Lewis Frumkes — busy planning the June 7 Hunter College Writers’ Conference — was surprised by a letter he got the other day with a post office warning that the contents were sent by an inmate of a federal penitentiary in the Midwest.
The convict had heard about the conference — which features scribes such as James McBride, Nicholson Baker, Daphne Merkin, Bruce Jay Friedman, Lawrence Block, Malachy McCourt and Meg Wolitzer — and wanted to get his novel published.
“If the manuscript is written as well as the letter [was],” said Frumkes, “I’ll give it to one of the literary agents at the conference. No one ever said that a good writer has to be a good person!”