Call for Creative Submissions

Auburn University and the Auburn Writers Conference invite writers to participate in “Myth, Memory, and the Haunted Muse” to be held on October 7-8, 2011, in Auburn, Alabama.

Offering instruction, practice, perspective, and community in a relaxed setting, AWC features small-group workshops, panel discussions, and readings from emerging and established authors.

This year’s theme, “Myth, Memory, and the Haunted Muse,” asks participants to consider the ways that writers use the idea of "the haunted" in their work—either literally or figuratively, as in the memories, histories, people, and places that haunt, and hence propel, characters.

The 2011 conference will feature three New York Times bestselling authors: keynote speaker Joshilyn Jackson (Gods in Alabama, Backseat Saints), Arts and Humanities Distinguished Speaker Mark Kurlansky (What?, Edible Stories, The World Without Fish), and Rachel Hawkins (Hex Hall, Demonglass).

Other visiting authors include young adult novelists Roger Reid (Longleaf, Space) and Victoria Schwab (The Near Witch), fiction writer Evelina Galang (Her Wild American Self, One Tribe), essayist Patricia Foster (All the Lost Girls: Confessions of a Southern Daughter), Richard Goodman, founder of the New York Writers Workshop (A New York Memoir, Soul of Creative Writing), and Wendy Reed, television and radio producer, and author of An Accidental Memoir: How I Killed Someone and Other Stories. Additional authors and workshop sessions will be announced via our website.

Conference attendees are invited to read their short fiction, creative nonfiction and/or poetry. To be considered for a reading slot, please submit a 300-500 word excerpt of creative writing appropriate for a 15-minute presentation by June 1, 2011. Please include a brief cover letter that indicates connection to the conference’s theme.

Email submissions as an MS Word attachment to Maiben Beard at meb0015@auburn.edu.

In the subject line of your email, please include: Conference: [Your Last Name, Title of Submission].

Deadline for submissions: June 1, 2011.