The Gathering At Keystone College
The Gathering is a distinctive, three-day, theme-based literature conference to 
be held at Keystone College in La Plume, PA. This annual forum provides a transformative learning experience that engages participants from diverse backgrounds to celebrate literature, explore their creative impulses, embrace individual expression, and discover their capabilities. The driving factor is the desire to promote engagement between participants and presenters. An interactive environment is in every part of the schedule. For example, the featured speakers engage the audience as much as possible during their presentations, with plenty of time for comments and questions. The majority of the two full conference days are spent in individual workshops, where participants work with facilitators to write, to dance, and to study geology. Small book discussion groups and panel discussions are also scheduled.
The provisional theme for next summer is “Chaos and the Creative Impulse”. For centuries, humans resisted the idea of chaos, only to discover that the most exquisite infinity of patterns governs the fearful void. The Gathering will explore how the aversion to chaos has given rise to the miracle of creativity in science, literature, and the arts. The main idea is to add a science and math to literature as we look at imagination that satisfies the impulse to make meaning from a chaotic world.
This year (July 2009), The Gathering features a broad offering of activities that includes major guest lectures which introduce people to exceptional contemporary literature by renowned authors including Salman Rushdie, Gregory Maguire, Loung Ung, and Nancy Willard. Panel discussions will invoke critical thinking and encourage inquiry around this year’s theme of “There and Back Again: Time, Place and Story”. Interactive workshops offer an opportunity to work with writers in multiple genres. Discussion groups aim to explore understanding of our world. Dance and other forms of physical expression will also be included in the activities as well as other varied arts including film. All participants take an active roll in events including discussion groups, interactive workshops, dance and other forms of physical expression, participation in varied art forms, and special events.
The forum also reaches out to regional partners to highlight the historic, environmental, and cultural treasures of the Northeast and to foster thinking about the interdependence of the local and the global, the urban and the rural, the specific and the universal. The Gathering features world-class authors who encourage and model interpersonal exchanges that are extraordinary and life changing. Participants, individuals age 16 and older, have described the forum as transformational. It fosters creativity that lasts long beyond the event itself, enhances knowledge, and encourages critical thinking. And its effects will continue to be felt as participants take the sustenance of literature back to their community.