Award-winning faculty lead this year’s Chuckanut Writers Conference

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June 03, 2019

Award-winning poets, novelists, and memoirists will teach and present their work at the Chuckanut Writers Conference Friday and Saturday, June 21 and 22 at Whatcom Community College. This year’s faculty includes Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna, who received a 2019 fellowship and $100K grant from the Academy of American Poets Laureate for her project “One River, A Thousand Names,” as well as novelist Nancy Pearl, who received the Women’s National Book Association Award in 2004 and was named Librarian of the Year by Library Journal in 2011.

This intensive craft-focused, cross-genre symposium is designed to inspire writers of all experience levels through breakout sessions and panel discussions led by talented authors, meetings with respected literary agents, as well as author readings and book signings. The topics covered include every aspect of the writing life, such as managing creative anxiety, book marketing, writing elegies, YA (young adult) novels, political essays, and learning how to be an effective ally on the page and in real life, too.
Among the award-winning faculty are the 2017 and 2018 James W. Ray Distinguished Artist Award recipients, poets Jane Wong and Anastacia-Renee; novelist Laurie Frankel and essayist Lyanda Lynn Haupt, who both won 2018 Washington State Book Awards; memoirist Kate Carroll de Gutes, who won the 2016 Oregon Book Award and 2016 Lambda Literary Award in Memoir; Garth Stein, whose international bestseller The Art of Racing in the Rain will soon be released as a major motion picture; and journalist turned novelist Omar El Akkad who won the 2018 Ken Kesey Award for Fiction.
To register and see the full line-up of faculty, visit www.chuckanutwritersconference.com or call 360.383.3200. Conference registration includes admission to a pre-conference special event, “The Chuckanut Radio Hour with Terry Brooks,” on Thursday, June 20, at 6:30 p.m. in the Heiner Theater on WCC’s campus. The conference is a joint venture between WCC’s Community & Continuing Education program and Village Books of Bellingham.
About Whatcom: Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, WA is regularly recognized as one of the top 150 community colleges in the nation by the Aspen Institute. The College, a destination for cybersecurity, healthcare and business studies, offers a bachelor of applied science degree, transfer degrees, career preparation, online courses and community education classes. WCC’s accomplished faculty and staff serve 11,000 students annually. For more information, visit whatcom.edu.
About Village Books: Since 1980, Village Books has been Whatcom County’s “Community Bookshop for Browsing.” Its mission is “building community, one book at a time,” which it does daily through a dedicated staff, by collaborating with numerous community organizations, and through its Literature Live author event series, which hosts over 350 authors each year. Village Books is excited to co-present the Chuckanut Writers Conference, and eager to help it prosper for many years to come.