Today’s issue of The Daily Free Press has a long feature on the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics and Writers, which organization has its home office here on the BU campus. From the article by Liza Katz: “Founded in 1994, the organization’s original purpose was to combat disconcerting trends in literary study, ones that overemphasized politics and literary theory while forsaking literature as an act of imaginative expression.”
“We are advocating and helping to create a broad, vital literary culture,” said Rosanna Warren, a former president and founding member [and member of the Creative Writing faculty]. “We are trying to connect lovers of literature inside the academy and outside the academy.”
The Association’s respected magazine, Literary Imagination, has often featured the work of BU authors. Even this current issue includes an article by Sven Birkerts, editor of AGNI, and a poem by one of the current MFA candidates.
Another highlight of that issue is the bundle of new extracts from The Greek Anthology, Book XVII by Greg Delanty. In the Fall 2009 edition, author R. H. Winnick laid out his case for the identity of the “Fair Friend” addressed in Shakespeare’s sonnets. His argument is well worth examining closely.
Just as the magazine is a meeting place for literary ideas, the Association’s local meetings are a gathering place for literary people. There are often local meetings held right here on the BU campus; the Association maintains a list of forthcoming events online. The rate for joining the Association as a student member (grad or undergrad) is $32, and comes with a subscription to the group’s various publications as well as an invitation to all their events.
