Registration is now open for WriteAngles Writers Conference, a project of Straw Dog Writers Guild. The one-day conference will be held on April 6, 2024, at the Northampton Center for the Arts at 33 Hawley Street in Northampton.
The keynote address will be given by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, poet, essayist, and author of the award-winning novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. Jeffers will accept the second Abel Meeropol Social Justice Writing Award, which honors a writer of national stature whose work promotes social and political change through literature. The award is partially funded from royalties from Abel Meeropol’s iconic anti-lynching song, “Strange Fruit.” Straw Dog Writers Guild gave the first Abel Meeropol award to Patricia Smith in 2017.
The conference offers panels, roundtable discussions, and workshops, as well as opportunities for networking and meetings with a literary agent. Straw Dog Writers Guild worked with writers across the four western Massachusetts counties to revive the conference, which had served the Western Massachusetts literary community for over 30 years until it was canceled in 202 due to the pandemic. This new conference focuses on a commitment to writing that illuminates the complexities of our world, creates dialogue, incites change, and heals wounds. Sessions include “Beyond the Book,” “Who’s a Writer anyway?” “Writing in Community,” “Naming our Roots: Generating Poems from the Cultural Language of our Experiences,” and “Writing the Urgent Now.” Conference presenters are a diverse group of authors, teachers, and activists.
Full program and registration information is available HERE.. The $150.00 fee includes a full day of events and a light lunch; an open mic at a nearby venue will follow the conference. Scholarship aid is available, with an application deadline of February 26.