Ithaca College

The Department of Writing invites all interested IC students to apply for the Spring 2021 Visiting Writers' Workshop, a unique 1-credit class that allows IC undergraduates to study with some of the best, most influential writers of their generation, whom the college brings to campus as part of its Distinguished Visiting Authors series.

While the seats for poetry fiction writers are full, the workshop still has one seat left for a nonfiction writer. 

Students in the Visiting Writers' Workshop get study with all three of this spring's Distinguished Visiting Writers via craft classes offered during their visit. In addition, students get to have the rare opportunity of having a 25-minute individual conference with one of the visiting writers to privately discuss a sample of the their work and other related writing concerns.

To apply, students must submit a writing sample in the genre of their choice: one essay, 15 pages double-spaced max, or up to 5 poems. (The fiction category is full.) Note: students are encouraged to apply in more than one genre. If accepted, it is this writing sample which will form the basis of the 25-minute individual conference with the visiting writer.

Here are the Distinguished Visiting Authors for the Spring 2021 semester: 

Jaswinder Bolina (Nonfiction) is the author of the 2020 essay collection Of Color and the poetry collections The 44th of July, a finalist for the 2019 Big Other Book Award and long-listed for the 2019 PEN America Open Book Award; Phantom Camera, winner of the 2012 Green Rose Prize in Poetry from New Issues Press; Carrier Wave, winner of the 2006 Colorado Prize for Poetry, and The Tallest Building in America, a digital chapbook. His poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry. He teaches on the faculty of the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at the University of Miami.

Ishion Hutchinson (Poetry) was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He is the author of two poetry collections: Far District and House of Lords and Commons. He is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, among others. He teaches at Cornell University, where he directs the graduate Creative Writing Program.

Joy Castro (Fiction) is the award-winning author of the novel Flight Risk (forthcoming), two literary thrillers set in post-Katrina New Orleans: Hell or High Water and Nearer Home, the short fiction collection How Winter Began, the memoir The Truth Book, and the essay collection Island of Bones. She has been the winner of the Nebraska Book Award and an International Latino Book Award, a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award, and the editor of the anthology Family Trouble. She teaches creative writing, literature, and Latinx studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The new application deadline is Wednesday, January 20. To apply, download the application, fill it out, and submit the application and writing sample to Jacob White at jrwhite@ithaca.edu.

APPLICATION FOR SPRING 2021 VISITING WRITERS' WORKSHOP

Apply now to win your spot in this class!