All four presenters will read work that has appeared in The Sun.
Genie Zeiger is a poet, essayist, writing teacher, and author of the memoir How I Find Her: A Mother's Dying and a Daughters Life. She will guide writers in identifying their own essential stories and finding the language to tell them. "Rowe is unique," she says. "People are joined by a deep desire for truth in human communication. In my workshop, I'd like people to grasp a deeper sense of their life story and to share that story with others as a step toward healing the world." Alison Luterman is an educator who teaches poetry in California schools. Her workshop "Writing from the Body" will look at writing through the lens of embodiment: body image, hunger, sexuality, athletics, dance, reproductive cycles, illness, aging, ecstasy. "My poetry always begins with a feeling I am trying to pinpoint," she says, "and feelings for me are located in the body. As an antidote to the problem of 'too much head,' we'll plunge into body/bawdy poems and write some of our own." The poet Sparrow shares a birthday with Mahatma Gandhi and Groucho Marx. In his workshop, he will reveal his idiosyncratic methods of "writing as learning." He writes, "My last visit to Rowe was completely natural, like a family reunion of people who could share a major moment of boisterous epiphany. The tragedy of the American people - except for some who live on the Lower East Side - is that they never stop striving for attainment. For a couple of days at Rowe, we discovered that we could live without a plan. It was either pointless or holy." Sun founder and editor Sy Safransky will share stories and answer questions about the magazine's history. He writes, "The Sun doesn't try to reduce the truth to some manageable or marketable formula. It reminds us we'll never see the beauty at the heart of creation if we always turn away from what is difficult or sad. Because of this, The Sun sometimes gets into trouble, but what's life without a little trouble? Why should a magazine be different from life itself?""The Sun is like a good friend who feels comfortable enough with you to share intimate details. But this intelligent, beautifully written journal is never sappy or maudlin. The Sun is unselfconsciously frank and enlightening, presenting a community of ideas." - Utne Reader