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Iceland Writers Retreat
The Iceland Writers Retreat is a one-week international event for writers that takes place in Reykjavik, Iceland. History The Iceland Writers Retreat (IWR) was founded in 2014 by Eliza Reid, who is currently the First Lady of Iceland, and Erica Jacobs Green, of the United States. It has been held annually since 2014 in Reykjavik, Iceland. Iceland is known for its literary tradition, and Reykjavik is the world’s first non-native English speaking UNESCO City of Literature. The Iceland Writers Retreat was named one of the world's best writers' retreats in The Sydney Morning Herald. Spring 2016 marked the third annual Iceland Writers Retreat, taking place 13–17 April 2016. The fourth event was hosted from 5–9 April 2017, with the fifth taking place 11-15 April 2018. The sixth annual Retreat is scheduled for 3-7 April, 2019. Schedule The retreat is an international gathering, bringing together authors from many different countries. The Retreat consists of several small-gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reykjavík
Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a population of around 131,136 (and 233,034 in the Capital Region), it is the centre of Iceland's cultural, economic, and governmental activity, and is a popular tourist destination. Reykjavík is believed to be the location of the first permanent settlement in Iceland, which, according to Landnámabók, was established by Ingólfr Arnarson in 874 CE. Until the 18th century, there was no urban development in the city location. The city was officially founded in 1786 as a trading town and grew steadily over the following decades, as it transformed into a regional and later national centre of commerce, population, and governmental activities. It is among the cleanest, greenest, and safest cities in the world. History According to lege ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Evans (travel Writer)
Andrew Evans is an American travel writer, author and television host. Early life and education Evans was born in Texas and raised in Ohio. He began traveling internationally at the age of 16 when he moved to France on a Rotary Youth Exchange, and later to the Ukraine as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Evans was raised as a Mormon, but had struggles with expressing his gay identity at Brigham Young University. In an article for Outsports, Evans discussed the compulsory year of conversion therapy and "traumatic moments" BYU made him undergo in the late 90s as a student after he was caught kissing a man by his roommate. BYU told him he could be expelled or visit weekly with his bishop, turn in fellow gay students, cut off contact with any gay friends, and have frequent visits with a BYU therapist until he was heterosexual and "safe" for other students to be around. Included in the therapy was weekly dates with women as an additional attempt to cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Vaillant
John Vaillant (born June 4, 1962) is an American-Canadian writer and journalist whose work has appeared in ''The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic'', and '' Outside''. He has written both non-fiction and fiction books. Personal life Vaillant was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has lived in Vancouver since 1998. He is the son of Harvard psychologist George Eman Vaillant, and grandson to the famed anthropologist George Clapp Vaillant. Writing career His first book, ''The Golden Spruce'', dealt with the felling of the Golden Spruce or Kiidk'yaas on Haida Gwaii by Grant Hadwin. His 2010 work, ''The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival'' is about a man-eating tiger incident that happened in the 1990s in Russia's Far Eastern Primorsky Krai, where most of the world's Amur tigers live. It is a mixture of investigative journalism, social history, geography and natural writing. It won a number of awards and was selected for the 2012 edition of CBC Radio's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linn Ullmann
Karin Beate "Linn" Ullmann (born 9 August 1966) is a Norwegian author and journalist. A prominent literary critic, she also writes a column for Norway's leading morning newspaper and has published six novels. Early life Ullmann was born in Oslo, Norway to Norwegian actress, author and director Liv Ullmann and Swedish director and screenwriter Ingmar Bergman. She grew up in New York City and Oslo. Ullmann attended Professional Children's School in Manhattan. When she was fifteen, she was "kicked out" (as she puts it) of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. She attended Juilliard School as a prospective dancer and graduated from New York University, where she studied English literature and began work on her PhD. Career When her first and critically acclaimed novel ''Before You Sleep'' was published in 1998, she was already known as an influential literary critic. Her second novel, ''Stella Descending'' was published in 2001 and her third novel ''Grace'' was published in 2002. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sjón
image:Sjon litteratureXchange-2019 DSC09264.jpg, 260px, Sjón at LiteratureXchange Festival ín Aarhus (Denmark 2019) Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson (born 27 August 1962), known as Sjón ( ; ; meaning "sight" and being an abbreviation of his first name), is an Icelandic poet, novelist, lyricist, and screenwriter. Sjón frequently collaborates with the singer Björk and has performed with The Sugarcubes as Johnny Triumph. His works have been translated into 30 languages. Early life Born in Reykjavík, Iceland, Sjón grew up in the city's Breiðholt district, where he lived with his mother. He began his writing career early and published his first book of poetry, ''Sýnir'' (Visions), in 1978 at 16. Career He was one of the founding members of the neo-surrealist group Medúsa and became significant in Reykjavik's cultural scene. Active on the Icelandic music scene since the early 1980s, Sjón has collaborated with many of the best known artists of the era and was featured as gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taiye Selasi
