Jennifer Grotz was named the seventh director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences at Middlebury College in Vermont. The organization was founded in 1926 by Robert Frost and other prominent writers of the day. Today, the conferences include the original Writers’ Conference, the Orion Environmental Writers’ Conference, the Translators’ Conference, and the Bread Loaf in Sicily Conference. Professor Grotz is the first woman to serve as director.
Professor Grotz attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 1995 and has returned every year since, except for one. She joined the staff of the organization in 1997 and was named assistant director in 2005. She was the founding director of the Translators’ Conference.
In accepting the position as director, Professor Grotz said: “Everything I do fulfills my life’s two great passions: writing and the teaching of writing. I see my work at Bread Loaf and in all my teaching as strengthening a writer’s grasp of literary craft and tradition.”
Dr. Grotz is a professor in the department of English at the University of Rochester. She has published three volumes of poetry including her latest work Window Left Open (Graywolf Press, 2016). She has also translated several books.
Professor Grotz is a graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans, where she majored in English and French. She holds a master of fine arts degree in poetry from Indiana Unversity and a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston.