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ResidenciesEach sixteen-week online semester is preceded by a ten-day intensive Residency on Whidbey Island. Residencies are required for participation in the following semester's classes. Faculty at Residencies will include both visiting faculty as well as those who are teaching in the following online semester.The residencies are also open to individuals not seeking a degree through the MFA program. For more information, please see the Residency page. Books by the participating authors will be available for purchase before and after evening readings. Information about the authors can be found on the Faculty page of this website. Site: The Captain Whidbey Inn on Whidbey Island Directions to The Captain Whidbey Inn Reserve Housing for the Residency For better viewing: Click here to view Daily Schedule in a separate window Click here for downloadable Daily Schedule (PDF) Spring 2013 Residency Daily ScheduleFriday January 4th - Tuesday January 8th
Wednesday January 9th - Sunday January 13th
FacultyJennifer Basye • Knute Berger • Larry Cheek • Tess Gallagher • Thom Kephart • Laura Kvasnosky • Kristen Lamb • Jim Lynch • Vonda McIntyre • Brenda Miller • Randall Platt • Belle Randall • Terry Rowe • Elizabeth Wales • Michael Dylan Welch • Michael WiegersJennifer BasyeHOW TO THINK LIKE A PUBLISHER These three sessions combined will bring the publishing industry to life in front of your eyes, and further your understanding of the book business and how writers fit into the overall picture.Saturday, 1/5 • 4:30-5:30 (B) Part 1 So, how do publishers make their decisions? Former Random House senior editor and co-author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Published pulls back the curtain on an editorial board meeting and helps you understand what kinds of questions are considered. From what is on the minds of the marketing folks to the view from the production department, all of the aspects of the acquisitions process will be revealed. Sunday, 1/6 • 4:30-5:30 (B) Part 2 Now that you have a handle on how publishers evaluate books, Jennifer will lead a brainstorming session to come up with ideas for topical non-fiction books drawn from today's headlines. Many books that are published come from in-house ideas, and writers should understand how this is done. Using newspapers and magazines, blogs and tv shows, this lively hour will hone your book idea-generating skills. Once tonight's ideas are evaluated, teams will be assigned to flesh out the ideas one step further into mini book proposals. Monday, 1/7 • 4:30-5:30 (B) Part 3 Each team will make a short presentation on their book idea and try to convince the other participants to vote for it. A longtime book packager and a former Random House senior editor, Jennifer Basye has developed and launched more than a hundred titles. The book she co-authored with agent Sheree Bykofsky, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Published, is now in its fifth revised edition. A New York Times bestselling author of many books herself, Jennifer continues to work with writing and publishing clients to develop their ideas. She teaches non-fiction writing and publishing at colleges in California, and runs Write By The Lake, a women's weekend retreat in Lake Tahoe. www.writebythelake.com Knute BergerFriday, 1/11 • 3:15 - 4:15 (A)RESEARCH: PROSPECTING AND SERENDIPITY Digging for facts and data can be invaluable and rewarding, an often unpredictable treasure hunt. This presentation will look at the value of research, and I'll discuss my experience as Writer-in-Residence while researching my book-length history, "Space Needle, the Spirit of Seattle" which involved, archive diving, interviews, being a "public exhibit" on the Observation Deck, and digging out new, never- before-seen materials. Saturday, 1/12 • 3:15 - 4:15 (A) THE ESSENTIAL TOOL: CURIOSITY I have worked with hundreds of writers and reporters, and hired scores of them for staff positions. I've worked with amateurs and seasoned authors with Phd.'s. People have often asked: What do you look for? I've found the one thing a real writer must have is curiosity. Without it, you are blind, and bound to bore. We'll talk about the value of questions, and the passion of looking for answers. Sunday, 1/13 • 2:45 - 3:45 (A) BUILDING (AND JUGGLING) A MULTI-PLATFORM CAREER As a full-time, freelance non-fiction writer, I have had to adapt to new media and create a multi-platform career. I've had to learn the difference between writing for print, the Web, radio, and Facebook-- and integrate all of those outlets into a semi-coherent whole. I'll talk about what I've learned about the challenges of each medium, and how I've been able to apply lessons from one to another. Saturday, 1/12 • 4:30 - 5:30 (B) COLUMNIST, OR CALUMNIST? Opinion and editorial writing is its own discipline. It requires reporting, but also rendering judgments. Oh, and not boring people to death. It requires the cultivation of "voice." I will talk about being a columnist, the pluses and minuses. (I've won awards but have also had enraged readers pound on my door in the middle of the night.) What does it take to develop a good column, and does good writing inevitably