Writers in Paris
2010 INFORMATION COMING SOON.
June 27 — July 25, 2009
Why Writers in Paris? | Academics | Housing | Faculty
Director of the Program: Deborah Landau, Director, NYU Creative Writing Program
Why Writers in Paris?
NYU Writers in Paris offers poets and fiction writers an opportunity to experience the writer's life in Paris. Students participate in daily workshops and craft classes, are mentored by accomplished professional writers, and attend readings and special seminars led by Paris-based writers and editors. Writing and reading assignments are designed to encourage immersion in the city. For example, poets might visit the Louvre to write ekphrastic poems or create Parisian street sonnets by taking a 14-block walk of the St. Denis area where Francois Villon lived and generating a line of poetry per block. Fiction writers might study dialogue by listening for overheard speech at a sidewalk café or learn about description and setting by writing a story set in the neighborhood where Hemingway lived and worked. Students in the program work intensively to generate new writing and also attend a lively series of readings, lectures, literary walking tours, and special events.
Because Paris is so rich in history, almost every step outside of the classroom will reveal a tidbit of art, architecture, or historical fact hiding around the corner, waiting for discovery. Literary walking tours of Paris and field-trips—including visits to the homes, parks, restaurants, and cafes frequented by Hemingway, Proust, Zola, Balzac, Hugo, Stein, Fitzgerald, Wilde, Voltaire, Diderot, Verlaine, Sartre, Kerouac, Joyce and other writers—will provide a sense of the literary history of the city. In addition, students may decide to take advantage of subsidized tickets to opera, ballet or concerts in Paris's famous theatres. Students may also visit museums with special guided tours to learn more about current exhibitions.
Academics
Classes are held at the NYU in Paris Center, which is located in a beautiful residential area of the 16th arrondissement. The center is near both the Passy and La Muette metro stops as well as the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero. NYU in Paris at Passy is only a short ride away from the center of Paris.
Students who participate in Writers in Paris choose to focus on either poetry or fiction and attend daily writing workshops and craft sessions. Classes are supplemented by readings and lectures by Paris-based writers and publishing professionals. Field trips, cultural activities, readings, and guest lectures constitute an integral component of the program; students are expected to attend and actively participate in all of them. Classes meet in the afternoons, Monday-Thursday. Special programs are held in the evenings. Students are free to write in the mornings and to write or travel Friday-Sunday. This is a four-week program carrying 8 points of undergraduate credit. Enrollment in the entire program is required.
Housing
All students participating in the program are required to live in NYU-provided housing. Students are housed in private studios with private kitchenettes and bathrooms in the residence hall, Residence Republique, operated by Les Estudines and located in the 11th arrondissement. The site is staffed with a resident assistant (RA), in addition to the building staff. There are on-site laundry facilities and an on-site mini-gym.
Like the East and West Village in New York, the 11th arrondissement of Paris (called "le Onzieme" by locals) is home to a bustling cosmopolitan community of artists, musicians, filmmakers, craftspeople, students, and writers. It is stocked with plenty of hip cafes, quirky neighborhood restaurants, and trendy music venues. Originally a working-class community of artisans and laborers, the 11th now houses vibrant Chinese and North African populations alongside the art and student community. More and more, as gentrification has shaped the neighborhood, local chats revolve around recent art installations, novels, or music, over coffee at the local bistro.
In Residence Republique, students are situated near the Place de la Bastille, site of the legendary storming of the Bastille prison by masses of workers at the outset of the French Revolution. Though no trace of the Bastille prison remains, the Place de la Bastille is now the site of the Opera Bastille, home of the Paris National Opera. The residence is also just a short, 15-minute walk to Notre Dame and a quick Metro ride to all sites within Paris.
Faculty
Joshua Beckman (Poetry Craft Seminar) was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the author of six books, including Take It (forthcoming in 2009), Shake and two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer: Nice Hat. Thanks. and Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He is an editor at Wave Books and has translated numerous works of poetry and prose, including Poker by Tomaz Salamun, which was a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Award. He is also the recipient of numerous other awards, including a NYFA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize.
Matthew Rohrer (Poetry Workshop) is the author of Rise Up(2007) and A Green Light(2004), which was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin International Poetry Prize. He is also the author of Satellite(2001), Nice Hat. Thanks(2002, with Joshua Beckman) and A Hummock in the Malookas(W.W. Norton, 1994), a winner of the National Poetry Series. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Hopwood Award for Poetry and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.
Jonathan Safran Foer (Fiction Workshop) is the author of the bestselling novels Everthing Is Illuminated, named Book of the Year by The Los Angeles Times and the winner of numerous awards, including the Guardian First Book Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Prize, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Foer was one of Rolling Stone's "People of the Year" and Esquire's "Best and Brightest." He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Darin Strauss (Fiction Craft Seminar) is the author of the international bestseller Chang and Eng, and The New York Times Notable book The Real McCoy, one of the New York Public Library's "25 Books to Remember of 2002." His latest novel, More Than It Hurts You, was pusblished in June, 2008. His work has been translated into fourteen languages, and he teaches writing at New York University, for which he won a 2005 "Outstanding Dozen" teaching award. Darin was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction writing.