Newsletter of the

Society

Inside...

Other Newsletters

Return to home page

The Jiménez-Porter Writer's House, opening Fall 2002 in Dorchester Hall on the University of Maryland campus in College Park, is a unique living-learning program that will create a campus-wide literary center to study creative writing in its international, cross-cultural, and multilingual dimensions. Participants will live and work within a close community of students who share an interest in creating stories, poems, plays, and essays in all fields. Writing in English, Spanish, or other approved languages, students hone their craft in literary and communication arts through colloquia and workshops, work with visiting writers, outreach activities, a student literary journal, and special seminars. Connecting the act of writing to a larger cultural sphere, the Writer's House will share Dorchester Hall with the new Global Communities Living-Learning Program. Residents from both programs will participate in joint activities such as special seminars and international film series.

The Jiménez-Porter Writers' House, to be overseen by of the departments of English and Spanish and Portuguese, was proposed about four years ago by several undergraduate students to Michael Collier, state poet laureate and co-director of the University of Maryland's Creative Writing Program. With the help of Roberta Lavine, acting associate director of academic affairs and associate professor of Spanish, the program unites students who love creative writing and gives them a space to live together and write. "The goal for the first couple of years is to get the word out and let everyone know the possibilities of the program," Collier said. "Down the road, we hope it will be the center of all literary activities on campus." The coordinator of the Jiménez-Porter Writers' House is Laura Lauth, a graduate assistant in the College of Arts and Humanities who has been involved in the program's development for about a year and was brought in this past January to help coordinate. "This program is really unusual," Lauth said. "Not that there aren't other kinds of writing programs or writing houses at the undergraduate level, but there aren't that many of them and none that we can find that are putting together writing and writing across languages and cultures. We have very sophisticated students that can write in both languages and who are interested in bridging those differences and gaps."

The Jiménez-Porter Writers' House is named after two well-known authors closely connected to the University of Maryland. Juan Ramon Jiménez was a professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese, a recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature, and the namesake of Jiménez Hall. Katherine Anne Porter is a preeminent American fiction writer who left her library and papers to the university. Activities planned for the Writers' House include an undergraduate literary journal, a Spring Literary Festival organized by student residents, special seminars led by Jiménez-Porter visiting writers, on-campus readings like the Writers Here and Now series, field trips to such venues as the Folger Library, Library of Congress, and cultural institutes and embassies to participate in literary seminars and readings, workshops and colloquia, and outreach activities to local community.

Writer's House requirements are a one-credit colloquium in both Fall and Spring semesters, one three-credit course in Spanish or English writing per year selected from an approved list, completion of a writing portfolio to be presented at an annual Spring Literary Festival organized by student residents, attendance at literary events, both on and off campus, and participation in House Governance. Applications to the program were due in Spring 2001 and accepted on a rolling basis as long as space was available. For further information, contact Laura Lauth. Her e-mail address is ll105@umail.umd.edu.