Full Programme of the 2012 Conference
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PATRONS, SPONSORS & FRIENDS The Geneva Writers’ Conference is wholly non-profi t and is made possible through registration fees and through the generous support of: Patrons Fondation de Groot Hewlett Packard, Genève Webster University, Bellevue Sponsors OffTheShelf English Bookshop Geneva Press Club Friends American International Club, Geneva American International Women’s Club, Geneva American International Women’s Club, Lausanne Bergli Books, Basel BooksBooksBooks, Lausanne 8 TH Hello Switzerland Genève Tourisme International Herald Tribune, Zurich GENEVA International PEN, Centre Suisse Romand International Women’s Writing Guild, New York WRITERS’ Paris Writers News Payot Librairie–Chantepoulet, English Books Radio Frontier CONFERENCE Stauffacher English Bookshop, Bern Swiss News www.LivingInNyon World Radio Switzerland 3–5 GENEVA WRITERS’ CONFERENCE COMMITTEE February Liz Boquet Lang-Hoan Pham 2012 Amanda Callendrier Bob Piller Katie Hayoz Jo Ann Hansen Rasch Karen McDermott Pierre-Yves Tiberghien Sue Niewiarowski Susan Tiberghien Daniela Norris John Zimmer Mary Pecaut For further information, please see the website: www.genevawritersgroup.org Or contact: Susan Tiberghien [email protected] Katie Hayoz [email protected] Karen McDermott [email protected] THE CONFERENCE PROGRAM The 8th Geneva Writers’ Conference welcomes FRIDAY / 3 FEBRUARY writers from around the world to a weekend of work- 17:30 Early Registration shops and panels led by well-known authors, agents, editors and publishers from France, Italy, Switzer- 19:00 Opening Buffet, land, the UK andand thethe USA. Participant Readings The goal is to bring together English-language writ- SATURDAY / 4 FEBRUARY ers for high-level instruction, support and feedback through workshops, discussions, and readings. The 09:00 Registration Conference instructors are experienced in teaching 10:00 Welcome creative writing and committed to sharing their knowl- 10:30 Session I edge, skills, and perspectives on writing as an art 12:30 Lunch and as a profession. The program offers a choice of writing workshops 14:00 Q&A in fi ction, nonfi ction, playwriting, and poetry, along 15:00 Session II with a critiquing workshop and panels in publishing. 17:00 Break There are also question and answer periods with in- 17:15 Q&A structors and panelists, and two evenings of read- ings. The bookshop is open all weekend. 18:15 Dinner, Instructor Readings The Conference takes place at Webster University, SUNDAY / 5 FEBRUARY Bellevue, ten minutes by car or train from the cen- ter of Geneva. Information about hotels in Geneva 9:30 Welcome and means of transportation are sent to those who 9:45 Session III register. 11:45 Break Early registration starts at 17:30 on Friday evening. 12:00 Q&A The opening buffet supper for participants and staff 12:45 Lunch will include readings by participants (numbers lim- ited, advanced sign-up required). 14:00 Session IV The registration fee for the Conference is CHF 180180 16:15 Closing Reception and includes: • Writing workshops in fi ction, nonfi ction, play- REGISTRATION writing, and poetry (classes limited to 20) Please send the Registration Form by email or • Critiquing workshops on a fi rst come, post, clearly indicating the payment method. fi rst served basis Email: [email protected] • Panel discussions: “Meet the Agents, Editors, Fax: +41 (0)22 774 3836 Publishers” and “Web and Self Publishing” Mail: Geneva Writers’ Conference • Question and Answer periods with instructors 24 chemin des Mollies and panelists CH-1293 Bellevue Switzerland • Readings by participants and instructors The deadline is Friday, 27 January 2012. Your reg- • Closing reception, Sunday afternoon istration will be confi rmed by email when payment is Meal reservation forms (for meals in the University received. Cancellations received before 27 January cafeteria) and book consignment forms will be sent will be refundable less a CHF 1515 handlinghandling charge.charge. NoNo by email in early January. Complimentary tea and cof- refunds can be made after that date. fee will be available throughout the weekend. On the Registration Form please indicate four workshop or panel choices (from the twelve that are listed) and two alternatives in order of preference. Workshops are limited to twenty participants. Places for all workshops will be allocated on a fi rst come, fi rst served basis. WORKSHOPS & PANELS Fiction Playwriting 1. Beginnings / Patricia Duncker 7. The Beginnings of a Playful Approach / Your opening pages establish a complex relationship Rob Drummer with your readers. Is this the book they want to read? Is there an art to playwriting? How does a playwright Why should they read on? What is your book about? Not begin? At what point do we begin to develop? Three what happens, but what it’s about. Bring an A4 sheet questions form the foundation of this workshop, which with your outline describing what your book is about and is an active exploration of the beginnings of a play, and the fi rst few pages. how these beginnings become a fi rst draft, and how we then work with that draft. 