<p>For prospective writers there's an interesting article in today's NY Times, excerpt below:</p>
<p>PHILADELPHIA College coaches have long scoured the country for supremely quick point guards who can transform a basketball team or fierce linebackers who can dominate a football game. Al Filreis is also perpetually on the lookout for talented high school students, although the ones he seeks do remarkable things with a pen or keyboard. He recruits writers.</p>
<p>Dr. Filreis, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is the faculty director of the Kelly Writers House, an unusual, largely extracurricular community of people passionate about writing: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, songwriting and myriad other forms. At an elite university filled with undergraduates preparing for professional and graduate schools and on a campus in which the Wharton School can literally cast the largest shadow the Writers House is an oasis for the arts set, for the unconventional, even the countercultural.</p>
<p>The house, an old, three-story Tudor cottage on Locust Walk in the center of campus here, features an array of events. There are readings, both by aspiring undergraduates and by some of the countrys most celebrated poets, nonfiction writers and novelists, including Richard Ford, John Updike and Cynthia Ozick. There are lectures, workshops, songwriters performances, writing sessions with local high school students, and lunches, dinners and two-day seminars with writers. Some classes are also held on the comfortable couches and chairs in the Writers House.</p>