Friday, August 28, 2009

bread loaf in pictures


Day 1: Depart Twin Cities to long delay in Newark airport. From Burlington, we take a shuttle onto "the mountain," as it is called, in cell-phone-less country. Dinner, settle into rooms, opening remarks with Michael Collier followed by a reading by Trish Hampl and Michael Collier.

Day 2: First workshops, readings by special guests Lorrie Moore (fell in love with Lorrie Moore when reading Anagrams and Self Help--these were my just-before-sleep books while at BL) and CK Williams, evening readings with Lynn Freed and Alan Shapiro.


Day 3: Second workshop day. Spent most of today exploring and even more: reading. And reading.


Day 4: Trish Hampl's lecture on memoir (which can be found in this collection), sat in on Copper Canyon press talk, first craft class on diction.


Day 5: Third poetry workshop, Charlies' talk on "Lush Life" as well as a panel on the editing process with Baxter, Thomas Mallon and their editor Dan Frank. Craft class on verb tenses, and more readings. I wandered across the field and into the woods that face Bread Loaf.


Day 6: Today was a "day off" (no workshops--fiction and poetry/non-fiction alternate days) with a "Writer's Cramp" race to begin the day. Lunch was a picnic at the Robert Frost farm where Middlebury professor John Elder gave a talk about Frost's experiences in Vermont and how that was reflected in his writing. The evening readers were Robert Cohen and Natasha Tretheway.


Day 7: Tom Sleigh gave a lecture called "Thom Gunn's New Jerusalem, or How to Voice Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll" (which EBV piped up during). I went on an afternoon Robert Frost trail walk with John Elder, went to a craft class given by James Allen Hall on adding the element of surprise, went to the book signing on Treman Lawn, then the reading given by Sigrid Nunez and Ellen Bryant Voigt.


Day 8: Fourth day of workshop for the poets. Today was the sit-down lunch served by faculty and fellows, which proved to be highly entertaining, as I suspect it is every year. Had a craft class on found poetry, went to a reading with Matthew Dickman, Cecilia Rodriguez Milanes, and Ann Hood, and in the evening, the readers were Vikram Chandra and Arthur Sze.


Day 9: Alan Shapiro gave a lecture on "Translation and 'Linguistic Hospitality'" in which there was a guest performance by Matthew Dickman. I sat in on a talk with Gary Clark from the Vermont Studio Center (and lusted after the idea of a month to write and nothing but), attended an excellent class on lineation, attended a panel with editors from New England Review, Ploughshares, and Atlantic Monthly.


Day 10: Last day of workshops. Sat in on Louise Gluck's talk on the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Craft class on revision with Tom Sleigh. Evening readers were Charlie Baxter and Ed Hirsch.

Day 11: I explored the woods at the back of the campus. Evening readers were Lisa Fugard, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, and David Shields.


There were several events that I was either not present at or did not bring my camera. For a full list of Bread Loaf's 2009 public offerings, you can open this pdf file.

Check out my full Bread Loaf Flickr photo set, which has so very many more pictures. \

Also: If you want to use my photographs, please email me (acertainslantoflight at hotmail dotcom) for permission. I've never declined permission, of course, but it makes me feel a lot better to know. Please also make sure you attribute those photos to me (Molly Sutton Kiefer) and if you link, you can use my homepage, which is mollysuttonkiefer.com. THANKS!

9 comments:

Matthew Thorburn said...

Wow. Great photos! Thanks for sharing them.

Jessie Carty said...

those really are some fantastic photos :)

i wonder if you'd be interested in submitting some for cover art consideration (well video cover art) at my YouTube lit mag? Shape of a Box or if you'd be interested in sending work.

check it out at http://www.youtube.com/shapeofabox

or guidelines at http://shapeofabox.wordpress.com

email shapeofabox(at)gmail.com

my favorite is probably the bed and door shot!

margosita said...

Yay! Awesome photos. I did not think I could be more jealous of your chance to go to Bread Loaf. Uh: wrong. Definitely more jealous. (In a good, happy kind of way!)

Eduardo C. Corral said...

wow! you have talent, molly! great pics.

Candid Carrie said...

Molly, they are fabulous pictures. And we did meet, I mistakenly thought we had similar cameras because they both said the same thing on the lens cover. Silly me.

I could have used one more skills class because I was unprepared on re-entry to reality.

Dave Lucas said...

Molly, somehow we missed each other on the mountain, but these are astonishing photos. Thank you for sharing them.

Leslie said...

Molly, I used to be a professional shooter and so I say these are amazing!! You should email michael and make sure he knows they exist--he might want some for next year's brochure or the website.

You rock.

Kelli Russell Agodon - Book of Kells said...

Hi Molly,

I found your blog through Eduardo.

Thanks for sharing all these! Wow! Fantastic shots.

Lyle Daggett said...

Found a link to your blog in Kelli Agodon's Book of Kells blog.

I've never been to Bread Loaf though have of course been curious about it over the years. Loved your photos and your account of the time there.

Especially appreciated the photos of the Frost house (at least I gather that's what they are). They seriously transported me.

Years back I went to the Port Townsend [Washington] Writers' Conference twice. It was a similar transforming experience for me each time. It's been 19 years since the second time I was there, and I'm still feeling the afterglow of it.