We here at the Prague Summer Program know that we have had the opportunity to work with some amazing people and that’s more than just our faculty! Our student participants are incredibly talented and we want to highlight that. So here is the first of what we hope to be a series of posts, the Prague Summer Program Alumni Spotlight.
Our first Alumni Spotlight is Erika Dreifus.
Erika Dreifus, photo credit: Lisa Hancock
Erika attended the program in 2004, with the assistance of a John Woods Scholarship, and was enrolled in our two-week fiction workshop with “the incomparable Arnošt Lustig,” who we are honoring this year, along with Vaclav Havel.
Dreifus noted that her favorite part of the experience was that:
It was truly an opportunity of a lifetime to get to know Arnošt. I have thought of him often since 2004, and I was deeply saddened when I learned of his passing.
Since her participation in 2004, she has relocated from Massachusetts to New York City has published a book of short stories, Quiet Americans. She noted that “One of the stories in the book, ‘The Quiet American, Or How to Be a Good Guest,’ was sparked by a travel experience [she] had before returning home from the [Prague Summer Program] in 2004.”
She also edits and publishes a free newsletter, “The Practicing Writer,” which features resources and opportunities for fictionists poets, and writers of creative nonfiction.
Please visit her website www.erikadreifus.com to learn more.
Also, visit www.praguesummer.com to learn more about becoming a future PSP alumni or email us at prague(at)wmich.edu if you’d like to be our next Alumni Spotlight!
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