Wesleyan students do about seven things at once. You’ll find them in class, the library, the gym, of course, but in the same afternoon you might also find them working in one of 200 student organizations or tutoring in the local elementary school. Maybe they’re having coffee with friends in the Usdan Center.

Or maybe they’re sitting up on Foss Hill using WiFi to send emails to Mom while watching the baseball game against Williams and thinking about tomorrow’s potluck and how great that screening with Joss Whedon was and whether their friends are going to that cool dance performance at the Center for the Arts. Choose for yourself—that’s what Wesleyan students do.

THE "WRITE" STUFF: Author, poet and documentary film-maker Roya Hakakian speaks on nonfiction and memoir during the 52nd annual Wesleyan Writers Conference, held on campus June 15-20. Hakakian is the author of the award-winning memoir, Journey from the Land of New: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran. A former TV journalist and documentary filmmaker, she is now a fellow at Yale's Whitney Humanities Center.

Participants were offered writing instruction through group seminars, readings, workshops and one-on-one manuscript consultations. Each program is designed to offer the participants new perspectives on their work and the company of other writers who share similar interests.



Conference teacher Katha Pollitt speaks with participant Tom White of Peterborough, N.H. about literary journalism. Pollit is a poet, essayist, and columnist/blogger for The Nation.  She is the author of four collections of essays, and has received two National Magazine Awards for essays and criticism, a Whiting Writers' Award, a National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry and a Guggenheim fellowship.



Conference participant Ann Kelsey of West Palm Beach, Fla. takes notes during a session on nonfiction. Other classes included discussions on new fiction, long-form fiction, writing a memoir, social issues, biography, multimedia publishing and mixed media.



Pictured at far right, back, Elizabeth England, editor of Epiphany Magazine, discusses what editors look for and how to get published in small magazines.

Josip Novakovich, left, speaks with conference participant Richard Norman of Norwich during a one-on-one session. Novakovich, taught fiction techniques at the writers conference, is the author of three story collections and one novel. He has received the Whiting Writer's Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Ingram Merrill Award and an American Book Award. (Photos by Olivia Bartlett)