lead to committing calumny? We'll also talk about the strengths and weaknesses of some of the region's columnists past, and present. Sunday, 1/13 • 4:00 - 5:00 (B) THE MIND OF THE EDITOR Understanding the challenges and mindset of editors is a huge benefit for writers. I also believe that writers should edit, and editors should write. Drawing on a nearly 30-year career as a newspaper and magazine editor I will offer some insights on how editors plan and think, the pressures they're under, and what kinds of writers they reward and punish. I'll also talk about some of my experiences as an editor with writers like Timothy Egan, Sherman Alexie, James Dickey, Isaac Azimov, John McPhee, and Bruce Barcott. Knute "Skip" Berger is a Seattle-based author, columnist, editor and radio commentator. He is the "Mossback" columnist for the online daily Crosscut.com focusing on local politics and heritage; he is editor-at-large and columnist for Seattle magazine; and he's a regular guest on Seattle's NPR affiliate KUOW-FM discussing the news of the week on Friday mornings. His latest book is the 50th anniversary history, Space Needle, the Spirit of Seattle (2012). His previous book was the regional bestseller Pugetopolis: A Mossback takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps and the Myth of Seattle Nice (2009). In 2012, he was appointed the Denny Lecturer at the Museum of History and Industry. In 2011, he was made Writer-in- Residence at the Space Needle. In 2010, Ivar's named a cocktail in his honor, Mossback Nectar. A Seattle native, Berger has long been a writer and editor for local magazines and newspapers. He was editor of Seattle Weekly during much of the 1990's and '00s. He lives and works in Madison Park, one of five generations of his family to live in the shadow of the Needle. Larry CheekTuesday, 1/8 • 3:15 - 4:15 (A)GOOSING THE QUERY Be leaguered magazine editors and agents are ever more buried in work, while the hordes of writers scratching at their doors with prospective projects ever keep swelling. But we can make our query letters stand out and command attention through an approach that combines methodical organization with a spark of imagination. In 25 years as a freelance writer, Larry Cheek has published 15 nonfiction books and written more than 600 magazine and newspaper articles. Periodicals that have published his work include The New York Times, Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Orion, Sunset, and WoodenBoat magazine. Tess GallagherSaturday, 1/12 • 2:00 - 3:00 (A)REVIEWING: ITS REWARDS & HAZARDS This session will give some notions about why one might wish to review and some pointers about how to go about it. On line reviews for poetry such as FOREWORD will be good to look at before the class. Do a search and see what you can find out about internet magazines for prose and poetry which contain reviews and bring these to contribute to the workshop. Also read in A CONCERT OF TENSES from review/essays by Tess Gallagher as she'll be referring to these. Some of the questions: why review at all? Is there an appetite for reviews in magazines? Who reads them and what are they looking for? Should you read bad reviews of your own work? If so, what are the gains and downsides? How to do more than cut somebody down in a review. How to do more than simply describe the work-- that is, to offer some valuative or relational elements in the review. If you have a review you especially admire please make copies if it is short enough and let us see it. Sunday, 1/13 • 1:30 - 2:30 (A) TAKING ON PERSONAE IN POETRY & FICTION This talk will focus on what using a Persona in a piece of writing allows one. It can broaden one's range of subject matter and dramatic import. It can get a writer out of the self-always rut. Examples of poets taking on persona will be explored. Think of a favorite poem of yours or someone else's you believe to be in a Persona and bring it to share. Please bring copies to the session. Other possible questions: Can a persona fail and if so how? What if readers mistake intimate details of your narrator for your own? (Read Lucia Perillo's HAPPINESS IS A CHEMICAL IN THE BRAIN.) Come prepared with observations and thoughts of your own about the spectrum of using a Persona. Tess Gallagher is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including Dear Ghosts, Moon Crossing Bridge, and My Black Horse. Her Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems will be published Fall 2011 from Graywolf Press. Gallagher's The Man from Kenvara: Selected Stories was honored at the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival this September in Cork where she did a reading and a class. Ms. Gallagher's translation of Liliana Ursu's A Path to the Sea, with Adam Sorkin and the author, will be out from Pleasure Boat Studio in Fall 2011. Upon returning home from Ireland in October, Gallagher read her poems and participated in a public interview at the Vancouver International Writers' Festival in Canada. In June of 2010 she was a guest in Montenegro at an international festival where her poems were presented in translation. Blackstaff Press in Belfast published Barnacle Soup - Stories from the West of Ireland, in 2008, a collaboration with