If you’re a writer or want to be one, you should write this down. The Schreiner University annual Texas Writers Conference will be Wednesday-Friday, April 16-18. There will be an associated workshop on Saturday, April 19, featuring this year’s artist-in-residence, Bret Anthony Johnston, author of the award-winning “Corpus Christi” and director of creative writing at Harvard. He has also edited the anthology “Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer,” which will be featured at the workshop. There will be an open mike for readings 7-7:45 p.m., Thursday, April 17, after which Johnston will read from his work.

Johnston, a native Texan and former professional skateboarder, is waiving his fee for the conference. That money will be used to establish a scholarship to help students defray the costs for attending the National Undergraduate Literature Conference, according to Dr. Lydia Kualapai, assistant professor of English at Schreiner and one of the conference organizers.

“When I visited Schreiner a few years ago, I was struck by how dedicated and engaged the students were, and how eager they were to read and write and explore the life of the mind,” Johnston said. “Like them, I went to college in Texas, so I know that writing and reading can often get lost in the mix, so I want to do everything I can to make it available for them. I want to read their stories and poems and books that they have inside them.”

Conference events are free and open to the public; however, there is a $95 tuition workshop charge, which includes five hours of workshop instruction, lunch and a signed copy of “Naming the World.”  [registration info and form]

“The workshop will be one in which we generate new material and become familiar with techniques and strategies that professional writers use,” Johnston said. “We'll explore mostly fiction and nonfiction, but we'll touch on poetry here and there as well. I'm very much looking forward to it.”
 

Dr. Kathleen Hudson, professor of English at Schreiner, organized the writers conference in 1990. It has previously featured such writers as Robert Flynn, Susan Bright, Naomi Nye and Sandra Cisneros and Texas songwriters James McMurtry and Tish Hinojosa.

For more information about the Writers Conference, call Dr. Kathleen Hudson at 830-792-7409 or e-mail her at khudson@schreiner.edu. For more information about Bret Johnston, visit his Web site at www.bretanthonyjohnston.com.

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