Emily Rapp On The Today Show

Tomorrow, Friday, March 8th, Taos Summer Writers' Conference faculty member Emily Rapp will be appearing on the Today Show to talk about her memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World. So tune in!

Emily Rapp is the author of Poster Child: A Memoir (BloomsburyUSA) and The Still Point of the Turning World (Penguin Press, March 2013). A former Fulbright scholar, she was educated at Harvard University, Trinity College-Dublin, Saint Olaf College, and the University of Texas-Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. She has received awards and recognition for her work from The Atlantic Monthly, StoryQuarterly, the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Jentel Arts Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Fundacion Valparaiso, and Bucknell University, where she was the Philip Roth writer-in-residence. Her blog, http://ourlittleseal.wordpress.com, was named by TIME as one of the top 25 blogs of 2012. Her work has appeared in VOGUE, The New York Times, The Sun, Salon, Slate, the Huffington Post, TIME, Body+Soul, Bodega, Fitness, Good Housekeeping, the Los Angeles Times and other publications. She is a regular contributor for The Rumpus and Role/Reboot. She has taught writing at Antioch University-Los Angeles, the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, and 24PearlStreet. She is a core faculty member in the MFA program at University of California-Riverside. This is her third year in Taos.

“Emily Rapp is an exceptional teacher. She far exceeded my very high expectations!” – 2012 Workshop Participant 

This year, at the 15th Annual Taos Summer Writers' Conference, Emily Rapp will be teaching a Memoir Master Class, for which space is limited (and quickly disappearing!) Find out more here.

Faculty Feature: Allison Hunter & Alexis Hurley from InkWell Management

Allison Hunter & Alexis Hurley

"The publishing consultations offered a great deal of useful information. They gave great general knowledge (with many specifics) but also took the time to respond to the interests and needs of every participant." - 2012 Workshop Attendee

Allison Hunter began her publishing career in 2005 working for the Los Angeles-based literary publicity firm, Kim-from-L.A. She then spent three years in law school, during which she was a summer associate at the global law firm Latham & Watkins and the head writer of the law school musical. After practicing pro bono family law at a San Francisco Bay Area nonprofit, Allison returned to the publishing world at InkWell, where she is actively acquiring fiction (particularly women’s fiction and romance), memoir, narrative nonfiction, cultural studies and prescriptive titles, including cookbooks. She has a B.A. in American Studies and Creative Writing from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
Alexis Hurley started her career in 1998 and has been at InkWell since its inception in 2004. Alexis works in the dual capacity of Co-Director of Foreign Rights and agent of domestic works in the areas of literary and commercial fiction, memoir, narrative non-fiction and more. She is a native of the Berkshires and a graduate of Dickinson College where she received her BA in English and Art History and a minor in Italian.

Allison and Alexis will be co-teaching a Publishing Intensive Weekend Workshop at the Taos Summer Writers' Conference this year. It is a unique opportunity to find out all you've ever wanted to know about publishing. Learn more here.

An Interview with Joy Harjo at As Us Literary Journal

Joy Harjo talks poetry and writing with As Us: Indigenous Women's Literary Journal. Harjo is teaching a poetry master class at the 15th annual Taos Summer Writer's Conference. There is one spot left. Click here for more information.

Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is an internationally known poet, performer, writer, and saxophone player of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. Her seven books of poetry include such well-known titles as How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and She Had Some Horses, all published by W.W. Norton. Her poetry has garnered many awards including the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, 1998 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Harjo's memoir, Crazy Brave (W.W. Norton, 2012), tells of her journey to becoming a poet and was called "The best kind of memoir, an unself-conscious mix of autobiography, spiritual rumination, cultural evaluation, history and political analysis told in simple but authoritative and deeply poetic proze" by Ms Magazine . Soul Talk, Song Language (2011) is a collection of Harjo's essays and interviews was published by Wesleyan Press. She co-edited an anthology of contemporary Native women's writing:Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Native Women's Writing of North America, one of the London Observer's Best Books of 1997. She wrote the award-winning children's book, The Good Luck Cat (Harcourt), and in 2009 she published a Young Adult, coming-of-age-book, For A Girl Becoming, which won a Moonbeam Award and a Silver Medal from the Independent Publishers Awards.

2011 Hispanic Writer Awardee Richard Vargas

An Interview with Poet Richard Vargas

Richard Vargas is a long-time poet and the founding editor of The Más Tequila Review, a journal of poetry “for the rest of us.” He is a prominent member of the Albuquerque poetry scene, was once nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, twice.

Here Richard discusses, among other things, the origins of The Más Tequila Review, poetry as a tool for social change, and Richard Blanco’s inaugural poem.

Congratulations, Richard!

Faculty Feature: Daniel Mueller

Daniel Mueller will be teaching a Flash Fiction Weekend Workshop this year at the 15th annual Taos Summer Writers' Conference. Find out more here.

"I am thrilled to have learned so much in such a short time. Dan is so knowledgeable and organized. He makes every minute count. He’s also funny and sensitive to the feelings and opinions of students. I wouldn’t hesitate to take another workshop with him." – 2012 Workshop Attendee

Daniel Mueller is the author of two collection of stories, How Animals Mate (Overlook Press, 1999) and the forthcoming Nights I Dreamed of Hubert Humphrey (Outpost 19, March 2013). His stories have appeared in Joyland, Joyland Retro, The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, The Cincinnati Review, Gargoyle, Prairie Schooner, Surreal South, CutBank, Another Chicago Magazine, Story Quarterly, Story, The Mississippi Review, The Crescent Review, Playboy, and elsewhere.  He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Henfield Foundation, and Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  He directs the creative writing program at University of New Mexico and teaches at the Low-Residency MFA Program at Queens University of Charlotte.