Earlier this month, Civitella’s Senior Program Associate Hope Campbell Gustafson attended the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Seattle where she connected with past and future Civitellians, some of whom are mentioned here.
Hope ran into Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prizewinners and Civitellians Molly McCully Brown (CRF 2017), Susannah Nevison (CRF 2015), & Alexandra Teague (CRF 2019). She spotted Michael Earl Craig (CRF 2021) at Wave Books signing “Iggy Horse,” which he worked on in Vista, his studio at Civitella.
On Friday, she attended a reading to celebrate Copper Canyon Press’ 50th anniversary with Paisley Rekdal (CRF 2017) & Amanda Gunn (Incoming Writing Fellow 2024) and an offsite Persea Books reading with poets Shawn R. Jones (Incoming Writing Fellow 2023), Emily Van Kley (CRF 2018), Molly McCully Brown, & Susannah Nevison.
On Saturday, there was a reading of new poetry by Graywolf Press with Tom Sleigh (CRF 2014) & Monica Youn (CRF 2019, Juror); an Academy of American Poets reading with Jenny Xie (CRF 2017), Brenda Shaughnessy (DG 2018, Juror), & Kweku Abimbola (Incoming Writing Fellow 2023); and a Hugo House & Zoeglossia event on Disability Poetics with Khadijah Queen (Incoming Writing Fellow 2023), L. Lamar Wilson (Incoming Writing Fellow 2024), & Ilya Kaminsky (Incoming Writing Fellow 2025).
Next year, we plan to host a Civitella reading at AWP in Kansas City. Hope to see you there!