A Message from Mimi Herman, Vice Chair, Association of Writers and Writing Programs Board of Directors

This was addressed to the board, but may be of interest to some of our members. This was posted to the EWCA board on January 15th, much too late for any savings from early registration or for calls for papers. Seems the main message was that the AWP has advertising space for sale, which might be of interest to some of you. Please, take a look. Some of you may be interested in attending.

Greetings from AWP—the Association of Writers & Writing Programs. We are the US’s professional association of creative writers and writing programs and represent over 50,000 individual writers, 550 academic creative writing programs, and 150 writers centers and conferences. I am reaching out to you today about our annual conference and bookfair, the largest annual gathering of creative writers in North America.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year AWP is moving forward with all-virtual conference, 3-7 March 2021. This offers the opportunity for writers from around the world to participate. Our keynote speaker is US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. The conference will feature 250 readings and panels and over 20 featured events.

Held annually since 1973, AWP offers artistic exposure, professional development and access to opportunity for writers and teachers of writing at all stages of their careers. For example, in 2019, writer Jasmin Iolani Hakes was able to attend her first AWP conference. “AWP changed my life,” she writes, “I got an email about submitting a general query to the agents that would be there through Writer to Agent. I figured it would be good practice. Three agents requested a meeting, and the third ended up being my unicorn. My novel sold at auction in the fall and comes out with Scribner next spring!”

This year, we’ve identified an exceptional online platform to bring the AWP experience into the virtual space. One opportunity of our new virtual reality is the ability to connect across great distances, and we very much hope writing organizations like yours might encourage participation from your members, building bridges between international writing communities.

I’ve attached the #AWP21 sponsor guide (find here:

(https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/schedule_overview)

which details packages that offer marketing benefits, cost effective registration packages, and exhibit spaces. We’d also like to offer you and/or your members access to special sponsorship packages developed for our institutional members that offer the ability for a large number of your students or staff to attend at a very reasonable cost. These are outlined below:

Sustaining Benefactor

$3,000 Package:

30 Registrations

Sponsor Listing on AWP’s website & conference platform

Sponsor listing in 4 issues of The Writer’s Chronicle

Additional 3 months post-conference access through 3 June 2021

Option for evening virtual reception

Sustaining Sponsor

$4,500 Package:

50 Registrations

Sponsor Listing on AWP’s website & conference platform

Sponsor listing in 4 issues of The Writer’s Chronicle

Additional 3 months post-conference access through 3 June 2021

Option for evening virtual reception

$950 Student-Only Add-On

25 Registrations

Additional 3 months post-conference access through 3 June 2021

As an AWP attendee over many years, I can’t tell you what an enriching and rewarding experience this unique conference of creative writers truly is. Please look over the sponsor guide and let me know if you have any questions or if I can help in any way.

In the difficult times we are all facing, AWP is very excited to have the opportunity to bring the international literary community together for four days of extraordinary learning and exchange. Here is a link to the schedule of accepted panel events:

https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/schedule_overview.

We will also be offering some VIP sponsor events and look forward to sharing those details.

I hope you will consider how your organization and/or members might join us, and please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or if I can be helpful in any way.

With all best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year.

Yours,

Mimi Herman

Vice Chair, AWP Board of Directors

October 14, 2019

WLN Mentors Needed

Professor Chris LeCluyse at Westminster College, Utah, is organising mentors for writing centre staff interested in publishing articles about the work they do in the Writing Center Newsletter.

Professor of English at Westminster College, Utah

Chris writes: The WLN mentor match program is intended to bring writers working on articles for WLN together with experienced mentors who know a thing or two about writing center work and publishing. Mentors give feedback to writers submitting to WLN to help them develop articles for publication. Mentors actively engage in goal-setting with the mentee.

Mentors also work with writers who may be interested in writing but aren’t sure what to write about or where to begin. In other words, a WLN mentor does much the same work as tutors in a writing center.

If you would like to be a WLN mentor, please fill out the online application form at http://bit.ly/WLNMentorApp.

E-mail questions to Chris LeCluyse at clecluyse@westminstercollege.edu.

September 19, 2019September 19, 2019

One thing in common: Our love for writing (consultation and centers):

Inaugural European Writing Centers Association Summer Institute 2019

Originally published in the SEPTEMBER 18, 2019 issue of SCHREIBZENTRUM VIADRINA

Writing centers are popping up worldwide. As more and more institutions of higher education see the need to support writers, writing and writing to learn, they are opening writing centers. However, those tasked with trying to establish writing centers, most often have to learn their business by doing and in relative isolation.