the Irish storyteller and painter Josie Gray. Distant Rain, a conversation with the highly respected Buddhist nun, Jacucho Setouchi, of Kyoto, is both an art book and a cross-cultural moment. Gallagher is also the author of Amplitude, Soul Barnacles: Ten More Years with Ray, A Concert of Tenses: Essays on Poetry, and two collections of short fiction: At the Owl Woman Saloon and The Lover of Horses and Other Stories. She has spearheaded the publication of Raymond Carver's Beginners in Library of America's complete collection of his stories published Fall 2009. Jonathan Cape published Carver's Beginners as a single volume in the UK. She spends time in a cottage on Lough Arrow in Co. Sligo in the West of Ireland and also lives and writes in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington. Thom KephartFriday, 1/11 • 2:00 - 3:00 (A)INDIE PUBLISHING WITH AMAZON Overview of CreateSpace. Overview of Kindle Direct Publishing Friday, 1/11 • 4:30 - 5:30 (B) MARKETING THE BOOK WITH AMAZON TOOLS Author Central. Search inside the book. Thom Kephart has worked within the independent publishing industry for over six years, initially working with CreateSpace to develop professional editorial service offerings for authors. After working to refine customer experience, Thom joined Amazon as the Community Outreach Manager responsible for independent publishing brand building and awareness expansion. He has been very involved in the developing rise of independent publishing throughout his career. Laura KvasnoskyFriday, 1/11 • 2:00 - 3:00 (B)ANATOMY OF A PICTURE BOOK In the interest of learning, I am going to kill a picture book, (by euthanasia, of course), and dissect so we can look at the bones, muscles and organs, and explore how structure shapes the content as well as the heart of this beloved beast. I'll try to articulate what isn't there as well: that ineffable something that makes the best the best. Saturday, 1/12 • 2:00 - 3:00 (B) WRITING FOR BEGINNING READERS The characters Frog and Toad, George and Martha, and my own Zelda and Ivy have something in common: they all appear in books that aim to engage beginning readers. We'll take a look at what differentiates books for beginning readers from typical picture books, and generate some ideas for character and situation that may suit the form. Bring paper and pencil and a willingness to experiment. Sunday, 1/13 • 2:00 - 3:00 (B) VISUAL PURSUITS The illustrator's workbox offers many tools that we can bend to our use when writing. We'll look at graphic ways to view the macro and micro parts of your story, including the revelations offered by sticky-note scene making, and collage as a way to summon, center and feed a story. For novelists, non-fiction writers and picture book creators alike. Laura Kvasnosky is a general maker of things: gardens, quilts, ukulele songs - and books. I have written and/or illustrated seventeen picture books and one middle grade novel. Awards include SCBWI Golden Kite honors for ZELDA AND IVY, and ALA's Theodor Seuss Geisel award for ZELDA AND IVY THE RUNAWAYS. I am a founding faculty member of the Writing for Children certificate program at the University of Washington-ext and have taught off and on for the past 12 years at Vermont College of Fine Arts in their MFA Writing for Children and Young Adults program. Kristen LambSaturday, 1/5 • 2:00 - 3:00 (B)BLOGGING TO BUILD AN AUTHOR BRAND Blogging can be a powerful foundation for a strong author brand, or can be a major time suck that makes want to hide in the master closet and O.D. on tequila and self-pity. Too many writers are blogging in ways that will actually fracture their platforms, dilute their brands, and leave them so stressed they can’t write. Just because we know how to write novels, doesn't necessarily mean we possess the skill set to blog in ways that will reach thousands or even millions of readers. This class teaches writers how to mine that same creativity used in the novel-writing process to create blogs that are fun, creative and that speak to readers the same way our novels do. This class explores WHY blogs are an optimum choice for writers to build a platform, and why this tool is superior to most other forms of social media. Using neurobiology, sociology and political economic theory, this class will explore how blogs have unimaginable power to shape our culture. Sunday, 1/6 • 2:00 - 3:00 (B) BLOGGING TO BUILD AN AUTHOR BRAND - HIGH CONCEPT BLOGGING Once we have explored the WHY blogs are powerful, now we can learn ways HOW to write blogs that connect to readers. Blogs are the most powerful tool we have to drive book sales, but too many author-bloggers are making a major mistake - CONTENT. Blogging articles, op-eds, interviews and reviews all activate the left hemisphere of the human brain... but fiction is a right-brain product. Why are we trying to build support for a right-brain product with a left-brain tool? This class teaches the nuts and bolts of how to harness your unique writing voice to create a powerful platform of loyal fans, because you will be connecting the same way your novels do. Monday, 1/7 • 2:00 - 3:00 (B) RISE OF THE DIGITAL AGE AUTHOR The publishing paradigm is changing faster than any of us can keep up. The