Enter our 2012 Unified Literary Contest now for your chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to one of our groundbreaking 2012 programs.  Winners will be published in North America's leading literary online and print journals,  and the will receive free tuition (including airfare and accommodations) to a 2012 SLS Program.  

JUDGES: Mary Gaitskill (fiction), Tony Hoagland (poetry), and Ander Monson (non fiction). 

Our illustrious contest partners: The Walrus. Black Warrior Review. DIAGRAM. The St. Petersburg Review. The Center for Fiction (The Literarian). Graywolf Press. Joyland. Branch. 

Don't miss this chance to attend one of our unique programs! Check out the full contest guidelines.  

LITHUANIA 2012: UPDATES ON OUR 20th PROGRAM:

JOIN US AT OUR LARGEST, MOST UNIQUE 

PROGRAM TO DATE!

For the very first time participants of Jewish Lithuania will be invited to take part in the program of fellow NGO Maceva - we will invite guests of SLS to visit one of 200 old Jewish cemeteries, and help to have them cleaned and photographed in order to protect the memories of 700 years old Jewish community which thrived in the country before being almost completely exterminated.  The Board of Advisors of Maceva include such names as prof. Vytautas Landsbergis, Howard Margom and probably most known contemporary Jewish novelist Grigory Kanovich.   

Songer/Songwriter Dan Bern added to Lithuania Faculty:  

 Dan Bern will be joining us in Lithuania this summer to run a song-writing workshop and perform for the program participants as well as members of the local community. Bern's father was a concert pianist who emigrated from Lithuania to Palestine in 1939 and his mother a a singer and poet who had also escaped the ravages of World War II. In time Bern found the guitar, and his way to the West Coast, whre he got his footing in the neo-folk music scene in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. After seventeen albums, he's amassed a strong underground following, built in part on his prodigious output of intellectual and topical songs. Learn more about Dan on his website. 

Multi-disciplinary Quintan Ana Wikswo joins the faculty for the  2012 Lithuania Program -- SLS Lithuania: The Heart of Europe. Wikswo will be a running a course, "The Phoenix and the Pilgrim" in cooperation with the local artistic community, and engaging with centuries of intersections and collisions of Litvak and Lithuanian experience. 

Along with bringing a number of young Belarusian writers to participate in the full program and workshops, we are now able to offer parallel workshops for local Lithuanian writers, led by renowned contemporary Eastern European writers. The expanded, meaningful, and unique new Lithuania program offers you the choice of one of two dynamic two-week sessions or the chance to stay for a month in the heart of central Europe: Vilnius, Lithuania. We are also expanding our Jewish Lithuania component, including prominent local and Eastern European participation. Our award-winning faculty includes  Eileen Myles, Laimonas Briedis, Peter Cole, John Coy, Jonathan Garfinkel, Eric Goodman, Arielle Bernstein, Adina Hoffman, Ilya Kaminsky, Sergey Kanovich, Claudia Keelan, Kerry Shawn Keys, Libby Hodges, Fiona McCrae, Andrew Miksys, Ander Monson,  Quintan Ana Wikswo, Josip Novakovich, Dawn Raffel, Pierre Joris, Donald Revell, Steve Stern, and Meg Wolitzer and others TBA.

The program continues to be expanded; look for updates in upcoming newsletters! 

Come join us for the experience of a lifetime, a literary journey like no other.  

APPLY TODAY!

THE FIRST ANNUAL SLS PHOTO CONTEST IS NOW MORE THAN 70 PHOTOS STRONG!  We have received 70 photos and counting for our brand new Facebook contest! Check them out here, and vote for your favourites! Submit your own images to our very first photo competition,so that we can take a look at SLS over the years through your photographs! Send us the best photograph that you took in one of our seminar locations: Russia, Montreal, Kenya, and Lithuania. The first place winner (chosen by SLS) will receive free tuition in the next upcoming program of their choice! (A prize worth up to USD2950!) As well, the photo with the most "likes" will receive a 50% tuition waiver to one of our upcoming programs, and some lucky contestants will be offered fellowships! 

Each photo sent to us will be posted on the SLS Facebook Page. 

Remember, the second prize will be determined by how many "likes" your photograph receives, so make sure you get your friends, family and your brother's girlfriend's cousin and her uncle to "LIKE" your photo!

Submission Guidelines: 

"Like" the Summer Literary Seminars Page.

Send your best photograph taken at one of our seminar locations (Kenya, Russia, Lithuania, Montreal) to slsphotocontest2011@gmail.com. 

Please include:  

• your name
• a title
• photo location and year
• a brief description

Deadline: April 5th 2012. Remember, the longer your photo is posted, the more likes it can get! 

*Each contest entry is restricted to two photographs per person.

*Photos do not need to be taken during an SLS Program. 

We look forward to seeing SLS over the years in your pictures! Details here. 

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SLS is interested in cooperating with creative writing programs across North America; if you're interested in bringing your students to an SLS Program, contact us today to learn how you can partner with us! 

We wish you the best of luck with your writing -- and we look forward to seeing you at SLS!