8:30 – 9:00

Registration & Continental Breakfast

9:00 – 10:00

Intro to 355:101 Expository Writing with Michael Goeller

Michael Goeller is an Associate Director of the Rutgers Writing Program and Plangere Writing Center Coordinator, in charge of writing tutoring at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.  His latest focus is helping students make the transition to college writing.  He helps to run the Writers House Teachers College, which trains high school teachers to better prepare their students for college standards.  He also heads up the Plangere Culture Lab, which makes educational films for high school and college audiences for the Rutgers Writing Program and Writers House (some of which are available at http://itunes.rutgers.edu. He is currently directing a documentary film titled "Expos," which follows five Rutgers first-year students as they try to succeed in Expository Writing at Rutgers.

10:00 – 11:30

Final Round

Finalists will complete an essay assignment and take a writing placement test. Results of the essays and placement test will determine the scholarship winners.

11:30 – 1:00

Lunch with Paul Blaney, Writer in Residence

Paul Blaney wears a variety of hats. His main vocation is as a fiction writer but he also works as a freelance journalist and, more recently, has turned his hand to teaching, editing and publishing. Born and raised in London, he has lived and worked in Lisbon, Hong Kong and Eugene, Oregon, and now lives in Allentown, PA (near Dorney Park) with his wife Karen. His short fiction has been published in anthologies from Pen & Inc, Fish Publishing, Biscuit Publishing, Social Disease, Litro and The Small Press Review. His awards include the Tom Gallon prize from the Society of Authors, and a prize from the Islamic Society of Great Britain. Longer works include three novellas. Most recently he completed a novel, Mister Spoonface, whose themes are modern fatherhood and the fertility business. In 2004, together with Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone, Paul set up Tales of the DeCongested (www.decongested.com), a monthly, live, short-story reading event held at Foyles Bookshop in London's West End. The success of the event led to the foundation of a publishing company, Apis Books (www.apisbooks.com), which produced Tales of the DeCongested (a selection of some of the best stories read at Tales), Volume One, in 2006. In 2007 Apis published Two Tall Tales & One Short Novel.

1:00 – 2:00

Walking Tour and Scavenger Hunt

2:00 – 3:00

Awards Ceremony

3:00 – 4:00

Refreshments