The global organization “Summer Literary Seminars (SLS)” is coming to Lithuania this summer!

SLS Lithuania 2011 will take place in Vilnius, a welcoming European capital with a rich and diverse linguistic and literary heritage. The city has produced, or been haven and home to, some of the major figures of Lithuanian, Slavic, and Yiddish literature.

Vilnius is the perfect backdrop for a literary seminar. As a cultural crossroads over the centuries it has a rich and multi-layered past, which is reflected in the city’s varied architecture and intriguing residents. More importantly for SLS, Vilnius is not a city-museum but a city with a bright future and a rich, if at times troubled, past. From a purely practical vantage point, it's compact and walkable, and it offers all of the conveniences of a global city, albeit with its own idiosyncratic twists. An inspiration for any artist.

In addition to intensive daytime workshops taught by leading North American writers, participants in this unique two-week seminar will get a creative charge from the engagement with this refreshing and vibrant cultural milieu.

SLS offers much more than a mere change of scenery. Participants and faculty spend more time together outside of the classroom than in most summer literary programs.

In Lithuania, participants will also get to meet and socialize with fringe and mainstream artists from a different culture. And they get first-hand exposure to a lifestyle in flux -- one melding the absurdities of the Soviet past, the contradictions of the (East) European present, and the strivings of a feisty, innovative little land on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

Also, for its edition, SLS Lithuania will join in celebrations marking the centenary of the birth of the poet and 1980 Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz, who lived and studied in Vilnius before World War Two. He eventually settled in the United States and lectured at U.C. Berkeley for many years. SLS has invited faculty who were friends of this giant of twentieth century literature during his American years to join us in Vilnius.

In partnership with the Litvak Studies Institute, SLS will reprise the fascinating ‘Jewish Lithuania’ stream. The program is an intensive two-week exploration of Vilnius's (or if you prefer, Vilne's) rich Jewish past.

Summers are short in this corner of Northern Europe, which is why street life in Vilnius is lived to the hilt in August, when the days are long and the nights are short. Outdoor cafes, cozy courtyard bistros and cool cellar taprooms abound in Old Town -- prices are dramatically lower than in the big tourism hubs. And there are more winding streets, cobblestones, archways, bell towers, bridges, spires, steeples, and leafy parks with ancient oaks in Vilnius than you can aim a camera at. Come join us for the experience of a lifetime, a literary journey like no other.

Please feel free to direct any questions you may have to: info@litvakstudiesinstitute.org.

Seminars
Morning Seminars
Fiction – Joseph Kertes
Poetry – Edward Hirsch
Mixed Genre – Robin Hemley
Poetry & Translation – Kerry Shawn Keys

Afternoon Seminars
Fiction – Josip Novakovich
Poetry – Rebecca Seiferle
Laimis Briedis – “Vilnius: City of Strangers” Walking Tour
Jewish Lithuania:Litvak Experiences Option

SLS Lithuania June 31 - August 13, 2011
Click here for more information on SLS Lithuania