USA and Canada: International Raymond Carver Network; Launching of an International Society and Scholarly Review

Given Raymond Carver's status as one of the most important short story writers of the 20th century (he is translated into over 20 languages, taught in schools in America and abroad that include courses in the liberal arts, social sciences and medical huma nities) critical studies of his life and work have been surprisingly few. In 2005 and 2006 a group of Carver scholars met at the annual meetings of the American Literature Association and launched an international network of Carver scholars to be organize d through the International Raymond Carver Society. The interim officers of the Society are Sandra Lee Kleppe, Norway, G.P. Lainsbury, Canada, and Robert Miltner, USA. These officers will be nominees for board positions at the first business meeting of th e Society in Boston in May 2007 and will also head the project group to further the aims of the Society and plan funding applications for its short and long-term research activities; among the most important are: establishing the website of the Internatio nal Raymond Society in 2007 (to be maintained and managed by Dr. Kleppe), launching the Raymond Carver Review in 2007 (to be edited by Dr. Miltner with the assistance of an advisory board of international scholars including Drs. Kleppe and Lainsbury), and preparing concrete applications for funding of research activities in the future, including the recruiting of doctoral candidates to be tutored by the project participants. This project application has thus the following specific aims: 1) to increase tr avel mobility for the project participants to attend conferences in 2007 where they will hold planning meetings and run panels and roundtables on Carver studies, 2) to set up, develop, and maintain the website of the International Raymond Carver Society w hich will be the flagship and main source of networking of the project, and to set up and maintain the website of the Raymind Carver Review and launch the first issue of this peer reiviewed journal in 2007.