About 300 Valley high school students and their teachers from throughout Central California will come to Fresno State on March 20 for the 2013 Young Writers’ Conference.

Now in its 33rd year, the conference is sponsored by the College of Arts and Humanities, the English Department and the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at Fresno State. It will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Satellite Student Union.

Schools from Fresno, Clovis, Madera, Chowchilla, Merced, King City, Lemoore, Selma, Tulare and Porterville will participate.

Acclaimed poet and author Gary Jackson will be the keynote speaker. He is the author of the poetry collection “Missing You, Metropolis,” which received the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in Fugue, Callaloo, Tin House, The Laurel Review and elsewhere.

He was the recipient of both a Cave Canem and 2012 Bread Loaf fellowship. An MFA graduate from the University of New Mexico, Jackson teaches at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque, N.M., and at the MFA program at Murray State University in Murray, Ky. He is a contributing poetry editor at Catch Up: A journal of comics and literature.

During the conference, cash prizes will be awarded to 18 students for excellence in creative writing, including the prestigious President’s Award, the William Saroyan Society Award and the new Dean’s Council Award. Two high school teachers also will receive awards for excellence in teaching.

Award sponsors include the William Saroyan Society, the College of Arts and Humanities, the San Joaquin Literary Association, the Fresno Area Council of English Teachers, the Henry Madden Library, the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project, the Chicano Writers and Artists Association and the Hmong American Writers’ Circle.

Spectrum, an anthology including over 20 of the best student entries in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction will be distributed. The entries were selected by an MFA student editorial board from nearly 300 submissions. Writing workshops will be offered to students by MFA graduate students and to the teachers by Jackson.

“The conference allows students to meet and interact with other student writers from across the Valley, to get a taste of what a university-level writing workshop might be like and to get expert feedback on their own writing,” said conference coordinator Tanya Nichols, a Fresno State English instructor. “It is also an excellent opportunity for idea exchange among the teachers who come and participate.

For more information, contact Nichols at559.278.2467 or tanichols@csufresno.edu.

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