Digital Age has opened up all kinds of opportunities, but with new opportunity comes increased competition. How can a writer stand out in a sea of "published authors?" Branding is very different in the Digital Age and if we fail to appreciate the changes in branding, then all our social media efforts are a giant waste of time. This class will explore why branding is different, why traditional marketing does not sell books, and will equip participants with tools to make them successful in the Digital Age. Kristen Lamb is the author of the #1 best-selling books We Are Not Alone - The Writer's Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Writer. She has trained thousands of writers and her methods are responsible for selling hundreds of thousands of books and elevating even unknown authors into the ranks of mega-best-selling success. In her free time, Kristen trains sea monkeys for the purposes of world domination. Jim LynchFriday, 1/11 • 4:30 - 5:30 (A)HOW TO LEARN FROM THE BOOKS YOU LOVE Learn by taking notes, rereading and reassessing the works you admire in practical ways that help you approach and inspire your own work. Saturday, 1/12 • 4:30 - 5:30 (A) TO USE RESEARCH TO ENRICH YOUR FICTION How to use research to enrich your fiction and feed your imagination so that you can write about what fascinates you as we well as "what you know." All my novels have benefited from my comfort with research that came with being a newspaper reporter for 18 years. But along the way I've learned how to use interviews and research first and foremost to stimulate the imagination as well as help provide realism and depth. I hung out with marine biologists and beach combed and kayaked endlessly to help create "The Highest Tide". For "Border Songs," I rode around with U.S. Border Patrol Agents, worked briefly on a dairy farm, shadowed a world-class birder and discussed smuggling tactics with Canadian pot growers. For my latest, "Truth Like the Sun," I mined library archives to bring Seattle's 1962 World's Fair back to life. My books are set in western Washington in large part because I'm a tactile writer who likes to get out and see the setting and interview people to help bring stories alive on the page. Sunday, 1/13 • 4:00 - 5:00 (A) HOW TO STAY SANE AND PERSEVERE WHILE TRYING TO GET PUBLISHED. Anecdotes and lessons from the roulette of publishing.HOW Jim Lynch is the author of three acclaimed novels set in the Northwest. The Highest Tide won the 2006 Pacific Northwest Bookseller Award and was an international bestseller. Border Songs was picked as among the best books of 2009 by The Washington Post, Toronto Star and others. It also won the Washington State Book Award for fiction. Much of his recently released novel, Truth Like the Sun, is set in Seattle during the 1962 World's Fair. The New York Times has called Lynch a "gifted and original novelist." As a reporter, Lynch's honors included the Livingston Young Journalist Award for national reporting. He lives in Olympia, Washington with his wife and daughter. Vonda McIntyreSaturday, 1/5 • 3:15 - 4:15 (B)EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT COMMERCIAL PUBLISHING. Should you publish with the "big six"? Do you need an agent? How do you find one if you do? Vaccinating yourself against scams. Publishers' Manners: Threat or menace? Contract tips and tricks. Manuscript preparation. Is the editor God, or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster? When to run away (and if). Once the book is published... the real work starts. Texts: SFWA Bulletin back issues, "Manuscript Preparation" by Vonda N. McIntyre Sunday, 1/6 • 3:15 - 4:15 (B) EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT EBOOK PUBLISHING Can you do it yourself? Should you pay for help? If so, how much, what are good terms and conditions? It's html all the way down. Book View Cafe co-op. Social media: Can you tweet about Facebook? POD, the Espresso Machine, ISBNs. What about Yog's Law? Texts: TBD. Six months ahead is too long for deciding what's important to look at in ebook publishing. Monday, 1/7 • 3:15 - 4:15 (B) PITFALLS OF WRITING SF & FANTASY SF and fantasy have some challenges and some opportunities relating to the use of language. Be aware of them. Know the rules so you can break them effectively. Texts: Pitfalls of Writing SF & Fantasy, by Vonda N. McIntyre "About Five Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty Words," by Samuel R. Delany. Vonda N. McIntyre writes science fiction. Here is a bio by Eileen Gunn with few facts but much truth: http://vondanmcintyre.com/Bio-by-EileenGunn.html, and here are the raw facts: http://vondanmcintyre.com/Biography.html Brenda MillerSaturday 1/5 • 3:15 - 4:15 (A)THE LYRIC ESSAY IN A NUTSHELL An overview of lyric forms and how to utilize them in your work. Sunday 1/6 • 3:15 - 4:15 (A) MANAGED INSPIRATION: FROM RAW KERNEL TO FULL FRUIT How to revise writing exercises into finished work.In this one, I would trace how one of my essays developed from a quick writing exercise. Brenda Miller is the author of three essay collections: Listening Against the Stone (9781558966437, Skinner House Books, 2011), Blessing of the Animals (EWU Press, 2009), and Season of the Body (1889330698, Sarabande