Dear Murphy Writing Community, If you, like us, have a big ol’ hole in your heart where last year’s Getaway should have been, you’ll be thrilled to know that it will return this year better than ever. The 26th Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway will be held at the Seaview Hotel from January 17-20, 2020. Despite pining for the Getaway last year, we kept busy planning our other retreats and getaways, including our upcoming trips to Scotland and New Hampshire. We particularly loved seeing so many of you last winter at our New Year’s Writing ... Read More...
Getaway Reads 2018: A Personal Essay by Anndee Hochman
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Marissa Luca that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Long-Distance Call by Anndee Hochman My cell phone doesn't ring that often. Especially not at 7:40 a.m. So when the phone—parked near my feet on the coffee table while I nestled on the couch with my laptop—began to buzz one recent morning, I had to look. The caller ID said "Dad." That would have been odd under any circumstance. My father ... Read More...
New for the 2018 Winter Getaway
Happy 25th, Getawayers! The 25th Annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway, a writers' conference near Atlantic City, NJ, will take place January 12-15, 2018. Here are some of the things we're most excited about: Special Guests for 2018 We’re pleased to present our Special Guests for the 2018 Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway: Pulitzer Prize winners Stephen Dunn and Gregory Pardlo. Stephen and Gregory will both lead special sessions of the Advanced Poetry Workshop. Workshops We’re offering 5 new writing workshops in ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Beautiful Girls by Anndee Hochman
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Kendal Nicole Lambert that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Beautiful Girls by Anndee Hochman The problem was an infected earlobe. Sasha, my 13-year-old daughter, had been diligent about swabbing the new piercing twice a day, but the air is full of germs, and somehow one of them had crept inside. Now the ear throbbed scarlet, and a lymph node had swollen just behind it, an unforgiving pea ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: If You Are Absolutely Certain, I Get Suspicious by Mimi Schwartz
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. If You Are Absolutely Certain, I Get Suspicious by Mimi Schwartz Unreliable narrators are everywhere: On Fox News or MSNBC, depending on your politics. In film, theater, and of course literature, which was the original focus of a term coined by critic Wayne Booth in 1961 to refer to a fictional ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Abduction from the Seraglio by Roberta Clipper
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Abduction from the Seraglio by Roberta Clipper I met her in London. In my cousin Shawn's favorite black and tan. We're the only cousins the same age. Our mothers are sisters. We were always begging them to fly us to each other's houses—him to visit me in Nairobi, me to spend school holidays with him in London. I was staring at her long, ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Learning my Place from Nature’s Graveyard
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Learning my Place from Nature's Graveyard by Amanda Morris Splintered fence. Shattered shrubs. Shredded trunks. And pine needles. Everywhere, pine needles. Destruction with the scent of Christmas. As I made my way into the barely accessible remains of yard, gingerly pulling back heavy pine branches to expose anything left ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: The Funnies by Peter E. Murphy
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. The Funnies by Peter E. Murphy I read before I learned to read, or at least I pretended to. I looked at the brightly colored comic strips and made up the words I thought the cartoon characters were saying. The funnies came on Sunday when my father put his music on, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and the rest of their friends. Our small apartment sounded like a cathedral. Every Thursday night ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Crossing the Milky Way by Anndee Hochman
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, a weekly e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Crossing the Milky Way by Anndee Hochman Here is the baby: smell of sourdough, brown butter, mown wheat, warm earth. Moist anemone hands, the toes you nibble as if they are nubs of maple sugar. Behind the closed bedroom door, talk ripples up from downstairs. You rock in the hand-painted chair. Here is the hunger, legible in her wide blue eyes, garnet blossom of a mouth, the cry that bubbles ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Who Will Tell My Story? by Mimi Schwartz
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Stephanie Cawley that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Who Will Tell My Story? by Mimi Schwartz I was away on a writing retreat this January, the first time since my husband Stu died last August that I was able to push away the loss and sense of chaos and feel more like a self I remembered. I vowed not to do e-mail, but like Adam biting the apple, I did it anyway. “Did you pay your quarterly taxes ... Read More...