The Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference plans to return in-person this summer, gathering Monday, June 20 to Sunday, June 26, 2022. The conference includes five workshops with award-winning faculty, daily craft talks, evening readings, an editor’s talk with a publisher, and a faculty publishing roundtable. Limited manuscript consultations are also available.

MNWC is committed to ensuring a safe environment for all attendees, and will continue to monitor COVID-19 updates. Bemidji State University protocols require social distancing and wearing masks indoors while on campus. All MNWC faculty, staff, and conference participants are required to submit proof of vaccination prior to arrival on campus.

MNWC has award-winning teaching faculty. This year, Benjamin Percy will lead a fiction workshop. Kimberly Blaeser and Douglas Kearney will each facilitate a poetry workshop. Returning faculty members Joni Tevis will conduct a creative nonfiction workshop and Aimee Nezhukumatathil will lead a poetry and prose hybrid workshop. Claudia Rankine is their Distinguished Visiting Writer, who will give a special craft talk, Q&A, and share her own work during an evening reading.

The conference fee is $795 through April 1, and $875 thereafter. The fee covers daily workshops, daily craft talks, publishing and editor Q&As, afternoon events, and five conference meals. Workshops are filled first-come, first-served, and are limited to 12 participants per workshop. An auditor option is available for $180 and includes all conference amenities and event programming offered during the week, but excludes participation in a workshop.

Participants are welcome to stay on campus at Bemidji State University—a small university on a big lake in small-town northern Minnesota. Linden Hall boasts air-conditioned suites, with Wi-Fi and high-speed Internet, within walking distance of all conference activities for $252 for the week, per person. Recreational activities abound, including boating, biking, hiking, exercising at the campus fitness center, relaxing among the pines in Diamond Point Park, or exploring scenic Lake Bemidji.

MNWC works with universities and other educational and institutional entities, arts organizations, and regional tribal governments to help fund aspiring writers who show promise to attend the conference. Partnership opportunities are available and offer a 20% discount on conference fee, consultation, and campus housing to applicants sponsored by their institution. Although MNWC’s online application system opens on March 1, they are able to expedite qualifying applications now. Partnership opportunities remain open until workshops are filled. Individuals or institutions with questions can contact MNWC Coordinator Mathew Hawthorne at writersconference@bemidjistate.edu for more information.

In addition to partnership opportunities, MNWC offers one $400 scholarship toward the conference fee in each of the following genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. They also offer one $400 scholarship to a Minnesota resident. These scholarships are based on need and literary merit, and are intended to lower financial barriers for writers. The participant pays the balance.

Lastly, MNWC funds two full scholarships—the New Poets of Native Nations Women’s Scholarship, which is for any woman who is an enrolled member or citizen or descendant of an enrolled member of a Native Nation, and the Charles W. Scrutchin Emerging Writer Scholarship, which is for any person of color who will be 40 years old or younger at the time of the conference. These full scholarships waive all conference fees, and include a manuscript consultation with a workshop faculty member and a stipend.

All scholarship applications are accepted between March 1 and March 15, 2022.

For more information or to apply for a scholarship, please visit https://www.northwoodswriters.org/scholarships-partnership-opportunities/.

MNWC is the perfect place to write and be in the company of others on various writing journeys.