The Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is an
author's conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near
Bread Loaf Mountain
Bread Loaf Mountain is a mountain located in Addison County, Vermont, in the Breadloaf Wilderness in the Green Mountain National Forest. The mountain is part of the central Green Mountains. Bread Loaf Mountain is flanked to the northeast by ...
, east of
Middlebury, Vermont
Middlebury is the shire town (county seat) of Addison County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,152. Middlebury is home to Middlebury College and the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History and the adjacent ...
. Founded in 1926, it has been called by ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' "the oldest and most prestigious
writers' conference in the country." Bread Loaf is a program of
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists, Middlebury w ...
and at its inception was closely associated with
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...
, who lived in nearby
Ripton and attended a total of 29 sessions.
Workshop
Every other day for 10 days, the 220 participants attend 10-person workshops, where their writing is assessed by the faculty and others in the workshop, including Scholars and Fellows. Numerous readings, craft classes, events, and agent meetings are also included.
Michael Collier, a poet and professor at the
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD i ...
and director of the conference, told ''
Seven Days'' newspaper of Vermont the event should not be confused with the more leisurely model of a writers' retreat. It's "designed for learning rather than for on-site writing." ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...
'' in an article on summer literary gatherings, said of Bread Loaf, "There is nowhere in America where you can hear more great writers reading more great work in such a short space of time." ''
Seven Days'' notes that participants are warned to pace themselves to avoid exhaustion.
Admission
According to ''
Seven Days'', the likelihood of general admission to Bread Loaf (in 2005) stood at about 17 percent, given a total applicant pool of 1,500. Of those accepted, 170 students pay full fare. These people are called Contributors (because they contribute to the workshops with their writing). ''The New Yorker'' wrote that the most coveted scholarships to Bread Loaf are the 25 "Waiterships", in which promising writers earn their keep by serving three meals a day to the paying guests. Besides the Waiterships, applicants who have been published can try for tuition scholarships, and those with a published book can become Bread Loaf Teaching Fellows. Waiters, Tuition Scholars, and Fellows are given the opportunity to give public readings.
Authors
Noted authors who have been associated with the conference over the years include
Richard Wright,
James Brown
James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by Honorific nick ...
,
John Ciardi,
Bernard DeVoto,
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...
,
John Gardner,
Richard Gehman,
Donald Hall,
John Irving
John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American and Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.
Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of his fourth novel '' Th ...
,
Shirley Jackson,
Barry Lopez,
Robie Macauley,
George R.R. Martin,
Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
,
Norman Mailer
Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least ...
,
Toni Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically accl ...
,
Linda Pastan,
May Sarton,
Anne Sexton,
Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short-story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel '' The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerou ...
,
Stanley Elkin
Stanley Lawrence Elkin (May 11, 1930 – May 31, 1995) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. His extravagant, satirical fiction revolves around American consumerism, popular culture, and male-female relationships.
Biograp ...
,
Tim O'Brien and
Richard Yates.
[Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Faculty, Guests, Staff](_blank)
Faculty
In the 1960s the conference director was
John Ciardi, who lost the support of the executives (particularly that of assistant director Paul Cubeta, who agitated strongly for increased salaries). Cubeta was replaced by Edward A. "Sandy" Martin in 1965. Dissent from the participants continued to grow over the next few years as pressure increased to abandon the principles of earned hierarchy and adopt more egalitarian structures and behaviours.
Recent Faculty have included
Julia Alvarez
Julia Alvarez (born March 27, 1950) is an American New Formalist poet, novelist, and essayist. She rose to prominence with the novels '' How the García Girls Lost Their Accents'' (1991), ''In the Time of the Butterflies'' (1994), and ''Yo! ...
,
Andrea Barrett,
Charles Baxter,
Linda Bierds,
Robert Boswell,
Lan Samantha Chang,
Ted Conover,
Mark Doty,
Percival Everett,
Lynn Freed,
Linda Gregerson,
Patricia Hampl,
Edward Hirsch,
Brigit Pegeen Kelly,
William Kittredge,
Rebecca Makkai,
Antonya Nelson,
Carl Phillips,
Natasha Trethewey,
Ellen Bryant Voigt,
Daniel Wallace, and
Dean Young.
The Conference is currently administered by director
Jennifer Grotz and assistant director, Lauren Francis-Sharma.
Fellows
Recent Fellows at the Conference have included
Christopher Castellani,
Geri Doran,
Thomas Sayers Ellis,
John Engels,
Ilya Kaminsky,
Suji Kwock Kim,
Naeem Murr,
Peter Orner,
Eric Puchner,
Richard Siken,
Monique Truong,
Vendela Vida,
Tiphanie Yanique and
C. Dale Young
C. Dale Young (born April 18, 1969) is an American poet and writer, physician, editing, editor and educator of Asian and Latino descent.
Life
Young writes and publishes poetry and short stories, practices medicine full-time, and teaches in the W ...
.
Waiterships (work-study scholarships)
Well-known recipients of waiterships have included
Julia Alvarez
Julia Alvarez (born March 27, 1950) is an American New Formalist poet, novelist, and essayist. She rose to prominence with the novels '' How the García Girls Lost Their Accents'' (1991), ''In the Time of the Butterflies'' (1994), and ''Yo! ...
,
Amanda Davis,
Samuel R. Delany
Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (, ; born April 1, 1942) is an American writer and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays on science fiction, literature, sexual orientation, sexuality, and ...
,
Carolyn Forche,
Jonathan Galassi,
Jean Kwok,
Justin Torres
Justin Torres (born 1980) is an American novelist and an associate professor of English at University of California, Los Angeles. He won the First Novelist Award for his semi-autobiographical debut novel ''We the Animals'' (2011), which was also ...
,
Tama Janowitz,
Antonya Nelson,
Tiphanie Yanique and
Joy Williams.
Beginning with the 2020 conference, the new director, Jen Grotz, discontinued this form of scholarship, redirecting funds to scholarships without work requirements as a more generous way of supporting the same participants. This decision considered the fact that some felt that the "waiterships" though well respected created a sense of racist distinction (in recent years many waiters have been writers of color). There was a recognition that the meal service role unintentionally created the perception that some scholarship recipients were being categorized as servants.
In popular culture
In the 2006 episode "
Moe'N'a Lisa" of the animated sitcom ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a Satire (film and television), satirical depiction of American life ...
'', some of the plot takes place at the "Wordloaf Literary Conference" in Vermont, based on Bread Loaf. The episode features the authors
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon ( ;
born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, ...
,
Jonathan Franzen,
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See and was an American author and journalist widely ...
and
Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...
, all voice acting as themselves.
See also
*
Literary festival
A literary festival, also known as a book festival or writers' festival, is a regular gathering of writers and readers, typically on an annual basis in a particular city. A literary festival usually features a variety of presentations and readings ...
*
Bread Loaf School of English
*
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists, Middlebury w ...
*
New England Review
References
{{reflist
External links
Bread Loaf Writers' ConferenceAn account of Waitership.What It's Like to be a Bread Loaf Waiter
American writers' organizations
Recurring events established in 1926
Middlebury, Vermont
Writers' conferences
Middlebury College
1926 establishments in Vermont
Events in Vermont