Hobart Festival of Women Writers announces a presenter change. Breena Clarke, novelist, teacher and Festival co-organizer will replace Sonya Huber. Ms. Huber is seriously ill and unable to attend Festival 2017.

         Breena Clarke is the author of three novels, most recently, Angels Make Their Hope Here, set in an imagined mixed-race community in 19th century New Jersey. Breena Clarke’s debut novel, River, Cross My Heart (1999) was an Oprah Book Club selection. Her critically reviewed second novel, Stand The Storm, set in mid-19th century Washington, D.C., was named one of the 100 best books for 2008 by The Washington Post. Her short stories have appeared in Kweli Journal and The Stonecoast Review among others. Breena Clarke is a member of the board of A Room Of Her Own Foundation; is a member of the fiction faculty of The Stonecoast MFA Creative Writing program at The University of Southern Maine, and is co-organizer of The Hobart Book Village Festival of Women Writers. Breena Clarke is the author with the late Glenda Dickerson, of the play, Re/Membering Aunt Jemima: A Menstrual Show.

A member of the fiction faculty at Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing, Breena Clarke has offered writing workshops, seminars, and panels throughout her thirty-year career as a professional writer. She’s been a writing instructor at A Room of Her Own Foundation’s retreats and at The Hurston-Wright Foundation’s summer program. For Festival 2017, Breena Clarke will present the workshop, Writing The Body. With reference to the recent memoir of the body, “Hunger” by Roxanne Gay, the workshop will focus on body-centered writing, using an array of writing exercises to challenge participants to focus on how their bodies feel in the moment and how their own bodies can become conduits for writing the body on the page.

Breena Clarke is a co-founder with Cheryl Clarke and Barbara Balliet of the Hobart Festival of Women Writers now in its fifth year of programming and platforming women writers in the beautiful Catskills.

“One of the things most meaningful to me about The Festival is the serendipity of meeting other writers and forming a lively literary community. I hadn’t expected that so many unique and stunningly talented women writers would come to our Festival. I feel my own writing has been enriched by the exchange with this diverse community of writers.”  — B. Clarke

Breena Clarke reads an excerpt of Stand The Storm.

For more information about Breena Clarke, go to www.BreenaClarke.com

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https://breenaclarkebooks.wordpress.com 

to register for Festival 2017, go to www.hobartfestivalofwomenwriters.com

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