Books, 2002). She is also co-author of Tell it Slant: Creating, Refining and Publishing Creative Nonfiction, 2nd Edition (978-0-07-178177-0, McGraw-Hill, 2012) and The Pen and the Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World (www.penandbell.com, 9781558966536, Skinner House Books, 2012). Her work has received six Pushcart Prizes and has been published in numerous journals. She is a Professor of English at Western Washington University and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Bellingham Review. Thursday, 1/10 • 4:30 - 5:30 (A) PANEL: ONLINE TEACHING VS. CLASSROOM TEACHING - NILA faculty discuss changes in approach and tactics. Randall PlattTuesday, 1/8 • 2:00 - 3:00 (A)SOMEDAY NEVER COMES - EXPLORING THE EXCUSES OF WHY WE AREN'T WRITING You have this voice inside you screaming to get out. You HAVE to write. So, why aren't you? What excuse can you come up with next? Is this you? "I'll really begin to write when (pick one or fill in your own answer):
WRITING FOR YOUNG ADULTS PART I A three-hour workshop, first hour. Wednesday 1/9 • 3:15 - 4:15 (A) WRITING FOR YOUNG ADULTS PART Il A three-hour workshop, second hour. Wednesday 1/9 • 4:30 - 5:30 (A) WRITING FOR YOUNG ADULTS PART Ill A three-hour workshop, third hour. Thursday 1/10 • 2:00 - 3:00 (A) ACTING ON PAPER - THE DRAMA OF WRITING A BOOK The techniques of acting can be translated to writing... after all, writing fiction is acting on paper. From entrances (page one, Chapter one) to exits (the end!); from holding the audience in the palm of your hand to knowing when to get off stage. From audition (query letter) to opening night (book launch), we have to be total professionals whether we are working community theater (small press or self-published) or Broadway (big house, NYC publishers). Come see how the craft of acting can teach you about the craft of writing.
WHAT TO DO WHEN THE HANGOVER WEARS OFF - HOW TO PREPARE FOR YOUR LIFE AS A PUBLISHED AUTHOR So, you finally got that letter! You're going to be published at long last! First, you celebrate, let's get that straight right here and now - be it champagne or soda pop. Celebrate your success. But now what? You promote, that's what. Your promotional campaign begins the minute the hangover wears off. If you think getting your novel sold was tough, wait until you try to get the book read. Therefore, there's not a moment to lose. Your promotional strategy must be well-thought out in advance. Who to contact, how to contact, how loud to toot your own horn, how to make your book rise above the rest, how to contact Hollywood, how to deal with book tours, and how can we stand out on the internet? Randall Platt is an award-winning writer of fiction for adults and young adults and for those who don’t own up to being either; a generally genial person with a rabid dedication to character and story; also, an athletic sort; see Handball. Belle RandallSaturday, 1/5 • 2:00 - 3:00 (A)THE FOLKLORE OF POETRY Who creates the language? We all do. Poetry is the creation of the collective consciousness, and hence, evidence that such a thing exists. That in itself makes language a kind of mystical substance. In what ways does this influence our experience as poets and story tellers? Is language a tool - a man made object that serves purposes we conceive, design and execute? Or is it like more like eyes, enabling us to see? Do we write in order express a thought already formed, or in order to discover what we mean? Is writing poetry similar to mystical experience? How so? We often hear of the limitations of language, but language can be magical - and surely we must mean by this something specific by this or risk being fatuous. In the next couple of sessions, we will explore the magical properties of language. Sunday, 1/6 • 2:00 - 3:00 (A) THE MAGICAL ACT OF NAMING The Whidbey Island Writers' Institute is unique in that it is conducted entirely by writers. What other kinds of educational experiences in writing are available? How does it matter that the program is conducted by writers? For me, it recalls things I learned about poetry outside of the classroom - things I learned as a child, at my mother's knee, or things that seemed to be in the air, part of the collective wisdom surrounding poetry. For instance, in Western culture perhaps the first poet - roughly contemporaneous with Homer (800-700 BC) - was a farmer's son, a shepherd tending his flock on Mt Halcyon when he received a visitation from the muses. The muses gave him two things: a laurel staff and "a voice not his own" - a voice with authority that others recognized as poetry. Is your own poetry a form of self-expression or of possession? "In the beginning was the word". What an amazing thing to say! Before there were things there were the names of things? What can it mean? Many indigenous cultures regard naming as a magical act. Anthropologists tell us of rites of passage whereby a young Indian brave goes into the forest alone to meditate and discover his own true name. Today we will talk about the magical act of naming. Monday, 1/7 • 2:00 - 3:00 (A) TAPPING THE UNEXPECTED No one can write a good poem at will - not every time or even most of the time. Poetry depends on inspiration, as much or even more than