2. Fiction and Reality / Sheila Kohler Participants will be asked to read and analyze examples Poetry of important moments in literature and to use their own 8. The Journey of a Life / Naomi Shihab Nye lives to respond in class exercises. Moments of change, The journey of a life through poems: Where did we be- fi rst memories, and writing from the point of view a dif- gin? What have we seen through the windows of the ferent sex may be used. trains and buses and cars that carried us? A poem is 3. Detail Matters: How to Find Just the a small, rich suitcase—poems as a mapping of a life. Right One / Bret Lott We’ll discuss and make notes for poems which travel The lifeblood of fi ction is in the details. No matter how lightly. grand our plots and themes, if the story itself doesn’t 9. Movement and Image / Wallis Wilde-Menozzi bring us there, a story is only a pile of words. Through How to put beauty into modern poetry. Using examples examples and on-the-spot writing exercises, we’ll ex- from contemporary poets, we will focus on how inspired plore how to best render the physical world in ways that images, movement in time or place, can bring life, ex- what will make the reader go beyond reading the story citement and revelation to seemingly “unpoetic” sub- to being in the story. jects. Participants will start a poem in class, and then Nonfi ction begin to reshape and polish. 4. Travel Writing / Nick Barlay Critiquing The drama of real places: This workshop will focus on 10. Critiquing techniques of narrative, drama and description in travel This workshop will be devoted to critiquing unpublished writing. A mixture of discussion, examples and exer- work. The fi rst writers to register will be given ten min- cises will aim to answer the question: how can location utes each to read their own work, and ten minutes for and experience work together to bring a place to life? critiques by panelists and other writers. 5. From Private to Public: Finding Meaning Panel Discussions in the Personal Essay / Dinty W. Moore (parallel to workshop sessions) The best writing provokes an emotional reaction. Bring- 11. Meet the Agents, Editors, Publishers / ing the reader into the experience, through direct im- Miriam Goderich, Hannah Westland, mersion rather than distant portrayal, is the key to suc- David Applefi eld, Colin Harrison cess. This workshop will offer examples and exercises What are their roles? What do they look for in a writer, to reveal how readers and writers share “discovery” in in a manuscript? How does a manuscript fi nally get nonfi ction, and how the personal essay opens itself to published? What happens then? How does the book a wide audience. get promoted? What is expected of the author? The 6. Memoir: Writing the Way Home / panelists will address these questions and others. Susan Tiberghien 12. Web and Self-Publishing / Dinah Lee Küng, Writing memoir leads us to our deeper self. We will Catherine Nelson Pollard, John Zimmer read excerpts from contemporary memoir writers to see This panel will address electronic publishing (Kindle how they explore images that lead them homeward. and more), self publishing (including print-on-demand), With writing exercises we will look for our own images and the social network tools to publicize your work and and write about them, shaping the pieces together into develop your on-line voice. There will be time to ask mosaic-like memoirs. questions. Q& A (question and answer periods) These periods are open and it is not necessary to reg- ister. They will allow for contact with the instructors and panelists. INSTRUCTORS & PANELISTS Fiction Patricia Duncker is the prize-winning author of fi ve novels. Wallis Wilde-Menozzi’s poetry appears in Kenyon Review, Miss Webster and Chérif, was shortlisted for the Common- Agni, Notre Dame Review, among others. School for Pears wealth Writers Prize, 2007, and The Strange Case of the and Heron Songs aarere ttitlesitles ofof ttwowo ccollections.ollections. HerHer mostmost Composer and His Judge 2010,2010, forfor thethe CWACWA GoldGold DaggerDagger recent book, non-fi ction, The Other Side of the Tiber, will Award. She is Professor of Contemporary Literature at the be published, summer 2012 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). University of Manchester. www.patriciaduncker.com She lives and teaches in Parma, Italy. Sheila Kohler, author of eight novels and three collec- www.walliswilde-menozzi.com tions of short stories, won two O. Henry, an Open Voice, a Meet the Agents, Editors, Publishers Smart Family Foundation, the Willa Cather, and the Antioch Review Prize. She teaches at Bennington and Princeton Hannah Westland joined Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd in University. Her novel Cracks isis a featurefeature fi lmlm directeddirected byby 2002, working with Deborah Rogers and David Miller.