Napa Valley Writer’s Conference Welcomes Former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass & Faculty Lineup of Distinguished Poets and Fiction Writers

After a year away, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference is back and celebrating its 40th anniversary. The conference will meet in person on the Napa Campus of Napa Valley College, a move from their longtime home in Saint Helena. Events take place from August 1-6, and evening readings and faculty craft talks are open to the public as well as participants. All events are either held outside or in the Performing Arts Center of Napa Valley College. Tickets may be purchased at the box office at each event.

“We’re so grateful to be able to host our 40th anniversary conference in person this year,” said conference director Angela Pneuman. “Our events take place outdoors or in the spacious auditorium on campus, which really helps in this time of uncertainty surrounding Covid-19.”

Conference participants are aspiring and emerging writers who often go on to literary careers of great distinction. This year, two faculty poets—Brian Teare and Victoria Chang—are past conference participants, whose collections of poetry have recently been longlisted for National Book Awards.

The conference also welcomes back poetry faculty favorite Brenda Hillman, author of ten critically acclaimed collections, and continues its poetry translation program with Robert Hass—Pulitzer Prize winner, MacArthur Grant recipient, and former United States Poet Laureate. In addition to his own highly regarded poetry collections, Hass’s translations include the works of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, as well as the Japanese haiku
masters Basho, Buson, and Issa.

This year’s fiction lineup includes another faculty favorite, Lan Samantha Chang, author of three books of fiction and director of the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She’s joined by returning faculty Daniel Orozco, author of the critically acclaimed collection of stories, Orientation; Joan Silber, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction; and Charles Baxter, winner of the Award of Merit for the Short Story, whose many books include six
novels and eight short story and essay collections.

“Our faculty represent the finest writers, poets, and translators working and teaching today,” said Pneuman. “We are delighted to be able to bring them to Napa Valley and share these bright literary lights with our community.”

Napa Valley Writers’ Conference: Public Events
Readers, book club members, and other supporters of the literary arts can attend daytime lectures and evening readings as part of the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, August 1-6, as well as free pre-reading discussions. All events take place on the Napa Campus of Napa Valley College, 2277 Napa-Vallejo Hwy in Napa.

All daytime lectures are held in the Napa Valley College Performing Arts Center (PAC); masks required indoors. The faculty lectures cost $25 apiece, or $15 for students.

All evening readings are held at Napa Valley College, McCarthy Library Courtyard; event is outdoors. The evening readings cost $20 per person, with free admission for students. A wine reception is included.

The free community class is held in the Community Room in the Napa Valley College McCarthy Library.

Further details and author bios are available on the conference website. The full lineup of public events:

Sunday, August 1
6:30 p.m.
Poet Brian Teare and fiction writer Lan Samantha Chang will read following a half-hour wine reception to open the event; the evening’s program will begin at 7 p.m. in the McCarthy Library Courtyard.

Monday, August 2
9 a.m.
Victoria Chang will give a talk about poetry titled, “Syntax in Poems: Exploring Parataxis, Hypotaxis, and Inverted Syntax,” in the Performing Arts Center.

1:30 p.m.
Charles Baxter will give a talk about fiction titled, “Things about to Disappear: The Writer as Curator,” in the Performing Arts Center.

3 p.m.
Robert Hass will give a talk about translation titled, “What Gets Translated When You Translate,” in the Performing Arts Center.

4:30 p.m.
Caroline Goodwin will discuss the works of Brian Teare and Lan Samantha Chang in the Special Collections Room in the McCarthy Library.

6:30 p.m.
Poet Brenda Hillman and fiction writer Daniel Orozco will read following a half-hour wine reception to open the event; the evening’s program will begin at 7 pm in the McCarthy Library Courtyard,.

Tuesday, August 3
9 a.m.
Brian Teare will give a talk about poetry titled, “It’s the End of the World & We Know It: Writing Change, Writing Crisis,” in the Performing Arts Center.

1:30 p.m.
Lan Samantha Chang will give a talk about writing fiction titled, “Breaking the Rules,” in the Performing Arts Center.

4:30 p.m.
Caroline Goodwin will discuss the works of Gillian Conoley and Joan Silber in the Special Collections Room in the McCarthy Library.

6:30 p.m.
Poet Gillian Conoley and fiction writer Joan Silber will read following a half-hour wine reception to open the event; the evening’s program will begin at 7 p.m. in the McCarthy Library Courtyard.

Wednesday, August 4
9 a.m.
Brenda Hillman will give a talk about poetry titled, “Poets’ Journals and the Quotidian,” in the Performing Arts Center.

1:30 p.m.
Daniel Orozco will give a talk about writing fiction titled, “’The Joke’ by Molly Giles: A Hyperbolic Query into Narrative Form,” in the Performing Arts Center.

4:30 p.m.
Caroline Goodwin will discuss the works of Victoria Chang and Charles Baxter in the Special Collections Room in the McCarthy Library.

6 p.m.
Poet Victoria Chang and fiction writer Charles Baxter will read following a half-hour wine reception to open the event; the evening’s program will begin at 6:30 pm in the McCarthy Library Courtyard.

Thursday, August 5
9 a.m.
Gillian Conoley will give a talk about poetry titled, “The Practice of the Poetic Line: Sonics, Syntax, and Time,” in the Performing Arts Center.

1:30 p.m.
Joan Silber will give a talk about writing fiction titled, “Generosity in Fiction,” in the Performing Arts Center.

6:00 p.m.
On the closing night of the conference, Robert Hass will give a reading featuring translation following a wine reception; his reading begins at 6:30 p.m.; afterwards, conference participants will present their best works in the McCarthy
Library Courtyard.

About the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference
The Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, a program of Napa Valley College and its District Auxiliary Services, was founded in 1981 by Dave Evans, a professor of English, as a small gathering of distinguished Berkeley poets and students. In 1986, Dave met Jack Leggett, recently retired from directing the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the two added fiction writing. In the years since, the conference has become widely known for their faculty of esteemed poets and fiction
writers, including many Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners, who have taught and mentored the emerging writers who attend the week-long event. Much of the conference is open to the public, and the evening readings and craft talks enjoy broad community support from wineries, local businesses, and the residents of Napa and Sonoma counties.

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