intention, and, although there are steps we can take to encourage inspiration, ways we can arrange to be there when it comes, it can not be turned on and off at will. Keats defined poetic genius as "Negative capability - the ability to live with the unknown." To the extent that it can be learned, it's a little like learning to float; one has to learn to trust the water. Similarly, the would be poet needs some experience of relaxing, evoking the muses, letting go and trusting that, if one gives up rational control, one may find beneficent spirits lurking just beneath the conscious level of the mind, like the spirits Yeats elicited via automatic writing, who said, "We come to give you metaphors for your poetry." There are exercises that will give you practice in this. Friday, 1/5 • 4:30 - 5:30 (A) BEFRIENDING THE CRITIC WITHIN Many would-be poets conceive of the creative impulse as an unselfconscious inner child whose spontaneity and creativity are threatened by the presence of the critical, rational, self-conscious mind. The critical intelligence is cast in the role of evil stepmother. Criticism, such poets fear, can undermine and even destroy their creativity. But the best poets I know are not unselfconscious so much as hyper self-conscious. Most poets revise, even those who claim not to, and those who don't revise, discard many of their attempts. Any way you say it, and however easily the best poems come, there is much work that does not result in a finished product. Critical intelligence is not only necessary, it can be a lifesaver, and, paradoxically, an almost bottomless source of inspiration. When a poet like Elizabeth Bishop works 16 years on a poem, what is she doing over the course of those years? If I were to teach poetry writing again, I would like to teach a class that required participants to work on one poem all semester, a course in revision, with poets discovering, with every new critical perspective, new ways of developing and expanding the poem with which they began. I would hope that they might find their poem becoming sequences or even a chapbook length manuscripts of related poems, by using ideas suggested during the revision process. This, for me, is the difference between revision and editing. Editing is superficial; revision is deep. After forty years of writing poems, I find no separation between the creative impulse and the act of revision. Saturday, 1/6 • 4:30 - 5:30 (A) THE JOB DESCRIPTION OF POET/STORYTELLER I began one of my early lectures by pointing out that no one can write a good poem at will every time. In this respect, making a poem is different from knitting or riding a bike - skills that can be "mastered." Poetry cannot be mastered. This is a difficult fact to live with in our time and place. The poet who is a product of American consumerist culture is apt to feel like a failure because she does not produce ever more and better poems, year after year - an expectation which may in itself scare away whatever talent she has. I would venture to say that most of my fellow creative writers - poets certainly - would agree that the experience of being a writer is one of almost continuous failure, no matter how much success they have. The poet Josephine Miles, whose writing workshop at Berkeley was so popular it filled up a year or two in advance, once told me that she received an average of seven rejections for every poem she submitted to magazines. Seven! Do you have her perseverance? Because one cannot count on inspiration, it is probably unwise to base one’s need for financial security on poetry. Most poets who are lucky enough to make a career in teaching, find other ways to contribute to the field than simply writing poems. What is the difference between a professional poet and an amateur? What makes a poet "a person of letters"? Sunday, 1/7 • 4:30 - 5:30 (A) THE STATE OF THE ART In 1991 poet Dana Gioia, a man well versed in the arts but also - unlike most poets - someone with a strong background in business - published an article in the Atlantic titled "Can Poetry Matter?", in which he pointed to a paradox inherent in the state of contemporary poetry - a paradox that his business training perhaps enabled him to see before others, what he called "a Zen riddle of cultural sociology". Over the past half century, as America's specialist audience has steadily expanded, its general readership has declined. Moreover, the engines that have driven poetry's institutional success - the explosion of academic writing programs, the proliferation of subsidized magazines and presses, the emergence of a creative-writing career track, and the migration of American literary culture to the university - have unwittingly contributed to its disappearance from public view. What evidence do we have of this? Has the situation remained the same? Have the intervening twenty-some years made it better or worse? What social forces which might cause it to improve? How does it influence your role as a poet or teacher? Belle Randall's poetry appears in A Century of Poetry: 100 Poems from the First 100 Years of Poetry, just out from Chicago University Press. