An official State of Delaware site.

Official websites end in .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use https://

The https:// at the beginning of the delaware.gov address means you are safely connected to the government website. Any information that you provide is securely transmitted.

Delaware Division of the Arts

2002 Retreat Summary Page

2002 Writers Retreat

Designed to encourage reflection and creativity, the 2002 Delaware Writers Retreat provided writers with a collaborative atmosphere to write, revise, and recharge. It was a meaningful opportunity to make progress on their work while drawing inspiration from a community of peers.

More About the Retreat

Twelve poets from around the state attended the Division’s inaugural Poetry Writers Retreat at Cape Henlopen from October 3-6, 2002 at the Biden Center, Cape Henlopen State Park, Lewes, Delaware. Workshops were led by former Delaware Poet Laureate,  Dr. Fleda Brown.

2002 Workshop Leaders

Portrait of a woman leaning on a wooden railing outdoors, wearing a dark textured jacket over a red blouse. She looks toward the camera with a gentle smile, while trees and a sunlit wooded landscape fill the softly focused background.

Dr. Fleda Brown

Poetry Facilitator

Fleda Brown was born in Columbia, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She earned her Ph.D. in English (specialty in American Literature) from the University of Arkansas, and in 1978 she joined the faculty of the University of Delaware English Department, where she founded the Poets in the Schools Program, which she directed for more than 12 years.

Fleda has read and lectured in secondary schools, retirement communities, libraries, bookstores, a prison for delinquent adolescents, Rotary Clubs, AAUWs, and many universities and colleges, from Oxford University, Cambridge, to small liberal arts colleges. She has slept in a bunkhouse and has read with cowboy poets in North Dakota, and she has read for the Governor of Delaware and for the Delaware Legislature. She served as poet laureate of Delaware from 2001-2007, when she retired from the University of Delaware and moved to Traverse City, Michigan. In Traverse City, she writes a monthly column on poetry for the Record-Eagle newspaper, and she has a commentary on poetry on Interlochen Public Radio.