To provide professionals and academics within Europe who are seeking to develop writing centers a sustained opportunity for professional development, the European Writing Centers Association offered its first Summer Institute August 19th-23rd at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) in Germany, directly at the German-Polish border. Thirty participants from 16 different countries participated. They were invited and accompanied by five experienced Writing Center leaders from Germany, Ireland, and the USA.

Because a central aspect of writing center work is the philosophy of collaborative learning, the Summer Institute was designed to be a truly interactive and participatory learning experience. All topics were delivered to allow all participants to share knowledge and experiences with each other. Together with their leaders, they enhanced their understanding of the following topics:

. Peer writing tutor education
. Working with faculty and administration
. Demonstrating impact: Writing center assessment and more
. The Writing Center budget
. Grant writing for writing center projects
. Possible exchange programs (e.g. Erasmus)
. Working with multilingual students
. Writing center research and publication
. Writing center sustainability

Participants also had ample time to network and to socialize as they walked together to our lodgings in a student hotel across the lovely Oder River that marks the border between Germany and Poland. They shared snacks from their home countries during our daily coffee breaks and spent time each day in small mentoring groups.

To celebrate our hard work at the closing of the Institute, participants created and staged writing circus characters in a Writers‘ Circus, “a very creative and great way to end our time together”, as a participant expressed it.

The feedback of participants was overwhelmingly positive and many expressed how they were looking forward not only to going back to their writing center work, but also to continuing the networking informally and through future summer institutes. The Summer Institute, one participant summarized, “showed me the incredible connections you make with people from all around the world, because we have that one thing in common: The love for writing – and writing consultations and centers!”

Feedback for European Writing Centers Summer Institute 2019

September 17, 2019

Annual Dartmouth Summer Seminar for Writing Research

Annual Dartmouth Summer Seminar for Writing Research

Save the dates! July 26 – August 7, 2020

Hanover, NH, USA

“The Summer Seminar was one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my career.” (previous participant)

A detailed announcement and the seminar application will be available by October 1st – applications due December 15^th 2019—but here is a preview:

The 2020 Dartmouth Summer Seminar for Writing Research is designed for writing faculty from all types of higher education venues and contexts who are beginning to work on data-driven research about writing in a variety of higher education contexts, and who would like an intensive, high-powered two weeks to work on that research, review approaches and methods, consult directly with experts, and network long-term with a cohort of other researchers from around the world. Guided interaction about participants’ projects is offered in the months leading up to the Seminar. The Seminar itself offers a quiet, resource-rich environment, coursework, small-group discussion and exchange, individual consultation with Seminar leaders, time to work alone or in groups on research projects, and a concluding presentation to the group with feedback from team leaders.

We encourage both individuals and research groups or teams to apply.

The Seminar coursework covers a range of topics, including data segmenting and coding, statistical analysis, effective literature reviews, research ethics, and so on. Special-interest topics are presented based on participants’ projects.

If you’ve been asking yourself any of the following questions, this is the seminar for you:

• How do I turn an interest into a viable data-driven investigation?

• I am very comfortable with my usual research approach, but would like to develop new data-driven research abilities; can you help?

• What data do I collect for my research study? How do I collect them?

• What should I look for when I analyze the data? What is the deeper phenomenon I am looking for? What is a good site for investigating it?

• I would like a writing research group within which to work—how can I find that?

• Everyone seems to be talking about “coding” these days—how can I learn more about it?

• What methods are the best for the questions I would like to answer?

• Where can I learn more about how to select a sample, how to create a worthwhile survey or interview, and how to calculate statistical significance?

• Should I conduct a pilot study first? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a pilot study (including funding)?

• Why does my research question keep changing?

• What’s the best way to present and publish my research?

Contact Christiane Donahue at Composition.Research.Seminar@Dartmouth.Edu with any questions. fffffffffffff

September 17, 2019September 19, 2019

Blurring the Lines: Academic, Professional, and Popular Writing

Blurring the Lines: Academic, Professional, and Popular Writing
Fourth International IFAW Conference on Academic Writing
July 6-7, 2020

Conference Venue: MOFET, The Institute of Research,

Curriculum and Program Development for Teacher Education, Tel Aviv, Israel

See the full “Call for Proposals” in the attached PDF.

Further information about the conference (e.g., registration, accommodations) will soon be available on the conference website.