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, and the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (2005-7), Belle is the Poetry Editor of Common Knowledge (Duke University Press), a position she has held from the magazine's founding in 1990. Her collections of poetry include: 101 Different Ways of Playing Solitaire and Other Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973) and The Coast Starlight (David Robert Books, 2010). The University of California's Bancroft Library Press has just published two art books containing selections from her correspondence with the poet Thom Gunn, housed in their archives. Brian RoweMonday, 1/7 • 3:15 - 4:15 (A)COPYRIGHT AND CREATIVE COMMONS IN THE DIGITAL AGE In ever changing world of e-books, blogs, self publishing and traditional publishing it can be tough for an artist to figure out what is covered by copyright and when it is best to share or licenses your rights. This talk will cover the basics of copyright and tends in digital publishing along with many practical tips related to copyright law. There will also be a chance for Q&A, so bring your questions! Brian Rowe is a professor and techie currently working at Northwest Justice Project at the National Technology Assistance Project Coordinator, and teaching at the University of Washington and Seattle University. He is also the founder of Freedom for IP. Brian has worked at several nonprofits including Public Knowledge, as a Google Public Policy Fellow, working on copyright and FCC issues and at Creative Commons as a legal clerk on a public interest law foundation grant, working on public domain and noncommercial use in copyright. Brian currently serves on the Washington State Access to Justice Board’s Technology Committee and as a board member of Washington Lawyers for the Art. Brian has a background in information technology. He holds a B.S. in Informatics and B.A. in Political Science, both from University of Washington, and a J.D. from Seattle University. Brian teaches Policy, Law, and Ethics in Information Management at the University of Washington’s Information School. Connect with Brian online at http://brianrowe.org or through Twitter @Sarterus Elizabeth WalesFriday, 1/11 • 3:15 - 4:15 (B)HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR WORK IS READY; AND HOW DO YOU CONNECT TO AN AGENT, OR PUBLISHER? How to know you are ready will be more of a discussion than a prescriptive presentation. I will share a half dozen stories about some titles, both fiction and nonfiction, and how we knew they were ready to share with New York; and then, after a contract was obtained and the manuscript written, how we (author, editor and agent) came to the conclusion that the book was ready to be published. Along the way we will talk about connecting to agents, and then, in turn to a publisher. Saturday, 1/12 • 3:15 - 4:15 (B) ARE FICTION AND NONFICTION MASHING UP INTO A NEW, THIRD, HYBRID GENRE? This is one of my favorite subjects - it is happening; the hybridization of fiction and nonfiction. Concrete examples will be used and then discussed. Sunday, 1/13 • 2:45 - 3:45 (B) SHOULD I LOOK FOR A TRADITIONAL PUBLISHER? OR, TRY SELF-PUBLISHING AND GO DIRECTLY TO AN EPUBLISHER TO DO AN EBOOK? As a writer, what should I think about all this or know about all this change? These questions will be answered as things evolve - we are reading "tea leaves" right now, but much can be observed with some clarity. For starters, of all the books you have read in the last year, how many were self-published? It's a big market of small unit projects, by and large, with some obvious exceptions. A full discussion. Elizabeth Wales co-founder of Seattle-based Wales Literary Agency, Inc., has been in publishing and bookselling since 1980. Wales Literary Agency represents 65 award-winning writers of fiction and nonfiction, including Bruce Barcott, Karen Brennan, Rebecca Brown, Leela Corman, Kirsten Grind, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Jean Hegland, Martin Laird, Nancy Lord, David Mas Masumoto, David Montgomery, Lucia Perillo, Dan Savage, Robert Spector, Bill Streever, Kurt Timmermeister, and Carol Kaesuk Yoon. Her agency’s titles have appeared on the New York Times, Publishers’ Weekly, and other national bestseller lists. Elizabeth is a member of the Association of Authors Representatives, the Authors Guild, and Pacific Northwest Writers Association. She worked at Oxford University Press, Viking Penguin and the Strand Bookstore in New York City before moving to Seattle in 1983. She graduated with a degree in English and American Literature for Smith College and did graduate studies in Literature at Columbia College. Michael Dylan WelchTuesday, 1/8 • 3:15 - 4:15 (B)RUNNING A SMALL PRESS OR POETRY JOURNAL Dreaming of starting your own poetry journal or small press? This class covers the pros and cons of various approaches, in print and online. We'll explore motives/benefits, branding/genres, financing/subscriptions, layout/design, printing/distribution, publicity, frequency, and teamwork/delegation. With the right building blocks and good planning, you can turn your publication dream into a reality. Wednesday, 1/9 • 3:15 - 4:15 (B) HAIKU TARGETS Kigo, kireji, shasei? Find out what these terms have to do with haiku in this interactive introduction to haiku and its history and techniques. We'll