SCHEDULE 2009

By Barbara Chai

Have you seen the movie, "THE QUEEN"? Blairquhan Castle is where they filmed "The Queen", in Scotland. In June, Abroad Writers' Conference is proud to annouce, we will be holding our conference/workshops at Blairquhan Castle. Blairquhan castle is one of the finest Regency castles in Scotland and it's been discreetly modernised to provide comfort. Blairquhan castle is located in southern Scotland, an hour from Glasgow. This magnificent castle is situated on 2,000 acres of gardens and woodlands. INSTRUCTORS: EDWARD HUMES, Pulitizer Prize winner; RUSSELL CELYN JONES, Booker Prize judge in 2002, staff reviewer for London Times and Director of the MA Creative Writing program at Birkbeck College, University of London; JOAN SILBER, 2004 National Book Award finalist, PEN/HEMINGWAY Award, and winner of the PUSHCART and O'HENRY Prize for short-stories; the Highly Acclaimed Playwright, CONSTANCE CONGDON, her plays have beenn produced in Moscow, Helsinki, Brixton, Manchester, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shelykovah, Russia, as well as all over the United States. She is an alumna of New Dramatists, a member of PEN and the Dramatists Guild, and currently teaches playwriting at Amherst College; NAHID RACHLIN, PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award; Poet, KAZIM ALI; SOPHIE POWELL, Agent/Author. Additional Authors will to be announced. Workshops will be held in fiction, non-fiction, memoir, playwriting and poetry. Limited to 11 single rooms and 22 shared rooms. Student have a choice of taking two workshops.

Kerala is one of the ten 'Paradises Found' by the National Geographic Traveler, for its diverse geography and overwhelming greenery. It is a land much acclaimed for the contemporary nature of its cultural ethos, and much appreciated for the soothing, rejuvenating paradise that it is. Kerala is wedged between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats[37]. Lying between north latitudes 8°18' and 12°48' and east longitudes 74°52' and 72°22',[38] Kerala is well within the humid equatorial tropics. Kerala’s coast runs for some 580 km (360 miles), while the state itself varies between 35 and 120 km (22–75 miles) in width. Geographically, Kerala can be divided into three climatically distinct regions: the eastern highlands (rugged and cool mountainous terrain), the central midlands (rolling hills), and the western lowlands (coastal plains). Located at the extreme southern tip of the Indian subcontinent, Kerala lies near the centre of the Indian tectonic plate; as such, most of the state is subject to comparatively little seismic and volcanic activity.[39] Pre-Cambrian and Pleistocene geological formations compose the bulk of Kerala’s terrain. For one week we will go on a journal in a group of large house boast exploring the riverways while we hold our workshops. In the early evening we will dock our boats, explore villages and have dinner.AUTHORS: Memoir author, REBECCA WALKER; travel writer DAVUD FARLEY; and Award Winning author/poet/ journalist, TERESE SVOBODA.