The centerpiece of each day will be a two-hour workshop, held mid-morning. Each of these workshops will be mixed-genre, fiction and memoir, and taught by Dani Shapiro, Jim Shepard, or Karen Russell. After the workshops, students will have time to explore the charming village of Positano, or make day trips to nearby attractions such as Pompeii and Sorrento; or simply relax, write, think, swim in the lovely pool of Le Sirenuse, or enjoy its extraordinary world-class spa. Each workshop participant will also have a private conference with Dani, Jim or Karen over the course of the conference. Evenings will be devoted to readings and discussions. One evening, Hannah Tinti , editor and founder of One Story magazine, will give a talk about publishing. Another evening, Hannah, Dani, Jim and Karen will have an open conversation about the literary life. Michael Maren (Dani’s husband), an accomplished screenwriter, will be available to talk about screenwriting, and all things Hollywood . Still another evening, there will be a guest reading by esteemed writers passing through Italy . We’ll also reprise “open mike” night, during which students will be given the opportunity to publicly read their work. The final evening, Antonio Sersale will fete us with an extraordinary farewell dinner.
Dani Shapiro‘s most recent novels are Black & White and Family History. She is also the author of the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion and Devotion. Her short stories and essays have appeared in One Story, The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, Elle, Bookforum, Oprah, Ploughshares, among others, and have been broadcast on This American Life. Dani has taught creative writing at the best writing programs in the country, including Columbia University, New York University, The New School, Wesleyan University, and the BreadLoaf Writers’ Conference. Many of her students have gone on to publish novels and short stories. Her new book, Still Writing, will be published in 2012.
Jim Shepard is the J. Leland Miller professor of English at Williams College and recently won the 2008 Story Prize for his collection, Like You’d Understand, Anyway. He is married to novelist Karen Shepard and is the author of six novels and two previous short story collections. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, Granta, McSweeney’s, A Public Space, and Tin House, among other places. His latest story collection is You Think That’s Bad.
Karen Russell is the author of St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, which one the Bard Fiction Prize, and Swamplandia!, which was a New York Times’ Ten Best Books of 2011 selection and winner of the New York Public Library’s Young Lions fiction award. She is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow and has taught creative writing and literature at Columbia University, Williams College, and Bryn Mawr. Her second story collection, “Vampires in the Lemon Grove,” is forthcoming from Knopf in February, 2013.
One Story is a literary magazine that publishes one short story at a time. Every three weeks, a finely printed work of short fiction is delivered to subscribers in an envelope. One Story publishes eighteen issues a year, and seeks stories that are strong enough to stand on their own; fiction that is well written, exciting, and unique. Its intimate format connects each reader to one writer, and personalizes the experience of reading a short story. Founded by Maribeth Batcha and Hannah Tinti in 2001, One Story Magazine has fast become one of the best places for writers to publish. Articles about One Story have appeared in Time Out New York, Newsweek, O-The Oprah Magazine, Jane Magazine, and The New York Times. One Story has been included in the Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Non-Required Reading, The Pushcart Prizes, Best New Stories from the South, and recently won the prestigious Fountain Award.
Past Faculty
Susan Orlean is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of The Orchid Thief, Saturday Night, and other books. Her latest book is Rin Tin Tin: The Life and theLegend.
Ron Carlson is the author of ten books of fiction, most recently the novel The Signal. His novel Five Skies was selected as one of the best books of 2007 by the Los Angeles Times and as the one book Rhode Island for 2009. His selected stories is A Kind of Flying, (W.W. Norton ), and his short fiction has appeared in Esquire, Harpers, The New Yorker, Gentlemen’s Quarterly, Epoch, The Oxford American and other journals, as well as The Best American Short Stories, The O’Henry Prize Series, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction and dozens of other anthologies. A graduate of the University of Utah, Mr. Carlson is Director of the Graduate Program in Fiction at the University of California, Irvine. Graywolf Press published his book on the process of writing: Ron Carlson Writes a Story. Among his awards are a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and the Cohen Prize at Ploughshares, the McGinnis Award at the Iowa Review and the Aspen Foundation Literary Award.
John Burnham Schwartz has taught fiction writing at Harvard, The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Sarah Lawrence College, and he is the literary director of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, one of the leading literary festivals in the United States. His most recent novel, Northwest Corner, was published in 2011 by Random House.
Peter Cameron is a novelist and story writer. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Paris Review and many other magazines and journals, as well as several volumes of the O. Henry Prize Stories. He is the author of five novels including Andorra, The City of Your Final Destination, and Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You. He has taught fiction writing in the MFA programs of Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, and The New School, as well as undergraduate students at Oberlin, Bryn Mawr and Yale. Peter lives in New York City, where he is the publisher of Wallflower Press.
