David Klein, author of Stash and Clean Break, led the Cole writers through their paces on Wednesday, July 9th. Mr. Klein spoke at length with the students about his experiences writing and worked with them on the pieces they were currently working on in the Institute.

Hollis Seamon is this year’s featured guest author at the New York State Summer Young Writers Institute for high school-aged writers. She tied for the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award (“Ippy”) Gold Medal for Short Fiction for her story collection, Corporeality.

Students at the Young Writers Institute will read Seamon’s 2013 young adult novel, Somebody Up There Hates You, about a 17-year-old battling cancer. Booklist said, “Seamon’s first young-adult novel is a tender, insightful, and unsentimental look at teens in extremis. It brings light to a very dark place, and in so doing, does its readers a generous service.”

Hollis Seamon, along with being the 2009 Cole Summer Writers Institute guest author, is the author of a young adult novel, Somebody Up There Hates You, published by Algonquin Books; two short story collections, Corporeality and Body Work;and a mystery novel, Flesh. Her short stories have appeared in many literary journals, including Bellevue Literary Review, Persimmon Tree, Greensboro Review, The Chicago Review, Calyx, Nebraska Review, Fiction International, and The Hudson Review. Her work has been anthologized in The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review, The Strange History of Suzanne LaFleshe and Other Stories of Women and Fatness, A Line of Cutting Women, Food and Other Enemies, Quarry: Crime Stories by New England Writers, and Sacred Ground: Stories about Home. She has received a fiction fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and won the 2009 Al Blanchard award for short fiction. Hollis is Professor of English at the College of Saint Rose in Albany NY and also teaches for the MFA in Creative Writing Program of Fairfield University, Fairfield CT.

On Thursday, July 10, the Cole Summer Writers Institute will take its first field trip! I’ll be
heading up to Skidmore College, the site of the New York State Summer Writers Institute, to hear a reading by poet Louise Gluck and novelist Caryl Phillips. Students are encouraged to attend with a parent! The reading begins at 8 pm in the Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, and is free to the public.

The reading is part of New York State Summer Writers Institute held at Skidmore College. Readings held during the week of July 7-11 are listed below. A
complete listing of the summer readings can be found here.

JULY 7
Poetry reading by Rosanna Warren and fiction reading by Cristina Garcia.

JULY 8
Non-Fiction reading by Phillip Lopate and fiction reading by Victoria Redel.

JULY 9
Poetry reading by James Longenbach and fiction reading by Joanna Scott.

JULY 10
Poetry reading by Louise Gluck and fiction reading by Caryl Phillips.

JULY 11
Fiction reading by Joyce Carol Oates.

 

Thanks to the very talented Paige Bestle, Voorheesville class of 2014, for this year’s super cool poster!