Green wooden rockers on an elegant porch, views of a sparkling lake and distant mountains, an Indian Summer twilight, fantastic food, cozy accommodations, and engaging company discussing contemporary fiction, poetry, and film inspired by and created in the beautiful Northeast Kingdom.

This region, home to Wallace Stegner for decades, is a place that draws many, and once discovered, it’s a place that draws you again and again.

Announcing The Second Annual Wallace Stegner Weekend at Highland Lodge:
Northeast Kingdom Artists Speak about Sense of Place
Friday to Sunday, September 24-26, 2010

Our weekend is the same as last year, the last in September, beginning on Friday the 24th to Sunday the 26th. Our rates are $285 per person for the weekend, double occupancy, with accommodations, all meals from dinner Friday night through breakfast Sunday morning, and events included. Single occupancy rate is $320 for the weekend (9% tax is additional). Special book group rate: come with your book group; for every 5 people in a cottage, one person gets the weekend free!

This year our Stegner-inspired theme is “Sense of Place.” We are celebrating our place, this region of Vermont—the Northeast Kingdom, that Stegner so loved, and where he was inspired to place two novels and several short stories.
All of our guests reside in the Kingdom, and all are recognized for their talent and significant contributions to our lives here; their work has also garnered national recognition and awards. Young adult and children’s book author Natalie Kinsey Warnock, her brother and acclaimed poet Leland Kinsey, writer and oral history expert Charlie Morrissey, and arts and culture impresario and celebrated filmmaker Jay Craven have all agreed to join our weekend. Please see below for further descriptions on each of these talented NEK denizens.

Our weekend includes a panel discussion on “Sense of Place, “ film showings, author talks and readings, and excursions to visit other Stegner and “Crossing to Safety” haunts. We will keep Mr. Stegner in mind, even as we explore and celebrate the way contemporary artists utilize the NEK in their work.

Please help us spread the word! We’d love to fill the lodge and cottages. We are optimistic that with as great a turnout as last year, we can make the Stegner weekend an annual one. We thank our partners, the Galaxy Book Shop in Hardwick and the Greensboro Free Library for their assistance in making our weekend possible.

You can read about last year's Stegner weekend here: Stegner Weekend 2009

Stegner “Sense of Place” Weekend Guest Speakers

Our weekend guests include Northeast Kingdom native Natalie Kinsey Warnock, whose young adult and picture books tell the stories of growing up and coming of age in the Northeast Kingdom, from the earliest settler days to today. She has published 20 books, including her first book, an ALA Notable book, The Canada Geese Quilt. Her book , As Long as There are Mountains was selected by the Vermont Humanities Council as a state-wide Vermont Reads story in 2006. Natalie regularly presents to school groups about the importance of capturing stories; she is an inspiration to all who hear her.

Leland Kinsey, Natalie’s brother, also joins us. Author of six books of poetry, Lee’s brilliant, evocative poems powerfully reflect his experience growing up on a family farm here, where h is ancestors settled in the early 1800s. His poetry transcends singular experience to reflect the universal experiences of love, loss, and living. Several of his poems have been featured on National Public Radio’s “Writer’s Almanac” with Garrison Keillor. Most recently, Leland gave the commencement address at Sterling College in May, where he was awarded an honorary degree. He has conducted writing workshops for the Vermont Arts Council and the Children’s Literacy Foundation at over 100 schools in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Charlie Morrissey, oral history expert, editor, and writer joins us also. Former director of the Vermont Historical Society, and author of Vermont: A History, a book in the States and the Nation series. Charlie is an authoritative voice on living and writing in Vermont. With his weekly radio broadcast, “Life in Vermont,” on Vermont’s WDEV, he continuously engages listeners with our fascinating history.

Jay Craven, award-winning film director, screen writer, and producer is also a professor of film studies at Marlboro College. For decades he has served our region as impresario of the arts. In 1981 he founded regional arts organization Catamount Arts. With his company Kingdom County Productions, co-founded with partner Bess O’ Brien, Jay has made seven feature films; three of these are of NEK author Howard Frank Mosher’s novels. His work is the ultimate “sense of place” mission—to capture the characters, lives and spirit of the people in our region and to bridge community and culture with the arts here, where we live.
During our weekend, artist Deborah Holmes’ gorgeous water colors will adorn our walls. After several years of feeling at home in the Kingdom, Deborah has relocated here and continues to paint landscapes and intimate glimpses of life in northern Vermont. Her art gives us a window into the many moods and seasons of our beautiful region.

Suggested “Sense of Place” reading for our weekend: Natalie Kinsey Warnock’s As Long as There are Mountains, and From Dawn to Dusk; Leland Kinsey’s Family Drives and Northern Almanac; Charlie Morrisey’s Vermont: A History, Lynn Stegner’s Pipers at the Gates of Dawn; Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety, his Collected Stories, and his article in Country Journal, August 1979 “Northeast Kingdom;” Jay Craven’s commentaries on working with Howard Frank Mosher and Kris Kristofferson(see www.fledgling films.com)