Course Descriptions for Weeklong Retreat (Sunday, June 14th - Friday, June 19th)
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.)
Mark Schuster, Developing Your Literary Aesthetic
Week-Long Workshop
Many books offer aspiring writers the formula for crafting solid, marketable fiction. While there's certainly something to be said for this approach, it leaves out one very important aspect of writing: your voice. While this class will focus on many elements of fiction writing (plot, character, tone, etc.), it will also give participants an opportunity to develop an aesthetic framework by which to gauge their own work. Recommended for novelists.
Word Count Limit for Submissions: 3,000
Course Descriptions for Weekend Retreat (Friday, June 12th - Sunday, June 14th)
Anne Kaier, Tell your Story
In the workshop we will write new work, share work to get feedback, discuss effective techniques and talk about how non-fiction is like and unlike fiction. You should leave the weekend with several drafts of new stories and with tips on how and where to get your work published. (Submissions should be under 5,000 words.)
Elizabeth Mosier, Re-Seeing the Story
My goal for this fiction workshop is to provide guidance for each student's unique exploration of writing content and style- through in-class exercises, discussion, and peer review. As a process-oriented writer, I focus not only on practicing the technical skills (Character development, point of view, scene setting, and structure) necessary for producing a solid draft, but also on developing the self-awareness that will guide the writer through revision.