Three students of UWG have been invited to New York to participate in the Summer Writers Institute of 2013. Only fifty students nationwide were granted scholarships for this program, out of over 400 applicants. Diamond Forde, Amadi Ozier and Brett Armes are all English majors minoring in Creative Writing and each has been chosen to participate in this wonderful and rare opportunity.
This program is held at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. It is made up of workshops of fiction and non-fiction genres’ and poetry, lectures and individual conferences. Forde, a junior at UWG, was also invited to attend the 29th Annual Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. The seminar only grants ten students nationwide with scholarships to attend, which includes tuition and room and board for three weeks. “Having this experience on her resume will look very good to prospective graduate writing programs once she finishes here at West Georgia,” said Chad Davidson, a professor in the Department of English.
The poetry seminar will take place in June this year at the Standler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University. The Seminar will be directed by G.C Waldrep, Associate Director Deidre O’Connor, and Standler fellows Carolina Ebeid and Jamaal May. There will also be two visiting poets, Dan Beachy-Quick and Jean Valentine. The NY State Summer Writers program will take place in July and is staffed by many notable writers, including winners of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winners.
Many of the students accepted into the NY State Summer Writers Institute come from many ivy-league and top ranked Universities all over the country. These three students are extremely talented and have done exceptionally well in the creative writing program. “Diamond, Amadi and Brett, like many of their peers, have bright futures in the craft of creative writing and their hard work testifies to their acceptance into the NY State Summer Writers Institute,” says Dr. Gregory Frazier, English professor and Coordinator of the Creative Writing program. This program is no stranger to hard working students. After the programs’ inception in 2005, it has seen a few of its students excel to opportunities just as this one. In 2009 Nick McRae was invited to the Bucknell Seminar as well, followed by Jeffrey Peterson in 2011.
UWG is very proud to support these students as they go on to participate in these programs this summer. Hopefully the university can continue to send its students to these programs as well as others, exposing them to the most beneficial opportunities and expanding their futures.
