William Paterson University to Hold Annual Writer’s Conference on April 14

--Award-winning author Andre Aciman to give keynote address

Andre Aciman, the award-winning author and director of the Writer’s Institute at CUNY Graduate Center, will appear as special guest at William Paterson University’s annual Spring Writer’s Conference on Saturday, April 14. The event will be held from 9:15 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. in the Atrium on the University’s campus in Wayne. The event is sponsored by William Paterson’s English Department.

Exploring the theme “Identity and Exile in a Post-9/11 World,” the conference will feature morning and afternoon workshops. The sessions will be led by William Paterson faculty members and distinguished writers and editors of verse and prose. Concurrent panels will address topics such as blogging in place, exile and arrival in the lyric poem, and the intersection of exile and art, how to tell your life story in poetry and prose. The conference fee is $55; $44 for William Paterson University alumni; $33 for registered William Paterson graduate students; and $22 for registered William Paterson University undergraduate students. The fee includes a light breakfast and full buffet lunch. The late registration fee is $66 (after April 7).

Aciman’s latest book is Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere (FSG, 2011). He is also the author of the novels Call Me by Your Name, Eight White Nights; the memoir Out of Egypt, and False Papers: Essays on Exile and Memory. He has co–authored and edited The Proust Project and Letters of Transit. A recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a fellowship from The New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Paris Review, as well as in several volumes of The Best American Essays. Aciman is executive officer of the doctoral program in comparative literature and the director of The Writers' Institute at the CUNY Graduate Center. He received his Ph.D. and A.M. in comparative literature from Harvard University and a B.A. in English and comparative literature from Lehman College. He has also taught at Princeton University and Bard College.

The conference offers professional development hours for New Jersey educators. Timothy Liu, William Paterson professor of English, is the coordinator of the conference. For additional information, contact Liu at 973-720-3567 or check the conference website at http://www.wpunj.edu/cohss/department/english/writers-conference/index.dot.

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