Welcome The Workshop The Festival Experience Registration Information Registration Form Dear Writer About Us Contents Our Staff Welcome . 1. Amy Margolis, Director, has been with the Festival since 1990, as a graduate The Workshop . 2. assistant, a program assistant, an assistant director, a 2 The Workshop co-director and, since 2001, as the program’s director. Method Amy received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ 2 Skill Levels/Choosing Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. a Workshop She’s taught fiction and nonfiction writing as part of 3 Workshops by Date the Festival and to undergraduates at The University of 7 Workshops by Iowa. Her short fiction appears in The Iowa Review and Instructor was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She recently collaborated The Festival with writer and violinist Tricia Park, along with the Experience . .68 . 68 The Eleventh Hour Solera Quartet and writers Robin Hemley, Daniel 68 Summer in Iowa City Khalastchi, and Sabrina Orah Mark, on “Mendelssohn 68 Getting Here as Muse,” a performance piece of music and original 69 Your Day, Weekend, writing inspired by the work of Felix Mendelssohn. She Week: Schedules is currently at work on a memoir-in-shards about her 70 Where to Stay life as a dancer in the late seventies, at the onset of the AIDS crisis. Registration Information . 72. 72 How to Register 72 Fees and Deadlines: Kate Aspengren, Weeklong & Weekend Workshops Weekend Coordinator, 73 Fees, Deadlines, and oversees the weekend sessions for the Festival and Timeline: Two-Week is a long-time faculty member in the program. She Intensive Workshop encourages you to read about her educational and 73 Cancellation & teaching background on the page with her workshop Transfer Policies description. She has written about flight, cowgirls, whales, and apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Kate irons Registration Form . 74. everything she wears. Really. Cover illustration by Skye McNeill Art & Design: https:// skyemcneillcreative.com/ Photos by Lola Flash, Tom Langdon, Marian Roth, Lisa Wells Design by Benson & Hepker Design, Iowa City Welcome The Workshop The Festival Experience Registration Information Registration Form Dear Writer About Us Dear Writer, Here in Iowa City, we are preparing for the 32nd Iowa Summer Writing Festival. In these pages, you’ll find workshops in the novel, the short story, the essay, the memoir; in writing the weird, writing the body, writing about nowhere, writing the emergency, flash fiction, short poems, political poems, poems of memory, picture books, hybrid forms, reflective writing, travel writing, playwriting, and more. We’re breathless with excitement for our 32nd Festival, which features 117 workshops that explore the genres in their reaches. Since 1987, the Festival has welcomed to the campus of The University of Iowa writers from 18 to 97 years of age, from all 50 states, and from every continent. Most of us come to the workshop table from other areas of expertise, other lives. These include the armed forces, business, diplomacy, education, farming, homemaking, journalism, law, law enforcement, medicine, parenting, pastoral care, the performing arts, social services, and more. We come together across the genres, the generations, and at every level of literary practice in a common enterprise. We come as writers. This is the only assumption we make about you, whether you arrive with the third draft of your novel, a message in a bottle, or merely a bee in your bonnet. The Festival is proud to belong to Iowa City—a UNESCO City of Literature in the Creative Cities Network. Iowa City has long been a haven for writers, and The University of Iowa our ancestral home. The rich literary legacy that belongs to this place abides today in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the Nonfiction Writing Program, the Playwrights Workshop, the International Writing Program, the Spanish Creative Writing Program, the Translation Workshop, the undergraduate Major in English and Creative Writing, The Certificate in Writing, the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, The Iowa Youth Writing Project, Between the Lines: The Writing Experience, the Irish Writing Program, the Iowa Center for the Book, The University of Iowa Press, The Iowa Review, and The Examined Life Journal. Some years ago, Iowa City dedicated the Iowa Avenue Literary Walk, which celebrates in bronze relief panels some of the singular voices that have come together here, from Flannery O’Connor and Kurt Vonnegut to John Irving and James Tate. Everything here is closely observed—now, even the sidewalks. The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is an opportunity for you to share your work in a community that wishes it well. It’s a long conversation we’ve been having in Iowa City. We