build and discuss a list of haiku's most important targets (and no, 5-7-5 is not one of them) as we learn how to write haiku employing seasonal reference, juxtaposition, and primarily objective sensory imagery - and how these and other haiku techniques can help you improve your longer poetry and fiction. Copious handouts. Wednesday, 1/9 • 4:30 - 5:30 (B) TO SAY THE LEAST: AN INTRODUCTION TO SHORT POETRY FORMS Short poetry isn't poetry for short poets! This overview workshop covers a variety of poetry forms under 14 lines, such as tanka, triolet, cinquain, clerihew, double dactyls, and more, with example poems, and time to try writing them yourself. With sharing and discussion. This class will give you more arrows for your poetry quiver! And if you have a favorite short form that you'd like to share that isn't covered, we'll make time for that too. Thursday, 1/10 • 3:15 - 4:15 (B) HAIKU WRITING MADE SIMPLE As a follow-up to the "Haiku Targets" class, this workshop will get us writing and sharing our work. If you take the preceding class, use your time before this class to write haiku focusing on each of your five senses and come prepared to share them in this class. We'll also do some haiku writing and other exercises in class, and share and discuss our work. Thursday, 1/10 • 4:30 - 5:30 (B) THE SONG OF HAIBUN Haibun is the combination of chiefly autobiographical prose with haiku, the most famous example of which is Basho's Oku no hosomichi, or "Narrow Road to the Interior." We'll look at a few haibun examples from Japan and North America, learn some of the basic techniques, and try writing haibun ourselves - which we'll also share and discuss. If a haiku is a chord, a haibun is a song - let's make music! Michael Dylan Welch is vice president of the Haiku Society of America, founder and first president of the Tanka Society of America, cofounder and director of the biennial Haiku North America conference, cofounder of the American Haiku Archives, and a board member of the Washington Poets Association. He also curates two poetry reading series in Redmond, Washington. He has published and edited dozens of poetry books, including four books of cotranslations from the Japanese. One of his translations appeared on the back of 150,000,000 U.S. postage stamps in March of 2012. His haiku, tanka, longer poetry, essays, and book reviews have been translated into at least fifteen languages, and have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including his third appearance in a Norton poetry anthology in the spring of 2013. For many years he was a senior editor for IDG Books (publisher of the yellow For Dummies books), and has extensive experience as a technical writer and editor for print and online content. Since 1989 he has been publishing poetry books with his small press, Press Here, and has been editor and publisher of Woodnotes, Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem, and the Washington Poets Association's Cascade, and is also a contributing editor to Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cumming Society. Michael is also an avid photographer and racquetball player. His website is www.graceguts.com. Michael WiegersTuesday, 1/8 • 2:00-3:00 (B)POETRY AND THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK How poetry integrates into the the world of tree-books and e-books. This talk will consider how poetry will benefit from as well as resist a digital future. Wednesday, 1/9 • 2:00-3:00 (B) SUBMISSIONS PART 1 Should writers assume publishers maintain open door policies and why? This conversation will examine why authors expect to be read, and why publishers create filters, and how writers might prepare themselves and their work for submissions. Encouragement vs. statistics. Thursday, 1/10 • 2:00-3:00 (B) SUBMISSIONS PART 2 Good writing vs. writing well: What makes a book? How do writers differentiate their work so that it stands out among the crowd? How does a writer establish a voice? What helps an editor pull a manuscript from the slush? Michael Wiegers is the Executive Editor of Copper Canyon Press. Among the collections he has edited are award winning books by poets such as CD Wright, W.S. Merwin, Ruth Stone, Ted Kooser, Arthur Sze, and Alberto Ríos as well as major works in translation by Pablo Neruda, Taha Muhammad Ali, and Ho Xuan Huong, and books by emerging authors Michael Dickman, Matthew Zapruder, Valzhyna Mort and Brenda Shaughnessy, among many others. He additionally serves as Poetry Editor for Narrative Magazine, is the editor of two anthologies, This Art and The Poet's Child, and is co-editor, with Mónica de la Torre, of Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry. His translations have been published in Connecting Lines: New Mexican Poetry, Five Points, The Great River Review, Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post and he has published work in The American Poetry Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Publishers Weekly, and Rain Taxi, among others. He lives in Port Townsend, WA. Fall 2012 Residency Daily Schedule Spring 2012 Residency Daily Schedule Fall 2011 Residency Daily Schedule Spring 2011 Residency Daily Schedule. |
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