One Writer’s Beginning
(7/08/2008) In its 33 years running, the Southampton Writers Conference is a tradition that attracts writers of all ages, creeds, and experience levels, but for one student the conference is anything but traditional.
Carol O’Malley Gaunt, the author of “Hungry Hill,” a memoir about her struggles as a teenager coping with the death of her mother and her father’s alcoholism, has attended the conference since 1995.
In her nearly 13 years as a student at the conference, she has never taken the same class twice and said that the conference is continually trying to mix things up. “It’s like a family — what works and what doesn’t work, we’ll adjust,” she said.
The spirit of the conference, which is now overseen by the State University at Stony Brook, hasn’t changed, according to Ms. Gaunt. In addition to an ever-changing course schedule, this year there are two additions to the lineup — children’s literature and screenwriting.
In 1995, Ms. Gaunt started to write her memoir in short stories after attending a lecture at the conference. The experience gave her the focus to write her memoir and ultimately pushed her to write it in the first person.
“It gets you going again,” she said. “It gets you stimulated, and if you have not been writing for a while, it gets you back on track.”
Not only did the conference help her write “Hungry Hill,” but lectures on the publishing business and classes on writing op-ed pieces also helped her to promote and get her book published. “You learn things you wouldn’t learn unless you were in the business,” she said.
Although the conference doesn’t help writers find agents, renowned authors like the Pulitzer Prize-winning Frank McCourt, who wrote “Angela’s Ashes,” endorsed Ms. Gaunt’s memoir after reading her book in one of his courses. One of her most memorable moments was when she received the conference’s Anne Bancroft Memorial Memoir Writing Award from Mr. McCourt.
However, Ms. Gaunt’s favorite part of the conference is to hear other writers’ work and to see its progress. “There is a real mix of writers, it’s all over the place,” she said.
The conference also exposed Ms. Gaunt to other forms of writing. She had little appreciation for poetry until she heard the poet Billy Collins, the former poet laureate of the United States, at a reading. Mr. Collins will be reading at the gala launch for the Southampton Review literary journal on July 25 at 7 p.m.
On July 19 at 7:30 p.m., Roger Rosenblatt, a faculty member in the writing program at Stony Brook Southampton, will present “I Must Be Off,” which includes performances of two of his one-act plays, “Blueberry” and “The Oldsmobiles.” Directed by Jim Simpson, the plays will star Sigourney Weaver and Alan Alda.
The first children’s literature conference will present the premiere of “The Phantom Tollbooth,” a musical based on the classic children’s book by Norton Juster, on Saturday at 7 p.m. “The Phantom Tollbooth” was brought to the stage by Mr. Juster and Sheldon Harnick, a Pulitzer Prize and three-time Tony winner, who wrote the lyrics.
Ms. Gaunt plans to attend the screenwriting conference in the hopes of adapting her memoir to the screen. Robert Benton, the screenwriter and director of such films as “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Kramer vs. Kramer,” will conduct a master class on Aug. 1 at 7:30 p.m., one of many public events offered at the conference.
More information about the Stony Brook Southampton Writers Conference and events that are open to the public is available at its Web site, sunysb. edu/writers.