Experiment Under the Mentorship of Accomplished Writers
The conference will feature a combination of writing workshops and readings led by published mentors. This year we are pleased to offer mentorship by authors Colleen Michaels, Enzo Silon Surin, and Kevin Carey. The workshop will culminate in a group reading of student work created during the day. Participants may experiment with different styles of creative writing, including poetry, fiction, and personal essay. Students will have an opportunity to work in small groups with each mentor over the course of the day.
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Colleen Michaels is the author of Prize Wheel (Small Bites Press, 2023), the editor of Salem Power: Poems from the 2014 Improbable Places Poetry Tour (Derby Wharf Light Box, 2023), and coauthor, along with Kevin Carey, of the chapbook, Olympus Heights (Lily Poetry Review, 2023). Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including Passages North, Nixes Mate, The Paterson Review, Cider Press Review, Barrelhouse, Modern Grimoire: Contemporary Fairy Tales, Fables and Folklore (Indigo Ink Press), and Raising Lilly Ledbetter:Women Poets Occupy the Work Space (Lost Horse Press). Her poems have been commissioned as installations for The Massachusetts Poetry Festival, The Peabody Essex Museum, and The Trustees of Reservations. She directs the Writing Studio at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts, where she began the Improbable Places Poetry Tour, bringing poetry to unlikely places like tattoo parlors, laundromats, and swimming pools. Yes, in the swimming pool. 
taught, performed, and lectured at schools, universities, festivals and serves as a keynote speaker on topics such as social justice, mental health reform, the immigrant experience, and racial disparities. He is the author of four collections of poetry, including American Scapegoat (Black Lawrence Press, 2023) and When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (2020), winner of the 21st Annual Massachusetts Book Awards. He is also Publisher at Central Square Press and Founder/Executive Director at the Faraday Publishing Company, a nonprofit literary services and social advocacy organization. www.enzosurinink.com
Kevin Carey is Coordinator of Creative Writing at Salem State University. Books include: The Beach People (2014), The One Fifteen to Penn Station (2012), Jesus Was a Homeboy (2016) which was an Honor book for the Paterson Literary Prize, & Set in Stone (2020). His poems have appeared on The Writers Almanac on National Public Radio three times and on The Academy of American Poets Poem a Day. Kevin is also a playwright and a filmmaker. He has co-directed & co-produced two documentaries about poets, All That Lies Between Us and Unburying Malcolm Miller. A crime novel,Murder in the Marsh, from Darkstroke Books, was released in October (2020). A new novel Junior Miles and the Junkman was out in September of 2023 from Fitzroy Books / Regal House Publishing and a co-written collection Olympus Heights (Lily Poetry Review) was out in October of 2023. He is the co-founder of Molecule: a tiny lit mag. 
