News

The Writer's Prize; the Reader's Festival!

August 09, 2018

Dear Reader:

Each spring we make the call of a lifetime to a lucky crop of Windham-Campbell Prize recipients, none of whom have an inkling that they've been in the running for one of the world's most generous literary awards. The only string attached is that the Prize must be accepted in person at Yale, and from that simple requirement, an entirely free and public annual festival of literature, playwriting, arts, and ideas has sprung up, just two hours from both New York and Boston. We're delighted to share this year's schedule with you, and hope you'll join us in New Haven in September, beginning on Wednesday, September 12 with the annual Windham-Campbell Lecture, to be delivered by poet and Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander. The topic, “Why I Write,” has become an annual tradition as well as the title of a new Yale University Press series.

Further festival highlights include discussions of ancient influences on contemporary narratives, the impact of public spaces on continental philosophy, urban loneliness, the Harlem Renaissance, Montaigne and Pope, artist's lives, the journey to becoming a writer, and staged readings of electrifying work by two of the most important playwrights of our time. This particular combination of talent and verve happens just once.

Please visit our website for details, share this with a friend, and come join us in September!

In anticipation,

Your friends at the Windham-Campbell Prizes