Call for Papers: Kent Haruf Literary Celebration

Kent Haruf Literary Celebration

September 22-24, 2017

Salida SteamPlant Event Center
Salida, CO 8120

American novelist Kent Haruf (1943-2014) set his six novels in the fictional town of Holt in eastern Colorado. The novels, The Tie That Binds (1984), Where You Once Belonged (1990), Plainsong (1999), Eventide (2005), Benediction (2014), and Our Souls At Night (2015) have received numerous awards and prizes, and Kent Haruf received the Dos Passos Prize for Literature in 2009 and the Wallace Stegner Award in 2012. Countless reviewers and readers have praised Kent’s works, and now it’s time for the next step.

In September 2017, Salida, Colorado will host the first Kent Haruf Literary Celebration. Chris Outcalt, Kent’s biographer, and Sue Hodson, the Curator of Kent Haruf Literary Manuscripts at The Huntington Library, will be speaking at the literary celebration; in addition, the KHLC Planning Committee invites you to begin the literary discussion of his works.

Call for Papers

Session 1: The Haruf World: A Writer’s Evolving Vision—Beginning, Middle, End (The Tie That Binds/ Plainsong/ Our Souls At Night)

Session 2: Community/ Family/ Womens’ Relationships in Small Town Spaces (Plainsong/ Eventide/ Benediction)

Session 3: Kent Haruf: A Writer’s Craft—grounded in the Geography and Culture of Colorado

We envision 10-minute presentations designed to stimulate audience discussion.

Please email 250-word proposals of individual papers to:

lmarvelAThastingsDOTedu (Laura Marvel Wunderlich, KHLC sessions chair) by March 15, 2017.

If your proposal is accepted, you will be notified by April 15, 2017.

You will need to submit your final paper by August 15, 2017.

Papers (8-10 pages) will serve as the basis for your 10-minute presentation.

Selected papers will be published following the Literary Celebration.