2009 Summer Writing Retreat Classes

Karleen Koen

What combination of skill and talent allows a writer to birth a novel?

Come explore the place of creativity and tenacity in this workshop that also highlights essential elements in a novel: scene and sequel, story question, character, the difference between draft and revision. In each class, short, concrete, writing exercises sharpen skills, boost confidence, and remind that a writer writes. Period. You'll learn about style - your own and another's - by examining structural processes in your favorite fiction. Each student will receive an 85-page notebook of writing tips and techniques.

Topics include:

• Beginnings: Yours and the Novel's
• Plot: The Motor of Any Story
• Creativity: Left and Right Brain
• Magic: Finding It Again
• Fear: Going on Anyway
• Inspiration: Care and Feeding of
• Business: Query Letters, Agents, Internet, Support Systems, Blah, Blah, Blah

Required Text: Your favorite novel. I mean your favorite, not what's fashionable. Please bring it to every class.

Please note: This is not a critique class. Work will not be critiqued by course instructor or other students.

Who should attend:

• Blocked, stalled, scared, floundering, weary, and wounded writers
• Beginning novelists or anyone wanting a broad overview of that beast known as a novel

Karleen Koen is the author of three novels, Dark Angels, Now Face to Face, and Through a Glass Darkly. She is currently finishing a fourth. Through a Glass Darkly was on the bestseller list for 21 weeks. Her books have been published by Crown Publishing, Random House, Avon Books, Kensington Books, Source Books, Three Rivers Press, Books on Tape, Brilliance Bookcassette, and Random House Audio and have also been published in foreign editions. The first two were Book-of-the-Month Club selections. The third was a Book Sense pick, Historical Novels' Society's Editor's Pick, and the abridged audio won an Audiofile award.

Karleen is an experienced and award-winning magazine editor and writer/editor and cofounder of Women in the Visual and Literary Arts in Houston. She has taught this course at Rice University's Glasscock School of Continuing Studies for six years. Her blog is at www.karleenkoen.wordpress.com.

Register online with credit card, Paypal or Google checkout.

Carol Dawson

You've got a real grabber of an idea: a plot, a character, a biographical inspiration, an autobiographical sketch, a whole city full of characters that excite your imagination and/or thrill your nonfiction nerve. How do you make the story you've conceived sing with authority and appeal?

This course focuses on the use of voice - i.e., point of view - and how to craft a more effective narrative by controlling and deploying it. We will start by discussing the differences, both subtle and obvious, between POVs, and will write our ongoing projects with these in mind. The techniques covered should apply equally to fiction and nonfiction projects. Here are some of the points we will address in our discussions and in a workshop critique format:

• The Demands of Plot and Structure: Solving the problems of ongoing story drive through POV
• The "'I Know This Person" Recognition Effect: How to engage the reader more deeply by giving him or her a sense of intimacy through your choice of POV
• First Person, Third Person, and the Omniscient Voice: Which one serves your story best?
• The Tricks, Merits, and Pitfalls Of First Person Versus Third And Omniscience
• Reaching for That Inner "I" Voice, Whoever the Narrator Happens to Be: Exercises for readier access to the minds of your characters
• The Narrative Arc: Tracking and sustaining it; charting your story without trapping yourself inside an ironclad outline; allowing your story to reveal itself further and surprise you
• Ruthless Self-Editing: Becoming comfortably "knife-minded" after you've finished the first draft (with tips on how to survive the process!)
• Imaginative Problem-Solving: How to stand far enough outside your story to see and solve your dilemmas - and use your intuition

Throughout the week, you will be expected to spend at least two hours per day in class on your writing (as Dorothy Parker defined it, "The art of writing is the art of applying ass to seat!"). As a workshop class, we will go over what you have written; in addition, your instructor, Carol Dawson, will be available during these work/writing periods throughout the day for one-to-one conference, commentary, and advice. When the course is finished, you will probably have written enough to push your project into full-fledged realization.