Taiye Selasi (born 2 November 1979) is a British-American writer and photographer. Of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin, she describes herself as a "local" of Accra, Berlin, New York and Rome. Early life and education Taiye Selasi was born in London, and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, the elder of twin daughters of Dr. Lade Wosornu, of Ghanaian descent, a surgeon in Saudi Arabia and author of numerous volumes of poetry, and Dr. Juliette Tuakli, of Nigerian heritage, a paediatrician in Ghana known for her advocacy of children's rights, including sitting on the board of United Way. Selasi's parents separated when she was an infant. She met her biological father at the age of 12. Her given name means first twin in her mother's native Yoruba. She had changed her surname several times; she was born with her mother's surname, she then adopted her step-father's surname (Williams), at 12 she had her surname changed to her father's (Wosornu), later she decided to adopt the hyphenated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl (; born 1948), is an American chef, food writer and editor. In addition to two decades as a food critic, mainly spent at the ''Los Angeles Times'' and ''The New York Times'', Reichl has also written cookbooks, memoirs and a novel, and been co-producer of PBS's '' Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie'', culinary editor for the Modern Library, host of PBS's ''Gourmet's Adventures With Ruth'', and editor-in-chief of ''Gourmet'' magazine. She has won six James Beard Foundation Awards. Reichl’s critically acclaimed, best-selling memoirs are ''Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table'' (1998), ''Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table'', '' Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise,'' ''Not Becoming My Mother'' and ''Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir'' (2019). In 2009, she published ''Gourmet Today'' a 1,008 page cookbook containing over 1,000 recipes. She published her first novel, ''Delicious!'' in 2014, and, in 2015, published ''My Kitchen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver (born April 8, 1955) is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her widely known works include ''The Poisonwood Bible'', the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and '' Animal, Vegetable, Miracle'', a non-fiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments. Each of her books published since 1993 has been on the ''New York Times'' Best Seller list. Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award 2011, UK's Orange Prize for Fiction 2010, for ''The Lacuna'', and the National Humaniti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Gopnik
Adam Gopnik (born August 24, 1956) is an American writer and essayist. He is best known as a staff writer for ''The New Yorker,'' to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir, and criticism since 1986. He is the author of nine books, including '' Paris to the Moon'', ''Through the Children's Gate'', ''The King in the Window'', and '' A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism.'' In 2020, his essay "The Driver's Seat" was cited as the most-assigned piece of contemporary nonfiction in the English-language syllabus. Early life and education Gopnik was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia and raised in Montreal. His family lived at Habitat 67. Both his parents were professors at McGill University; father Irwin was a professor of English literature and mother Myrna was a professor of linguistics. During a storytelling session for The Moth in 2014, Gopnik explained that his paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother fell in love with each other, le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcello Di Cintio
Marcello Di Cintio is a Canadian writer who has published several books, and many articles and essays in newspapers and magazines across North America and in the United Kingdom. In addition, he has worked as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary, the Calgary Public Library, and the Palestine Writing Workshop. Biography Marcello was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He lives in Calgary with his son, Amedeo. Education Marcello studied Microbiology and English at the University of Calgary, and was also a member of the University of Calgary Wrestling Team. He graduated in 1997 with both BA and BSc degrees. Bibliography Nonfiction * ''Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa'' (Insomniac Press, 2002) * ''Poets and Pahlevans: A Journey Into the Heart of Iran'' (Knopf Canada, 2006) * ''Walls: Travels Along the Barricades'' (Goose Lane Editions, 2012, Canada; Union Books, 2013, UK; Counterpoint Press, 2013, US; Vakon BG, 2014, Bulgaria; Lux Éditeur, 2017, Quebec and Fran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alison Pick
Alison Pick (born 1975) is a Canadian writer. She is most noted for her Booker Prize-nominated novel ''Far to Go'', and was a winner of the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award for most promising writer in Canada under 35. Life and career Alison Pick is the author of three novels (''The Sweet Edge'', ''Far to Go'', and ''Strangers With the Same Dream''), two poetry collections and one memoir (''Between Gods''). She was born in Toronto, Ontario and grew up in Kitchener. In 1999, she graduated from the University of Guelph with a B.A. in psychology. Pick received her MA in philosophy from Memorial University in Newfoundland. During her teenage years, Pick discovered that her father's Czech family was originally Jewish although he had been raised a Christian. Pick herself later converted to Judaism. Pick's novel ''Far to Go'' won the Canadian Jewish Book Award and was nominated for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. The novel has been optioned for film by House of Films, with a screenplay wri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sara Wheeler
Sara Diane Wheeler (born 20 March 1961) is an English travel author and biographer, noted for her accounts of polar regions. Biography Sara Wheeler was brought up in Bristol, England, and studied Classics and Modern Languages at Brasenose College, University of Oxford. After writing about her travels on the Greek island of Euboea and in Chile, she was accepted by the US National Science Foundation as their first female writer-in-residence at the South Pole, and spent seven months in Antarctica. In her resultant book ''Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica'', she mentioned sleeping in the captain’s bunk in Scott's Hut. Whilst in Antarctica she read ''The Worst Journey in the World'', an account of the Terra Nova Expedition, and she later wrote a biography of its author, Apsley Cherry-Garrard. In 1999 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. From 2005 to 2009 she served as Trustee of the London Library. She was frequently abroad for two years, travell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
