From Publishers Weekly
Sponsored by Middlebury College in Vermont, the annual two-week Bread Loaf Writer's Conference has attracted many of America's most prestigious authors, both as students and as faculty. Bain ( Aftershocks ) provides an interesting historical overview of the conference, anecdotal rather than evaluative. He generally emphasizes the positive aspects of Bread Loaf, where writers such as Howard Fast, Anne Sexton and Joan Didion were nurtured at the beginning of their careers. But he also touches on the feuds that poet Robert Frost, the "spiritual godfather" of Bread Loaf, conducted with other faculty member, and covers poet John Ciardi's last tempestuous years as conference director. Excessive alcohol consumption has seemed intrinsic to every conference. The book's reminiscences of Bread Loaf participants accompanies 300 black-and-white photos. Duffy, the wife of co-editor Bain, is a painter and curator.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Hilarious, outrageous, gossip-ridden, exhausting, and egotistical, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is the oldest writers' conference in the U.S. This book shows the conference at its best: Young writers can actually learn how to make a living writing fiction and poetry, as well as how to improve their craft. Whose Woods These Are also reveals the conference at its worst: hierarchical, arrogant, bickering, conniving. This beautiful, photo-laden volume recounts the history of the conference through its succession of directors, from Joe Battell to Ted Morrison to John Ciardi to Robert Pack, and its roster of visiting writers, important literary figures such as Robert Frost, Truman Capote, Archibald Macleish, Harry Crews, Linda Pastan, and Donald Justice--even the chef who introduced middle-class America to French cooking, Julia Child. The personal involvement of the author in the conference contributes an inside perspective and authority to the book. A must for libraries, especially academic ones, because it contains valuable information for researchers, as well as firsthand anecdotes, sometimes infuriating, usually funny, and always engaging, concerning some of the literary greats and not-so-greats of our time. Greg Burkman
