Course Descriptions
Liz Abrams-Morley, Poetry: Writing Your Way Into What You Don't Know You Know
To create, deepen and sharpen poems, we often must get serious about play. We'll employ prompts, exercises and overnight assignments in order to access material from memory, observation, imagination, even dreams. For writers of any experience level with a hunger to loosen and deepen current work, and/or dive into new work. We'll work in poetry, but prose writers will find the experience useful as you begin, deepen or revise stories and memoir as well.
Liz Corcoran, Fiction: Character: More than Just a Pawn on Your Chessboard This workshop is open to writers of all levels and will explore why character is essential to writing good fiction. Through readings, exercises, and discussion, we will explore how character informs the creation of a piece as well as techniques that can be used for superior character development and establishing effective characterization. This workshop will focus on constructive critiques of participants' works. Participants should submit one short story or novel excerpt to the Conference by June 1.
Tom Coyne, Creative Non-Fiction: Literary but True
In this workshop, we will be applying traditional storytelling techniques to nonfiction prose, writing stories that are both literary, and true. Members of the workshop will be asked to submit at least two pieces of creative nonfiction (essay, feature story, memoir, etc.) to the class, to be read and discussed during our meetings. Our discussions will be informed by readings from an outside nonfiction anthology, and we will also address questions about nonfiction publishing. (Submissions should be 3,000 words or less.)
Gregory Frost, Genre Writing in the Slipstream Era
Science fiction writers now pen mysteries (Kate Wilhelm); mystery writers write fantasies (John Connolly). Genre boundaries are dissolving, but to work in genres, you have to know how each works. You have to understand how your writer's toolbox changes when you write a horror novel, or a thriller; or that in science fiction, fantasy, and historical romance, your setting becomes an extra character. Workshop combines exercises, reading, and lecture. (Submissions should be 3,500 words or less.)
Charles Holdefer, Fiction: The Pleasure of Craft
This fiction workshop, which welcomes writers of all levels, will explore the pleasures of making your work better. It will focus on techniques such as foregrounding, ambiguity, characterization and plotting. Participants will be encouraged to bring short samples of work from home, and also to do a couple of writing exercises during the week. Readings from published writers will also be offered as examples to emulate. Ideally you will go home with practical revisions, new material, and a firmer understanding of your options.
Elise Juska, The Whole Story: Exploring the Possibilities of Voice in Short Fiction
"The voice of the story is the whole story," said the venerable short story writer Grace Paley. This workshop will delve into the quality and importance of voice in fiction through a series of diverse readings, daily writing exercises, and generous amounts of peer feedback. Participants should submit one short story to the Conference by June 1. The crux of our workshop will be thoughtful, detailed discussion of participants' work. Instructor will provide written critique. (Submissions should be under 7,000 words.)
Anne Kaier, Poetry: making it
Here's a chance to concentrate on your own work and hone your own poetic voice. Through in-class exercises, class discussion, and assignments, you'll generate new poems, revise poems, and explore basic techniques such as sound effects and metaphor. We'll look at experimental verse and prose poems as well as more traditional lyric poetry. You should go home with new poems, a file of ideas for more new poems, and some savvy hints on how to get published. Open to writers at all levels.
Curtis Smith, Creative Non-Fiction: Insight and Craft in a Murky World
The purpose of this workshop experience is two-fold. One is to form a supportive, nurturing, and honest community within the workshop itself, with each member offering sincere insights with the mutual goal of having each participant leave with a much stronger, more rounded piece of writing. The second is to provide a keener insight into the writing process itself through the use of discussion, exercises and shared readings. In this way, the workshop hopes to bridge the gap between theory and practice, leaving the participants with a more meaningful understanding of the sometimes murky genre of creative nonfiction.
Catherine Stine, Young Adult: Exploring Young Adult and Crossover Fiction
We explore fiction for teens and crossover, a hot new market, where books can appear on both adult and teen shelves. All are welcome: from writers eager to experiment to those with an entire draft. That piece you assumed was adult might be best suited for YA. Students will workshop, read selected excerpts and do writing sketches. We also discuss plot, voice, market trends, agents and query letters. Participants please submit a short piece or chapter to the Conference by June 1.
Margie Strosser, Screenwriting Basics - The Blueprint
This screenwriting workshop welcomes writers of all levels and will introduce you to the basic tools needed to develop a story into a first draft - identifying genre, building a sturdy narrative outline, developing story sequences and scenes based in action. Participants are encouraged to submit story ideas or works- in-progress ahead of time. We will do some writing and screening of film excerpts during the week.