Workshops
THE WRITING WORKSHOPS
From Short to Long(er): Using Flash Fictions to Jumpstart Longer Stories
Martha Cooley
Flash (or “short short”) fictions are very short stories (often under 500 words) that offer the pleasures of velocity, compression, and vividness. Sometimes they can be prompts for longer fictions as well. In this workshop, we’ll read published short-shorts, write our own, and make forays from them into longer scenes—experimenting with ways and means of expansion and elaboration.
Nonfiction Workshop: Dramatizing a Scene
Gregory Orr
Both memoir and personal essays are stories in which a first-person narrator works to engage his or her audience. Such stories are made of scenes convincingly dramatized and connected together. During our workshop, we will concentrate on how to make an individual scene vivid and engaging to a reader, noting that all human experience involves both external facts and internal thoughts and feelings. Our task will be to explore various methods and strategies of dramatizing scenes in writing. Students will bring a two to three page scene/encounter to the workshop and we will explore the elements of structure and texture that help make scenes vivid and engaging.
Writing for Children/Young Adults
James Howe
This workshop will have a dual focus. One half of each session will be spent on the craft of picture book writing. Participants should be able to complete a draft of a picture book by the end of the week. The other half of the session will focus on the craft of writing for all ages, using writing exercises and critiques of the participants’ works in progress.
Poetry Workshop
Phillis Levin
What gives texture and motion to a line, vitality and character to a poem? How does a pattern of syllables create a suggestive sense, a singular music? Participants in this intensive workshop will focus on composing new poems while exploring, first-hand, essential elements of the craft: the dynamics of lineation, the many realms of the stanza, the power of syntax, the freedom of rhetorical form. In shaping / sounding / revising a poem, we will consider the interplay of line, rhythm, diction, image, and tone.
Writing Killer Fiction: The Mystery Writer's Craft
Jane Cleland
In this workshop, you’ll learn to craft suspenseful page-turners. Thrillers, traditional mysteries, private eyes…all mysteries in all genres share these qualities: the plot is engaging; the characters are believable; and the narrative flows and draws readers. You’ll discover when to introduce the “narrative question,” how to plant clues and red herrings, how to write dialogue that resonates with readers, and how to self-edit. For mystery writers at all levels. Special guest, Linda Landigran, editor in chief of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, will discuss the differences between short stories and novels, how to break in, and what she looks for in new authors!
SPECIAL AFTERNOON CRAFT WORKSHOPS
NEW THIS YEAR! Individual Manuscript Consultation: One on One Help with Your Manuscript: Get feedback from a pro. Published author and professional Book Doctor Esther Cohen will hold individual 45 minute sessions with those attending Summer Writers’ Week about their manuscripts. Each session will be personally tailored to the needs of the writer. Open to poets, fiction writers, and essayists. Requires sign-up and materials 2 weeks in advance of conference. Please attach your manuscript as a word document and forward via email to sirabiank@mville.edu. Type “manuscript consultation” in the subject line and make sure your name is on the manuscript. This is free to all participants, however, submissions must be received no later than June 8th.
The Changing Face of Publishing: What Every Writer Needs to Know about Social Networking and Online Marketing – Kelly Leonard, Executive Director, Online Marketing & Martha Otis, Senior Vice President, Advertising & Promotion for Hachette Book Group.
Character-based Fiction – Jeff Bens
The Art of Performing Your Work –Ira Joe Fisher
Voice: Mirror to Character and Soul – Patricia Lee Gauch
The Graphic Novel and Other Book Forms: A Hands-on Workshop –Joanna Clapps Herman
Beginning the Submissions Process: Getting to Know the Journals – Karen Sirabian