The Horace Greeley Foundation

In its 18th year of offering the writers' symposium, the non-profit Horace Greeley Foundation, funded through donations and proceeds from Symposium fees, is dedicated to promoting the writer's trade and the spirit of public oration that was central to Greeley's life.

What is perhaps equally central to our mission is preserving the sense of place and memory of life in a small New England village. Each year, we meet in those places where Greeley lived, worked, debated and voraciously read the books and journals that fed his intellectual curiosity.

This year's symposium will be held on Saturday, October 17th, 2020 at the United Baptist Church in East Poultney, VT from 9am-3pm. This year's keynote speaker is author Colleen Patatore.

Coleen Paratore is the award-winning author of more than 20 books across multiple genres published by powerhouses Simon & Schuster and Scholastic Press and respected indies Charlesbridge and Sourcebooks. Her best-selling debut novel, The Wedding Planner’s Daughter, has sold more than a half-million copies, is published throughout the world, and twice optioned for a movie. It introduced the beloved character Willa Havisham and inspired two series and seven “Willa books.”A full-time author and teacher of writing, Coleen teaches at Russell Sage College and The Arts Center of the Capital Region, offers “Dear Writer” 8-week workshops in her home library and coaches private writing clients through her ABC: A Book Coach for You practice. Her most recent titles are Writing it Right, a memoir about the transformative power of writing; The Big Book About Being BIG, a picture book about what it truly means to “be big” in the world; and FIREFLIES: A Writer’s Notebook. A resident of Troy, New York, Coleen loves to write at her second home on Mirror Lake in Hampton, NY, just 5 minutes from the Horace Greely house.

Additional speakers include author Diane Sheehan Shovak and student researcher Robbie Harris.

Diane Sheehan Shovak published her first novel Deceit in October, 2018. In this mystery, lives are forever changed as lies andsecrets are exposed by the tragic events on a Vermont lake one summer night. The setting was inspired by Lake St. Catherine where Diane and her husband have owned ahome for 36 years. Diane has always loved writing. Previous publications include personal essays, a short story, and a poem in two anthologies: Spilled Ink (2013), and Joseph, You Take the Baby: a Christmas Anthology (2016 e-version, 2018 print version). A participant in the Annual Horace Greeley Writers’ Symposium since 2004, Diane will today guide attendees through her 10 year plus journey from initial idea to final publication of Deceit. Participants will have opportunities to write from prompts that may inspire their own novel or short story! Time to share will be provided.

Robbie Harris is a 7th grader at the Poultney Elementary School and finished second place in the Junior Individual Documentary category with his entry entitled, "Horace Greeley: Forgotten Hero. Breaking Barriers With a Pen."Robbie will present his tribute to Horace Greeley documentary at this year’s Symposium.

The 1961 U.S. postage stamp honoring Greeley.