DAVID R. COLLINS VIRTUAL WRITERS’ CONFERENCE 2021 KEYNOTE ADDRESS, featuring ALLISON JOSEPH:
“Are You Okay: Writing through the Panic and Pandemonium.”
What: Collins Writers’ Conference Keynote Event, featuring poet Allison Joseph
When: Thursday, June 24, 2021 at 7pm CST
Where: Online – available on Zoom for Conference participants, and via livestream to MWC’s YouTube channel and Facebook Live page.
Cost: Free & open to the public
MWC is thrilled to welcome award-winning writer, teacher, and mentor Allison Joseph to be the keynote speaker for our 2021 Writers’ Conference. Joseph will appear at a special livestream event on Thursday, June 24 at 7pm CST. Joseph will also lead a virtual master class on Friday, June 25 ($30 for those not registered for the Conference).
Allison Joseph was born in London, England, to Caribbean parents and grew up in Toronto and the Bronx. She earned a BA from Kenyon College and an MFA from Indiana University. Joseph is the author of many collections of poetry, including Confessions of a Barefaced Woman (2018); My Father’s Kites (2010); Voice: Poems (2009); Worldly Pleasures (2004); Imitation of Life (2003); In Every Seam (1997); Soul Train (1997); and What Keeps Us Here (1992), which won a John C. Zacharis First Book Award. Of her work, which frequently joins autobiography to cultural narratives and histories of Afro-Caribbean communities, Joseph has said, “I write to be a recorder, observer, participant, and sometimes, even judge. I want to engage the world as I see it with my whole self—all those different aspects of it.”
Joseph’s honors and awards include fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences and from the Illinois Arts Council. She is the recipient of a George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from the Association of Writers & Writing Programs. The Judge Williams Holmes Cook Endowed Professor of English at Southern Illinois University, Joseph is editor of Crab Orchard Review, directs the MFA program, and runs the Young Writers Workshop, a summer program for high school students. She lives in Carbondale, Illinois.
Contact sarah.elgatian@mwcqc.org with questions or to RSVP.
For more information about the DRC Writers’ Conference, visit: http://www.mwcqc.org/…/david-r-collins-writers-conference/
SCHEDULE FOR CONFERENCE EVENTS FEATURING ALLISON JOSEPH:
-Thursday, June 24, 7:00-8:00 p.m. CST – Virtual Keynote Address and Q & A
-Friday, June 25, 12:00-1:00 p.m. CST – Virtual Master Class (included with registration fee; $30 without registration fee)
THE DAVID R. COLLINS WRITERS’ CONFERENCE IS MADE POSSIBLE THANKS TO THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF OUR SPONSORS: MODERN WOODMEN OF AMERICA, FOUNDING SPONSOR; THE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY; THE ILLINOIS ARTS COUNCIL AGENCY; ILLINOIS HUMANITIES; THE ST. AMBROSE UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT; THE FIGGE ART MUSEUM; AND ROZZ-TOX.