Sandhill Writers Retreat Set for May 18 at Saint Leo University

ST. LEO, FL - The Seventh Annual Sandhill Writers Retreat will be held Saturday, May 18, from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., at Saint Leo University. The lakeside campus, about 35 miles north of Tampa at 33701 State Road 52, St. Leo, FL, 33574. The retreat is open to the general public, including teachers, students, and members of the military and veterans. In a feature that is new this year, a half-day of master classes will also be available the preceding Friday.

Details and registration is available online at the retreat webpage. Early registration, which offers the most favorable admission rates ($35 to $95 for Saturday), remains open until midnight, May 15. The director of the retreat is Gianna Russo, a Tampa poet, as well as assistant professor of English and creative writing at Saint Leo University.

The Saturday, May 18, program features 16 hands-on writing classes in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, poetry performance, and publishing. Classes will focus on craft and imaginative exercises that lead to new works and new skills. Also included are a faculty reading and book signing, and an optional lunchtime open reading for participants. A limited number of private one-on-one manuscript consultations is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Retreat classes will be led by a nationally acclaimed faculty. The visiting writing faculty and their recent titles include:

· NPR commentator and novelist Ravi Howard (Like Trees, Walking and Driving the King), recipient of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.

· Memoirist and novelist Elizabeth Lanser Rose (For the Love of a Dog and Body Sharers).

· Poet Laureate of Orlando Susan Lilley (Venus in Retrograde).

· Multi-genre author Lisa Roney (Serious Daring: Creative Writing in Four Genres; The Best Possible Bad Luck; and Sweet Invisible Body). She is also editor and director of The Florida Review literary journal and Aquifer: The Florida Review Online.

· Fiction editor Caleb Sarvis (Dead Aquarium), who is also senior fiction editor of Florida-based Bridge Eight Press.

Saint Leo writing faculty members will be leading many workshops. These university faculty members are: Steve Kistulentz (Panorama, a novel, and the poetry collections Little Black Daydream and The Luckless Age); fiction writer Patrick Crerand (The Paper Life They Lead); performance poet Marissa Glover; military-veteran author Brooke King (War Flower: My Life after Iraq); and poets Anne Barngrover (Brazen Creature) and Gianna Russo (Moonflower; One House Down).

See more about Saint Leo University at www.saintleo.edu.

For more information about the retreat, contact Gianna Russo at her email: gianna.russo@saintleo.edu. For more information about Saint Leo University academic degree programs in creative writing, contact Jo-Ann Johnston, academic communications manager, at (352) 588-8237.