NEA Announces Writing Program for Troops ("Operation Homecoming")

[Khephra]

NEW YORK -- At a poets conference in New Hampshire last spring, the chairman of The National Endowment for the Arts found himself discussing an event that couldn't have seemed further away: The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"I was talking to my old friend, (poet) Marilyn Nelson," Dana Gioia said. "She had just taught at West Point and my own sister had been called to active duty, in the Navy reserve. We were talking about how separate the worlds of literature and the enlisted man and woman were."

Gioia has decided to change that. The NEA this week is unveiling "Operation Homecoming," in which troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will attend workshops run by such writers as Tom Clancy, Tobias Wolff and James McBride. The best submissions will be published in an anthology, scheduled to come out at the end of 2005.

"I've always believed that one of the signs of a healthy society is when all aspects of that society communicate with each other," Gioia said.

more.............

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-publishing-operation-homecoming,0,4190220.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[klook]

1. Give me 500 words, soldier. NOW!

Good way to make sure at least some of the military literature coming out of Iraq is more upbeat and pro-war than Jarhead or Dulce et Decorum Est or War is a Racket.