Writers Awake
 

Emerson Suites was filled with people as Joyce Carole Oates talked about her writing, told stories about her home in small-town New York State, and kept the audience in stitches with her humor.

Oates, who visited Ithaca this fall, added her name to the impressive list of writers brought to campus by the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series. Many of the authors, such as George Saunders who visited in January 2004, spend a week working directly with a talented group of students as they develop their writing skills. The dozen or so students selected for each group are accepted based on the quality of their own written work.

Since the program began in 1999 it has attracted a host of talented authors including Adrienne Rich, Donald Hall, Carolyn Forché, Barbara Ehrenreich, Phillip Lopate, and William Kennedy, who inaugurated the series when funding from a College grant was first provided to support the effort. HS