Polish poet Adam Zagajewski (who will be at VSC for the week as a Visiting Writer) and his translator, Clare Cavanagh, will lead an evening in the Lowe Lecture Hall about the art of translation, not only as it relates to literature but to creative work more broadly across genres, media, and cultures. The evening is open to the public and will feature a talk, a joint bilingual reading, and a question and answer session.

According to the press release, the forum is free, and although reservations are encouraged, they’re not required. More info is available by e-mailing Gary Clark at gclark [at] vermontstudiocenter [dot] org.

In case you’re not familiar with Zagajewski (who is actually reading here in Rochester on October 16th), he’s one of the most respected contemporary Polish poets writing today, and his most recent publications in English translation are Eternal Enemies and Without End: New and Selected Poems, which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Clare Cavanaugh is a professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Northwestern University and has received numerous accolades for her translations of Zagajewski and Wislawa Szymborska.

So, if you happen to be near sounds like this would be worth checking out. (And I’ve heard the VSC is absolutely gorgeous.)

Beginning in 2009, Zoland Poetry and the Vermont Studio Center (VSC) will begin collaborating on two new annual writing fellowships at VSC’s international retreat center in Johnson, Vermont. The establishment of these ongoing fellowships will allow each organization to open up new creative opportunities, while providing valuable time for writers to focus on individual projects.

Applications will be open to both translators and poets working on contemporary English-language projects. The duration of each residency will be one month, and the cost will be fully covered by the fellowship. Previously VSC has accepted 12 writers each month for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction residencies, but this is the first time in VSC’s 25-year history that full fellowships are being made available for translators to cover the $3,750 cost of a one-month residency.

Each fellowship includes:

• a private studio in the new Maverick Writing Studios building, including a networked printer and wireless Internet access
• the presence of two Visiting Writers per month, each of whom gives a reading and a craft talk and offers optional individual conferences
• access to the Mason House Conference Room & Library
• the opportunity to share work at one of three monthly readings
• publication in a forthcoming Zoland Poetry annual

Click and really, I wasn’t kidding, the due date is 2/16 . . .