front door takes you back to 1907 when Judge Still and his men originally cut and placed the first timber and laid the stone for the Inn. Today, the inn appears very similar to the way it was when it was built. The original wood floors are still visible in both the lobby and the bar.
Over the years, electricity as well as high speed cable and Wi-Fi have been installed and upgraded throughout the building.
Faculty
Here, you will work with the following renowned poets and editors.
Joan Houlihan
Joan Houlihan is the author of f
ive books of poetry: Ay (Tupelo Press, 2014), The Us, named a “must-read” book of 2009 by Massachusetts Center for the Book, The Mending Worm, winner of the Green Rose Award from New Issues Press and Hand-Held Executions: Poems & Essays. A fifth collection, Shadow-feast, is forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2018. 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 serves on the poetry faculty in the Lesley University Low-Residency MFA Program and is Professor of Practice in poetry at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Houlihan is founder and director of the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference.
Fred Marchant
Fred Marchant’s new collection of poetry, Said Not Said, is available from Graywolf Press. His other collections include: The Day Later, (Graywolf Press, 2017), The Looking House (Graywolf Press, 2009), named by Barnes and Noble Review as one of the five best books of poetry in 2009. He is also the author of Tipping Point, winner of the 1993 Washington Prize in poetry, and Full Moon Boat (Graywolf Press, 2000). A new and selected volume,House on Water, House in Air, was published by Dedalus Press, Dublin, Ireland, in 2002. He was the 2009 co-winner (with Afaa Michael Weaver) of the May Sarton Award from the New England Poetry Club, given to poets whose “work is an inspiration to other poets.” Fred Marchant 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 of English and the Director of The Suffolk University Poetry Project 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.
Rusty Morrison
Rusty Morrison is an American poet and publisher. Her poetry book After Urgency won Tupelo’s Dorset Prize (2012). The Book of the Given is available from Noemi Press. the true keeps calm biding its story won Academy of American Poet’s James Laughlin Award, Northern California Book Award, Ahsahta’s Sawtooth Prize, the DiCastagnola Award from Poetry Society of America. Whethering won the Colorado Prize for Poetry. She has received the Bogin, Hemley, Winner, and DiCastagnola Memorial Awards from The Poetry Society of America. Her poems have appeared in periodicals including A Public Space, American Poetry Review, Bomb, Boston Review, Chicago Review, Gulf Coast, Lana Turner, New American Writing, Pleiades, poets.org, Poem-A-Day, Verse, and VOLT. Her essays and/or long reviews have been, or will be published in Colorado Review, Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Evening Will Come, Fence, The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Poetry Flash, Verse, and in the anthologies One Word: Contemporary Writers on the Words They Love or Loathe (Sarabande 2010), Beauty is a Verb (Cinco Punto 2011). In 2001, Morrison and her husband, Ken Keegan, founded Omnidawn Publishing in Richmond, California, and continue to work as co-publishers.
Martha Rhodes
Martha Rhodes is the director of Four Way Books, a literary press in New York City and author of five poetry collections: The Thin Wall (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017), 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 appeared in such anthologies as 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.
How it Works
Workshops provide intensive focus on manuscript preparation (selecting, ordering, revising, and swapping out poems), then poets meet with the press editors.
Pre-Conference Work
Prior to the conference, and following registration, poets will be given pre-conference assignments. Poets will complete their assignments and bring them to the conference for review with workshop leaders. These assignments are designed to help the poet prepare both the manuscript and its presentation to an editor, by helping them focus on the elements that make their collections unique.
Step by Step Upon Arrival
Arrival at the conference location on Friday between 5 and 6 pm. After the 7 pm dinner there are introductions, an overview of the weekend, and participants will be assigned to their workshop leaders and editors for the weekend.
On Saturday at 9 am, manuscript preparation workshops begin. Focus is on reviewing the pre-conference assignments, ordering, revising, and/or swapping poems out.
Editors arrive around 6 pm and join the participants for dinner at 7 pm. There will be an after-dinner Q&A with the editors.
On Sunday, from 9 an until around 5 pm, poets will meet with the editors in small groups determined by the workshop leaders and have one-on-one consultation within that group. There is an after-dinner reading by participants.
Conclusion
On Monday after breakfast, poets meet with workshop leaders for a final wrap-up session to review editorial input and to help devise goals appropriate to guiding the collection toward publication. The conclusion of the Monday recap session marks the end of the conference. Departure begins at 11 am.
Please note that we will make all reservations and arrangements for lodging and meals for participants and we will request any special dietary needs before the conference.
When
Plan to arrive on Friday, October 6 between 5 and 6 pm. Dinner is at 7 pm, after which introductions and preparation for the next day take place. The conference will begin with breakfast at 8 am on Saturday and last till 11 am on Monday.
How to Apply
Before you apply, please visit the Conference Criteria page to make certain this conference is right for you. If so, submit an application.
Conference Fee
Following successful application, the registration fee is $1,425.00 . This includes:
- Lodging (single room) for three nights
- All meals on site.
- Conference fees and workshop tuition.
Participants will receive pre-conference manuscript preparation assignments several weeks before the conference begins.
Location/Directions/Transportation
The Captain Whidbey Inn is located on Whidbey Island:
For directions flying, by ferry and by car, see:
