"Think Spring" -- especially if you write picturebooks

Hard to believe that there are plans to be made for next spring already, but I suppose it's a bit like the vegetable garden outside, which I'm in the final stages of clearing and putting to bed for the winter ... pull out the finished material and think about seeds.

So this announcement from Pine Manor College, a snug and friendly haven for growing writers, just outside Boston, comes with thoughts of winter's freewheeling slide into a green and blossoming season, in that magical time After The Election and After the Economy Recovers! Here we go:

The application deadline for admission to the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program’s winter 2009 residency/spring semester is November 15, 2008 (not a postmark date; materials must be received by our offices before or on November 15). Spread the word!

We are pleased to welcome three new MFA faculty members:

Venise Berry is the author of four novels: So Good, An African American Love Story; All of Me, A Voluptuous Tale —recipient of a 2001 Honor Book Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association— Colored Sugar Water, and the forthcoming Pockets of Sanity.

Writer and community activist Amy Hoffman is currently editor in chief of the Women’s Review of Books. She is author of two memoirs, Hospital Time —about taking care of friends with AIDS in the late 1980s and early 1990s— and An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News.

Children’s book writer and illustrator Grace Lin is the author of over a dozen books for young people, including The Ugly Vegetables —an American Booksellers Association’s “Pick of the List”— Dim Sum for Everyone!; Fortune Cookie Fortunes; Olvina Flies; and The Year of the Dog.

We are also pleased to announce that Donald Hall will be our commencement speaker at the January, 2009 residency. The celebrated author of fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and fifteen volumes of poetry, including the recent White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006, Donald Hall has been the recipient of numerous accolades, including The Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America and The National Book Critics Circle Award. He was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States in 2006, a position he held for one year.

More info: http://www.pmc.edu/mfa/overview.htm.