Who Should Attend:

• Anyone who wishes to explore how to write a more effective narrative, whether it's for a novel, short fiction, or a nonfiction/journalistic project

Carol Dawson is both a novelist and nonfiction author whose books include the novels The Waking Spell, Body of Knowledge, Meeting the Minotaur, and The Mother-in-Law Diaries, all published by Algonquin Books, Simon and Schuster, Viking-Penguin, and translated overseas into several languages. Her award-winning nonfiction book House of Plenty: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Luby's Cafeterias was published by the University of Texas Press.

Carol has taught creative writing and literature at the College of Santa Fe, as well as in numerous workshops. In addition, her work has been published in magazines and journals, including Texas Monthly, Southern Living, The Oxford-American, Parenting Magazine, etc. She has just completed a new historical novel, written in first person singular voice, about the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials.

Joe Nick Patoski

You've got the big idea. So how do you translate that into a real nonfiction book? Author and writer Joe Nick Patoski shows you the process and the path, from pitch to final product. Students will look at conceptualizing, identifying an audience, researching, reporting, and working with editors and copy editors, all while keeping your voice. You'll start by looking at why ideas matter, why we write, and who we write for, then will focus on:

• The Concept: What's the story here?
• The Audience: Identifying your audience
• Organization: Outlining and building a chapter structure
• Observation: How observation informs the art of descriptive writing
• The Narrative: The importance of storytelling
• The Interviews: How to conduct interviews and use quotations artfully
• The Copy: Taking facts and making them sing
• Editing: The writer/editor dynamic
  

"Making Book" will also explore the realities of the current nonfiction publishing market, including how to find an agent, book proposals, contracts, marketing, and the state of modern publishing.

Who should attend:

• Aspiring nonfiction writers with an idea
• Journalists moving publications to books
• Previously published authors wanting to hone their craft
• Writers interested in learning more about creative nonfiction

Joe Nick Patoski has authored and co-authored biographies on Selena and Stevie Ray Vaughan, both published by Little, Brown and Company; his latest is Willie Nelson. His other books include Texas Mountains, Texas Coast, and Big Bend National Park all published by the University of Texas Press. He spent 18 years as a staff writer for Texas Monthly and more recently has written for the Texas Observer, National Geographic, No Depression, People magazine, Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, Field & Stream, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and other publications.

Joe Nick also contributed an essay to the photo book Conjunto by John Dyer, also published by University of Texas Press. In 2003-2004, he recorded the oral histories of B. B. King, Clarence Fountain of the Blind Boys of Alabama, Memphis, Tejano superstar Little Joe Hernandez, and other subjects for the "Voice of Civil Rights" oral history project, some of which appeared in the book My Soul Looks Back in Wonder, by Juan Williams. He has completed writing a book Generations on the Land, profiling eight American families recognized for practicing sustainable farming, ranching, and forestry for the Sand County Foundation, which will be published by Texas A&M University Press, and is writing a history of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, to be published in 2010. He lives outside Wimberley.

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Scott Wiggerman

Though the origins of most form poetry go back centuries, forms continue to fascinate and challenge today's poets. This course focuses on five forms that have struck a chord with modern poets:

• Sonnets
• Villanelles
• Sestinas
• Ghazals
• Pantoums

It will also take an occasional look at related forms, like the tritina and the terzanelle. Students will explore how poets like Robert Bly, Heather McHugh, and Marilyn Hacker have adapted, altered, and reconstructed these forms for the twenty-first century.

Through a close study of the mechanics of each form, an immersion in form exercises, and daily drafts of new poems, this class is designed to transform your perception and appreciation of form.

Who should attend:

• Poets regardless of whether they're beginners or polished professionals
• Writers wanting to develop their creativity and polish their craft

Scott Wiggerman is the author of Vegetables and Other Relationships (Plain View Press, 2000) and the editor of several anthologies, including the recent Big Land, Big Sky, Big Hair. He has published in dozens of journals, including Junctures, Contemporary Sonnet, Windhover, Concho River Review, Spillway, Borderlands, and Southwestern American Literature. He is one of the two "cats" of Dos Gatos Press, which publishes the Texas Poetry Calendar, now in its twelfth year.

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