KINGSTON, R.I. –April 13, 2010—The University of Rhode Island’s 2010 Ocean State Summer Writing Conference will feature three respected writers and poets as its keynote speakers. The conference, which offers workshops, panels, seminars and more in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, playwriting/screenwriting and publishing, runs from June 24 to 26. For a complete schedule of events or to register go to http://www.uri.edu/summerwriting/.

The conference has varied costs for its offerings. However, the keynote presentations, free and open to the public, will combine talk, readings, with time for questions and answers. All presentations will be given in Swan Hall Auditorium, 60 Upper College Road, URI Kingston Campus. Here’s the line-up:

Friday, June 25, noon to 1:15 p.m.: Julia Glass, author of the novels Three Junes, winner of a National Book Award; The Whole World Over; and The Widower’s Tale, due out this September.

Her third book, I See You Everywhere, a collection of linked stories, won the 2009 SUNY John Gardner Fiction Award. Other awards for her fiction include the Sense of Place Award, the Tobias Wolff Award, and the Pirate’s Alley Medal for Best Novella.

Her feature articles have appeared in numerous national magazines, and her personal essays are widely anthologized. She has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She lives with her two sons and their father on the North Shore of Massachusetts.

Friday, June 25, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.: Wayne Koestenbaum has published five books of poetry: Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films, Model Homes, The Milk of Inquiry, Rhapsodies of a Repeat Offender, and Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems.

He has also published a novel, Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes, and five books of nonfiction: Andy Warhol, Cleavage, Jackie Under My Skin, The Queen’s Throat (a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist), and Double Talk. His newest book, Hotel Theory, is a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction.

He is writing books about Harpo Marx and humiliation. Winner of a Whiting Writer’s Award, Kostenbaum is a distinguished professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is also a visiting professor in the painting department of the Yale School of Art.

Saturday, June 26, 12:30 to 1:30: Jacqueline Osherow is the author of five books of poems, Looking for Angels in New York, Conversations with Survivors, With a Moon in Transit, Dead Men’s Praise, and The Hoopoe’s Crown. Her sixth book, Whitethorn, is due out in 2011. She has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the Witter Bynner Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as a number of prizes from the Poetry Society of America.

Osherow is a distinguished professor of English and creative writing at the University of Utah. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry, Twentieth Century American Poetry, and The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms.

“Our conference continues to have a non-threatening and easygoing, accessible energy,” said prize-winning poet Peter Covino. “Writing and publishing books is important, of course, but creating a community to sustain your work and read your books is even more crucial. Attendees will have the opportunity to connect with others and develop a network of support.”

Julia Glass: Photo Credit: Dennis Cowley

Wayne Koestenbaum–Photo credit Heike Steinweg

Photo courtesy of Jacqueline Osherow