The Leopardi Writing Conference

Lou Berney

Fiction Workshop Leader

Lou Berney is the bestselling author of four novels, most recently November Road, one of the Washington Post's Best Books of 2018, and The Long and Faraway Gone, winner of an Edgar Award. His short fiction has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. He teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Oklahoma City University.

Christine O'Brien

Nonfiction Workshop Leader

Christine O'Brien is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Crave. The book has been praised as being "emotionally fraught," "compelling," and "thoroughly engaging," while also earning praise from The New York Times for its ability to capture her father's creative brilliance and her mother's pioneering spirit with "loving generosity." O'Brien earned a BA in English at UC Berkeley and holds a Double MFA in Nonfiction and Fiction. Her essay "Cul de Sac" received Honorable Mention in the Glimmer Train 2014 Short Story Award for New Writers, and her essays and short stories have appeared in The Seneca Review and The Slush Pile Magazine. This January she appeared on The Dr. Oz show, and she is the host of the upcoming podcast, Good Morning Writing!

Alex Dimitrov

Poetry Workshop Leader

Alex Dimitrov is the author of three books of poems, Begging for It, Together and by Ourselves, and Love and Other Poems, forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2020. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Poetry. He has taught writing at Princeton University, Columbia University, Bennington College, Barnard College, and Sarah Lawrence College. Formerly, he was the Senior Content Editor at the Academy of American Poets, where he edited Poem-a-Day and American Poets magazine. He lives in New York.

Frederick Turner

Distinguished Guest Speaker

Frederick Turner is the author of over thirty books ranging from poetry and literary monographs to cultural criticism and translation. Born in England, raised in Africa by his anthropologist parents Victor and Edie Turner, and educated at Oxford University, he is a Shakespearean scholar, a leading theorist of environmentalism, an authority on the philosophy of Time, and the poet laureate of traditional Karate. His science fiction epic poems led to his being a consultant for NASA's long-range futures group. He received Hungary's highest literary honor for his translations of Hungarian poetry with the distinguished scholar and Holocaust survivor Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, won Poetry's Levinson Prize. He taught at UC Santa Barbara and Kenyon College, edited the Kenyon Review, and is presently Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas-Dallas.

Annemarie Estor

Distinguished Guest Speaker

Annemarie Estor is the author of four books of poetry in Dutch and the recipient of several literary prizes, including the Herman de Coninck Prize and the Jan Campert Prize. Annemarie studied Liberal Arts and Sciences at Maastricht University, where she became interested in 'Literature and Science,' an interest she continues to research in her poetry today. Critics have praised her "intoxicating metaphors, mesmerizing lyricism, and unique musicality." She was a fellow at the International School for Theory in the Humanities in Santiago de Compostela and holds a PhD in the Humanities from Leiden University. Annemarie was a member of the Assessment Committee at the Antwerp Writing Academy and is a member of the arcane Time Stealing Society.

Patricia Hampl

Distinguished Guest Speaker

Patricia Hampl's most recent book is The Art of the Wasted Day (2018, paperback spring, 2019). Other books include the memoirs The Florist's Daughter, Virgin Time, A Romantic Education, and Blue Arabesque. Four of her books have been named The New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year." I Could Tell You Stories was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction. She is also the author of two collections of poetry. Her essays, poems, short fiction, travel pieces and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Essays, and others. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (in poetry and in prose). In 1990 she was awarded MacArthur Fellowship. She is newly retired as Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota, and remains a member of the permanent faculty of the Prague Summer Writing Program.

Lynn Freed

Distinguished Guest Speaker

Lynn Freed's books include seven novels, a collection of stories, and two collections of essays. Five of her books have been named New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and one a best book of the year by Times Literary Supplement. Critics have called Freed's work "dead-on brilliant," "hilariously funny," "acutely observant," and "astute, frank, and pitch-perfect." Jonathan Yardley, critic for The Washington Post Book World, had this to say about her first collection of essays: "To the tiny list of necessary books for people who aspire to the writing life — Mystery and Manners, by Flannery O'Connor, and One Writer's Beginnings, by Eudora Welty — must now be added Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home." The New York Times Book Review called her most recent book of essays, The Romance of Elsewhere, "a marvelous collection."

Freed's short fiction and essays have appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, among many others. She is the recipient of the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two O. Henry Awards, and has received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Guggenheim Foundation, among others. Having grown up in South Africa, she came to the U.S. as a graduate student at Columbia University, where she received an MA and PhD in English Literature. She is Professor Emerita of English at the University of California, Davis, and lives in Northern California.

Thomas Cooney

Founder and Co-Director

Thomas Cooney is a graduate of UCLA with a degree in Art History, and NYU with an MA in Modernism. From 1997 – 2012 he anchored the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Saint Mary's College of California where he served as Acting Director, Director, and Coordinator.  His short prose has been anthologized in The Answer, My Friend and Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit, and his travel essays have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine (Liberation, Paradise Lost, Bollywood Dreams). A Graham Greene scholar, he has also served on several advisory boards, and from 2006 – 2008 was appointed for three consecutive years to serve on the recommendation committee for the awarding of International Fulbright Awards in the field of Creative Writing. 

Lain Hart

Founder and Co-Director

Lain Hart graduated from King's College, University of London, and completed an MA in Museum Anthropology at Columbia University in the City of New York. As a freelance writer and editor, and as an assistant to the curator of the Asian Ethnographic Collection of the American Museum of Natural History and the Education Department of the British Museum, he traveled throughout Europe and Southeast Asia, wrote and edited museum publications, and published non-fiction essays and articles in academic journals and books, including one award-winning collection. Currently, he is teaching composition, studying Italian, taking up birdwatching, and working for a writing education program serving high school students in Oakland, California.

Alan Pitts

Staff

Alan Pitts is an author, geologist, and educator who developed his expertise on the region as a PhD candidate at The University of Camerino, Italy, where he studied the stratigraphic architecture of shallow and deepwater depositional systems in Le Marche. His current focus is on using 3D photogrammetry and gigapixel imagery for geoscience research, and discovering the best espresso in Italy.

Hannah Reigel

Staff

Hannah Riegel's extensive travels have taken her from northwestern Qaidam Basin, China, where she studied desertification, to the Region of Le Marche, Italy, where she was a PhD candidate at the University of Camerino. Currently, Hannah teaches geology at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, but she remains an expert in all things Italian, with an inexhaustible passion for the country, especially for its landscape, food, and music.

Pascal Walls

Staff

Friend of the Conference, Pascal Walls, AKA 'Mr Aperitivo', is a jack of all trades. By day, a graphic and web designer, by night, a vigilante tour guide. Having developed an affection for Le Marche, and particularly Recanati, he can be relied upon for travel information, recommendations, and assistance.

A view of the Adriatic Coast from Recanati

Ascoli Piceno, Le Marche

Statue of Giacomo Leopardi in Recanati

Map showing the location of the Region of Le Marche (in gold)