Thanks to Jim for bringing this to our attention. Looks like it is time for a road trip!
What is it?
On January 30 – 31, 2015, the English Department at Eastern Illinois University will host LIONS IN WINTER, an annual literary festival. The 2015 keynote reading will be given by Stephen Graham Jones. Craft talks and featured readings are by Natalie Diaz, Edward Kelsey Moore, Julija Šukys, and Jessica Young. An editor’s panel will feature magazine editors from Bluestem, Hobart, Quiddity, Luna Luna and Cossack Review. Full info is here http://www.lionsinwinter.org/workshop-descriptions/
Registration is $40 in advance, $50 at the door, but it includes continental breakfast and lunch. Optional manuscript consult for an additional $50. SmilePolitely has a nice summary here http://www.smilepolitely.com/splog/registration_now_open_for_eiu_lions_in_winter_literary_festival/
We had one whole meetup last year devoted to Natalie Diaz and Lucille Clifton - Natalie Diaz quickly became a favorite and now with an opportunity to learn some poetry tips directly from her.
Her bio is below - I remember driving through Needles California in a Uhaul one summer - it was brutal -January 30th in central illinois - I think she can handle it but be kind to her and slightly afraid...
FEATURED WRITERS
Natalie Diaz
Natalie Diaz grew up in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community. Afterplaying professional basketball in Europe and Asia for several years, she completed her Master of FineArts in poetry and fiction at Old Dominion University. She was awarded the Bread Loaf 2012 Louis UntermeyerScholarship in Poetry, the 2012 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Literature Fellowship, as well as being awarded a 2012 Lannan Literary Fellowship. She won a Pushcart Prize in 2013. She teaches in the Institute of American Indian Arts low residency MFA program. Her first book, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published in June 2012, by Copper Canyon Press. She currently lives in Mohave Valley, Arizona, and directs a language revitalization program at Fort Mojave, her home reservation. There she works and teaches with the last Elder speakers of the Mojave language.