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: Excerpt from Devil on My Heels by Joyce McDonald
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. 1 from Devil on My Heels by Joyce McDonald Lately I have taken to reading poems to dead boys in the Benevolence Baptist Cemetery. They don't walk away before I have finished the first sentence, like most of the live boys I know. When I read to them, their eyes don't wander to something, or someone, more interesting. I can pretend these ... 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 2017: The Thrall’s Tale by Judith Lindbergh
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Jamie Walters that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. from The Thrall's Tale by Judith Lindbergh Einar owns me, the runes at my collarbone speak from the carved stone, smooth with wear. The amulet belonged to another before me, another thrall whose name is lost. They don’t remember even how she died, only that she did about the time that I was born. At my birth I was named for the fire burning ... Read More...
Getaway Reads 2017: Funeral for a Childhood by Amanda Morris
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Jamie Walters that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Funeral for a Childhood by Amanda Morris I mourn the childhood that I didn’t have. I remember the moment it clicked: The realization that everything I thought I knew, all my memories, represented a fantasy interpretation of events; untrue. We were sitting at a booth in the 50s style diner, the lingering scent of pancakes, maple syrup, and ... Read More...
Getaway Reads 2017: Fifty-Fifty by Roberta Clipper
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Jamie Walters that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Fifty-Fifty by Roberta Clipper That’s what I call myself. My mother’s a mongrel. That’s what she says: ancestors from so many different parts of Europe that she can’t tell where she got the same name as Dad’s. It’s true! It’s on her birth certificate—Gillian Ann Gill. As southern as the William Williamses and Jo Ann Joneses of the West. I tease ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Extract from Chapter 4, Spring of Hope by Michelle Cameron
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Kendal Lambert that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Extract from Chapter 4, Spring of Hope by Michelle Cameron April 28, 1796. Piedmont The company was marched into the cobbler’s shop and the cobbler ordered, at musket point, to fashion them all new footwear. Every soldier in Daniel’s company knew General Bonaparte’s motto, “the war must feed the war.” The general moved his men too quickly ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: The Need for Character
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. The Need for Character by Richard K. Weems Until this morning, my story was the same as any other yokel leaning on the brass rail at 9 a.m. Until this morning, there was no reason to tell my story to anyone but the tenderer of the booze and every-goddamn-one else like me: hiding in the dark in broad daylight, feeling safe with those who ... 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...