News

WHO:  High school students from St. Benedict’s Prep, St. Vincent’s Academy, Arts High School, Central High School and the North Star Academy submitted poems, essays and fiction pieces for judging by eight students and two faculty members from the Rutgers Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing program at Rutgers University in Newark. David Wolf of St. Benedict’s Prep coordinated the project with the high schools and Rutgers.

WHAT: A writing contest for the high school students sponsored by the Rutgers MFA program; winners selected by a panel of both MFA students and faculty. Winners and their parents will be guests of honor at a reception on the Rutgers campus, co-hosted by the MFA program, the Paul Robeson Gallery and the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience.

WHEN: May 7, 4:30 p.m. Recognition of winners and poetry readings by MFA student judges and winning high school writers will precede a reception for participating high school students, their parents, Rutgers-Newark MFA and Rutgers faculty.

WHERE:  Paul Robeson Gallery, the Paul Robeson Campus Center, 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

BACKGROUND:  The Rutgers-Newark Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program offered its first classes in fall 2007 and already is being hailed as one of the “Five Up-and Coming Programs in Creative Writing in the U.S.” (The Atlantic magazine, 2007 Fiction/Summer Reading issue). The high school poetry readings and reception are part of the MFA’s outreach to the community, and an extension of the MFA’s  Writers at Newark Reading Series, which brings writers and poets onto the campus to read and discuss their works.

• Contact Name: Carla Capizzi
• Contact Phone: 973-353-5262
• Contact Email: capizzi@rutgers.edu