Participant Accomplishments: Tom Claffey's Latest Novel

 
A huge congratulations to Tom Claffey on the fantastic review of his latest novel, Morgan Bluestone, that he received in the Farmington Daily Times. The review, by Alysa Landry, highlights the use of Diné culture that Tom draws from to complete his 10th novel. Of the novel, Landry says it has "a message that can resonate with any reader." Tom has been participating in workshops at the Taos Summer Writers' Conference for the past five years and says that he is, "thankful for the opportunity to participate and to learn in your world-class workshops." Congratulations Tom!

Faculty Feature: Pam Houston

This summer at the Taos Summer Writers' Workshop Pam Houston is offering a Short Story Collections master class! If you're a fellow lover of the form, and have been needing some focused, quality feedback on your collection, then look no further. This master class will put you in a room with others who know the form intimately, will have read your work carefully, and are ready to give feedback on one of the most difficult things to write: a collection of stories.

Of the class Houston says, "We will have the luxury of time to talk about six manuscripts of short fiction, written by you and read by us all. I am a structuralist at heart, so my focus in directing you toward particular revision will usually start with the form the book as a whole is taking as well as the form and structure of each story. Is the story constructed, in other words, to exploit its full power?"

Pam Houston is a veteran faculty member at the Conference. One participant of her 2013 workshop said, "Pam Houston is the best writing teacher I've ever studied with. She is able to articulate the weaknesses in a draft with stunning perception and great kindness."

Pam Houston's most recent book is Contents May Have Shifted, published in 2012, by W.W. Norton. She is also the author of two collections of linked short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, the novel, Sight Hound, and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me, all published by W.W. Norton. Her stories have been selected for volumes of Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Awards, The 2013 Pushcart Prize, and Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA award for contemporary fiction, The Evil Companions Literary Award and multiple teaching awards. She is Professor of English at UC Davis, directs the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers and teaches in The Pacific University low residency MFA program and at writer’s conferences around the country and the world. She lives on a ranch at 9,000 feet in Colorado near the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

Introducing the 2014 Keynote: National Book Award Winner Bob Shacochis

We are very pleased to announce that on Sunday, July 13th, at 8:00 PM at the historic Sagebrush Inn Conference Center in Taos, NM, National Book Award winner Bob Shacochis will deliver the keynote reading at the 16th annual Taos Summer Writers' Conference. This event will be free and open to the public.

Bob Shacochis’s first collection of stories, Easy In the Islands, won the National Book Award for First Fiction, and his second collection, The Next New World, was awarded the Prix de Rome from the Academy of Arts and Letters. He is also the author of the novel Swimming in the Volcano, a finalist for the National Book Award, and The Immaculate Invasion, a work of literary reportage that was a finalist for The New Yorker Literary Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year. Shacochis is a contributing editor for Outside, and his op-eds on the U.S. military, Haiti, and Florida politics have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. His new book, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, was released in September 2013.

Emily Rapp and Eva Lipton-Ormand in O - The Oprah Magazine!

In the current issue of O - The Oprah Magazine, Emily Rapp, a veteran TSWC faculty member, writes of her experience being treated with Core Synchronism in an article titled, "From Darkness to Life." In the article, Emily discusses how the treatment, performed by our very own and multi-talented Eva Lipton-Ormand, has helped her find a peace that she wasn't able to reach before. As many of you know and as is the subject of her heartbreaking memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World, Emily's son Ronan died last year at the age of 3, from Tay-Sachs disease, a rare neurological disorder with no cure. Since learning that she is pregnant, she has felt an unrelenting anxiety. Under Eva's care, however, Rapp says that, "For an hour, I didn't feel much apart from the soothing warmth of her hands, but then I was calm and strangely vibrant."

Of the treatment Eva says, "What I love about Core is that you can address anything with it. The underlying principle is that ‘without friction, there is no inflammation and hence there is no pain,’ and that is applicable to everything from a physical issue to the state of your psyche.” Pick up the latest issue of "O" to read the whole, lovely article. To learn more about Eva's practice visit her website and feel free to ask her more when you see her this summer at the Conference.