invite you to pull up a chair. Amy Margolis Director 1 Welcome The Workshop The Festival Experience Registration Information Registration Form Method Skill Levels Workshops by Date The Workshop Method Courses in the Iowa Summer Writing Festival are primarily based on the workshop method. Although your workshop leader may include some study of published material, in most cases the main text is your own creative work. Some workshops are devoted to critiquing work you’ve brought from home, some to generating new work through guided exercises and assignments, and some incorporate a combination of both approaches. Please read the descriptions carefully. The workshop is a dynamic community that reads, and responds to, what’s brought to it. We approach each work-in-progress on its own terms, in a spirit of critical appreciation for that work’s own intentions. We’re on its side. In workshops devoted to critiquing work, your writing will be read and discussed by your fellow writers, giving you the benefit of a careful, supportive readership. You are expected to give the same considered feedback to others on their work. Skill Levels/Choosing a Workshop Most workshops in the Festival are designed to be appropriate for writers across a range of skill levels and literary practice. They vary, though, in terms of locus in the writing process. When choosing a workshop, resist the temptation to place yourself as a writer. Rather, place the work you want to focus on in your time here. If you’re dealing with issues that arise in later drafts, you might look at workshops that explore aspects of revision or structure, or workshops with an emphasis on providing feedback on pages participants bring from home. If you’re starting a new project, or your project has stalled out, or you’re returning to the page after a long silence, or you’re crossing genres, a course that is devoted to generating new work through guided exercises and assignments (with perhaps light discussion of the new writing you generate) could give you a jumpstart. If you find choosing among so many workshops dizzying, you might ask yourself: “What do I want to accomplish in my week/weekend in Iowa City? What do I want to carry home and into my writing next year?” Your answer is the most accurate map to the workshop that’s best for you. If you get lost in the weeds, call the Festival office at 319-335-4160, and we’ll help you clear a path. You will help us guide you by studying the descriptions and narrowing your selections before we speak. 2 Welcome The Workshop The Festival Experience Registration Information Registration Form Method Skill Levels Workshops by Date Workshops by Date Weekend Workshops June 16–17 Mary Allen .................. Travel Writing Made Easy, and It’s All Travel Writing .............................. 9 Venise Berry ................ Muddy Water: Controlling Plot, Subplots, and Plot Points in Your Novel............ 14 Jonathan Blum .............. Creating Compelling Characters in Fiction ..................................... 15 Amy Butcher ................ The Literary Memoir ......................................................... 17 Thomas K. Dean ............. Revising Sentences for Impact ................................................ 20 Daniel Khalastchi ............ Betting on the Muse: A Poetry Workshop ...................................... 38 Sabrina Orah Mark ........... Obsession: A Poetry Workshop ............................................... 39 Marc Nieson ................ The Art of Metaphor ......................................................... 47 Lon Otto ................... Writing in Layers: Fiction, Narrative Nonfiction, and Poetry....................... 51 Kathleen Rooney ............ Writing the Body: Capturing the Human Pulse across Genres ..................... 54 Suzanne Scanlon ............ Polishing and Publishing Your Short Prose...................................... 58 Mary Kay Shanley ........... The Why and How of Reflective Writing........................................ 60 Sarah Strickley .............. Nurturing a Daily Writing Practice ............................................. 63 Kali VanBaale ............... Revising the Novel ........................................................... 66 Weeklong Workshops June 17–22 Jonathan Blum .............. Short Story Workshop ....................................................... 15 Amy Butcher ................ Essay Bootcamp: A Generously Generative Workshop .......................... 17 Susan Taylor Chehak ......... Writing Weird ............................................................... 19 Katie Ford .................. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Critique & Craft ................................... 26 Sands Hall .................. Novel: The Next Draft .......................................................