Here at Centrum, we're celebrating the release of PEN USA Award-winner Susan Rich's newest collection of poems, "The Alchemist's Kitchen", and looking forward to the two afternoon workshops she will be leading as part of the 2010 Port Townsend Writers' Conference. 

Rich, whose previous two books are “Cures Include Travel,” and “The Cartographer’s Tongue,” has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, Fulbright Foundation, and Artists Trust. Recent poems appear in the Antioch Review, Harvard Review, and The Southern Review.

This will mark Rich's first appearance as an instructor at the Port Townsend Writers' Conference. In 2009, she was in residence during the Carolyn Forché "Literature of Witness" workshop, and Forché had this to say about "The Alchemist's Kitchen": "This is art in the light of conscience, as Marina Tsvetaeva has written, voicing the sufferings of Somalia, Sarajevo, and Screbrenica, history and its black ash of question marks, yet it is also an art of praise."

During the July 18-25 Conference, Rich will lead two afternoon workshops: one entitled "Documenting the Lyric," and one entitled "Speaking Pictures."  

These workshops at the Port Townsend Writers' Conference are available here. Only one core morning workshop in poetry is still available for registration, the eagerly anticipated workshop with Erin Belieu.