Questions can be addressed to: IFAWiconference@gmail.com

Click here to submit an abstract

Monica Broido

Head of Writing Programs
Division of Languages

Webb Building, room 210

Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel

IFAW

Co-chair

July 3, 2018

The 2018 EWCA Summer Retreat

Back Row: Íde O’Sullivan, Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, Birgit Huemer, Doris Pany-Habsa, Franziska Liebetanz, Shareen Grogan, and Lawrence Cleary. Front row: Pam Bromley, Katrin Girgensohn and Annemieke Meijer. The man with the very long arms is Mario van de Visser.

On the 21st and 22nd of June, 2018, in an effort to move our association toward greater sustainability, three members of the EWCA board, the current EWCA Chair Franziska Liebetanz, Center for Key Competencies and Research Learning (ZSFL) Writing Center Head, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany; Doris Pany-Habsa, Head of the Writing Center, University of Graz, Austria; and Lawrence Cleary, Educational Developer and Co-Director of the Regional Writing Centre, University Limerick, Ireland met with Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, Head of Centre for Academic Writing, Coventry University, EATAW ex-officio board member and editor of the Journal of Academic Writing (JoAW), the journal of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing); Íde O’Sullivan, Senior Educational Developer and Co-Director Regional Writing Centre, University Limerick, Ireland;

University Limerick straddling the River Shannon, Limerick, Ireland

Birgit Huemer, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching (Academic German) University Luxembourg Language Centre; Shareen Grogan, Director, Writing and Math Centers at National University, San Diego, California and past President, IWCA; Alison Farrell, Teaching Development Officer in the Centre for Teaching and Learning and Head of the University’s Writing Centre, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland; Pamela Bromley, Assistant Director of College Writing and Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations, Pomona College, California; Mario van de Visser, Instructor Division Academic Support Language Center coordinator of the Scriptorium, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Annemieke Meijer is a lecturer and academic tutor at University College Utrecht, and the coordinator of UCU’s Writing & Skills Center, University College, Utrect, The Netherlands; and Katrin Girgensohn, Center for Key Competencies and Research Learning (ZSFL) Head, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, past Chair Together, we developed a plan for the future with very concrete steps: EWCA and current Advisory Board member to the EWCA.

We had very good and helpful presentations about the EWCA, the IWCA (International Writing Center Association), the EATAW (European Association of Teaching Academic Writing) and the Writing Center Journal, and we had lovely Pecha Kuchas about the writing centers of all the contributors.

We spent two very productive and fruitful days thinking about our European Writing Center Association. We would like to say thank you to those who came all this way to Ireland to make contributions.

All those attending contributing to making the EWCA a more sustainable organisation

Together, we developed a plan for the future with very concrete steps:

In 2019, we will have an EWCA Summer Institute for writing center people at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. Details will be announced soon.
In 2020, we will have the EWCA Conference in Graz at the Karl-Franzens University. Doris Pany will host the conference. https://schreibzentrum.uni-graz.at/de/schreibzentrum/
We will continue our dialogue with the EATAW Board to collaborate on common issues and the needs of our members.
We will create a really simple website, which will also include the revised text of our Mission Statement.
Lastly, we would like to announce that our EWCA Board will be supported by Annemieke Meijer (Writing Center coordinator, University College Utrecht).

Back Row: Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, Birgit Huemer, Doris Pany-Habsa, Franziska Liebetanz, Shareen Grogan, Mario van de Visser and Lawrence Cleary. Front row: Pam Bromley, Katrin Girgensohn and Annemieke Meijer

We look forward to moving forward with our objectives and to communicating further through our listserv and in the coming weeks and months.

March 28, 2017

University of Cologne issues an invitation to their upcoming 10th Write-Peer-Tutor * intern Conference

The University of Cologne has issued an invitation to their upcoming 10th Write-Peer-Tutor * intern Conference to be held from September 30th to October 2nd, 2017.

“We are looking forward to welcoming you to the SPTK in Cologne this year. We want to discuss the latest developments and experiences in the area of peer consulting with you, the writing staff from all over Germany and Europe.

A call for papers was issued as well on the topic of “Roles (conflicts) in the peer-writing advice”. Abstracts must be submitted by April 30th, 2017 to: sptk-2017@uni-koeln.de.

For more information: contact us by e-mail or telephone: 0221/470 38 14 or sptk-2017 (at) uni-koeln.de. visit: http://www.schreibzentrum.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/sptk2017.html