The annual poetry festival that has heralded much attention for South Florida by bringing in such poets as Billy Collins, Sharon Olds and Galway Kinnell is taking another step in becoming a lasting arts presence both nationally and within the local community of Palm Beach County. Kurt Brown, poet, teacher and founding director of the Aspen Writers’ Conference, has been brought on board to serve as the festival's Director of Marketing, Publicity & Development.
Miles Coon, Founder and President of PBPF, is thrilled that Kurt has agreed to work with the festival. His experience in running one of America’s longest lasting writers’ conferences and his academic and literary credentials are just what the festival needs to insure its future. This is great news for the festival and for all of our good friends, supporters, and volunteers in Palm Beach County and its environs
With the aim to continue to attract outstanding featured poets and workshop participants to PBPF as well as to work with local staff to expand the festival's educational mission by initiating readings, lectures, and book groups in the local area, Kurt Brown is excited to have the opportunity to help PBPF meet its full potential. I am delighted to help Miles and the festival’s staff, volunteers and sponsors to build upon their success to date in making the Palm Beach Poetry Festival a unique learning opportunity for writers of poetry and an enormously pleasurable experience for everyone in South Florida who attends the poetry readings and the poetry appreciation lectures.
Kurt Brown is founding director of the Aspen Writers’ Conference, now in its 30th year, as well as a founder of Writers’ Conferences and Centers, a national association of directors, now in its 16th year and part of the Associated Writing Programs. He has served for years on the board of Sarabande Books, is currently on the board of Poets House, and is the editor of three annuals which gather outstanding lectures from writers’ conferences and festivals. He has edited several anthologies, including Drive, They Said: Poems About Americans and their Cars (1994), and co-edited with his wife, poet Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Night Out: Poems about Hotels, Motels, Restaurants & Bars (1997), from Milkweed Editions. He is the author of six poetry chapbooks, most recently Sincerest Flatteries from Tupelo Press, and five full-length collections of poetry including Future Ship and From Here due out from Red Hen Press in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Kurt resides in New York City and teaches in the MFA Program at Sarah Lawrence College.