Go Crazy, Poetry Fans

The Highland Park High School Literary Festival has announced its keynote speaker for next year:

2008-2009 Literary Festival To Feature U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins

The keynote speaker fo rthe 2008-2009 Highland Park Literary Festival will be Billy Collins, United States Poet Laureate 2001-2003.   Collins is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York.  He has published eight collections of poetry and his next, entitled “Ballistics,” will be published later in 2008.

The festival, scheduled for February, 2009, began in 1995 as a collaboration between interested parents and the HPHS English Department.  For more than a dozen years, HPHS students have enjoyed meeting, working with, and learning from distinguished authors, including George Plimpton, Doug Wright, Michael Chabon, Kaye Gibbons, Tim O’Brien, Russell Banks, Anchee Min, and Scott Simon.