June 16 - July 4
Two weeks of seminars with an optional third week symposium 		 



 


Apply Now 


Russian Version

 


 

 

Welcome to the website of Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia—the largest independent international writing conference in the world.


05-09-08 Rolf Potts (SLS faculty '07) has a new book coming out this fall, an unorthodox collection of travel essays entitled, "Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Lessons From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer."

02-11-08 - The 2008 SLS-Russia/Kenya literary contest is officially over. We thank everyone who took part in it. The sheer number of extremely strong submissions, out of the total number of close to 700, made the selection process difficult, and we are deeply grateful, for their careful deliberation, to the dedicated SLS readers and the final judges -- Ann Lauterbach in poetry (she had kindly agreed, at the last moment, to replace Robert Hass, who has to drop out), Fiona McCrae in fiction, and Josip Novakovich/Mikhail Iossel in non-fiction. We would like to offer our sincerest congratulations to the contest winners: Jenny Zhang (Iowa City, IA) in fiction, Mark Conway (Avon, MN) in poetry, and Kimberly Elkins (New York, NY) in non-fiction. Their brief bios, as well as those of the second and third place winners in each category, will be posted on this website shortly. The winning entries will be published in a forthcoming issue of The Walrus and Maisonneueve, two of Canada's leading literary and general-interest publications. Again, we are thankful to all the contest participants. In the next few days we will be contacting certain entrants who, in the opinion of the judges, submitted extremely high quality work with offers of tuition scholarships to SLS Russia/Kenya (the latter of which has been rescheduled for December of this year, due to the recent political developments and subsequent unrest in that country). We wish all entrants much success in their noble literary endeavours.


- 02/05/08 - Via partnership with Concordia University, SLS now offers undergraduate and graduate credit for its seminars in Kenya and Russia through Concordia in Montreal. Details and registration information will soon follow.

- 02/04/08 - The deadline for the SLS Contest and Greta Wrolstad Scholarships are rapidly approaching, postmark Feb. 28, 2008. Contest winners receive free airfare, tuition, and accommodations at SLS 2008 programs, and the Wrolstad winner, a female poet under 30, gets free tuition. Click here for scholarship details. Details on the contest can be found here.


"I found the context of the SLS very supportive and comfortable, combining (nearly) complete personal freedom with organized activities, and, of course, the classes and lectures." --Harlow Robinson (SLS '00)


Please note that University credits are available through Concordia University.

Multimedia Feature:
Deborah Treisman, New Yorker Fiction Editor, in conversation with SLS Co-Director Mikhail Iossel at the Nabokov House in 2004.

View Clip
Literary Feature:

The Dostoyevsky Walk - James Boobar has been leading SLS Participants on The Dostoyevsky Walk for more than five years now. In this article he takes readers through the intricacies of the Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg, from wandering along the canals and streets of the setting for Crime and Punishment and Dostoevsky's old neighborhood, to following the path of his most famous protagonist, Raskolnikov, from his top floor graffiti-covered stairwell to the old pawnbroker's "residence."  (Reprinted courtesy of Post Road Magazine)


- 06/03/07 - Hear William Stobb (SLS'06) read from Nervous Systems, a National Poetry Series selection just released from Penguin on miPOradio.

For older announcements, click here


Russia's Rich and Shameless (LA Times) 02/27/07


Travel: 36 Hours in St Petersburg (NYT) (05/13/07)
to read more sls selections, click here

 

[Have an announcement or news item related to SLS (the program; past or present faculty or participants; etc.), St. Petersburg, Russian literature, etc.? Email info@sumlitsem.org.]