Maria Gillan: Writers on Writing at Carlow University

The Madwomen in the Attic presents
WRITERS ON WRITING
with Maria Mazziotti Gillan
at Carlow University, Pittsburgh PA 
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
4-5:30pm  Aquinas Hall, Room 306
Sponsored by Carlow University’s English Department, Creative Writing Program, and Women and Gender Studies Program 

MARIA MAZZIOTTI GILLAN is a recipient of the 2014 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs), the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, and the 2008 American Book Award for her book, All That Lies Between Us (Guernica Editions). She is the founder/executive director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, N.J., and editor of the Paterson Literary Review. She is also director of the Creative Writing Program and professor of poetry at Binghamton University-SUNY.

Maria says of her book, Writing Poetry To Save Your Life: How To Find The Courage To Tell Your Stories:

"I wanted to start from a different place, a place controlled by instinct rather than by intelligence. Revision, the shaping and honing of the poem, should come later, and, in revising, care always needs to be taken to retain the vitality and electricity of the poem. Anyone can learn to craft a capable poem, but it is the poems that retain that initial vitality that we remember; these are the poems that teach us how to be human."