Writers' Workshop
Faculty and Courses
30th Annual Duke University Writers Workshop
September 28-October 2, 2009
Wildacres Retreat, Little Switzerland, NC
WORKSHOP GROUPS, CHOOSE ONE:
FINISHING YOUR NOVEL
with Darnell Arnoult
Course ID# 12372
Started a novel (or more than one novel) but not gotten past the first 50-80 pages? Struggling to get to the end of your first novel project? Vacillating between a novel and linked stories? Do you have novels in boxes under the bed that you aren’t happy with or that never caught the attention of an editor or agent? Are you and your novel both too tired to make it to the finish line? Need some Geritol? Then this is the workshop for you! The key is a balance of discovery, discernment, and decision making. Learn to identify the best story lurking in the pages you already have written. Exercises and other tools will help put energy back into your story and renew your enthusiasm about the work at hand. Our principle focus will be on enhancing and developing all-important character, action, and language, and heightening events, circumstances, and themes organic to the work. to buy and read a book before workshop, or have the book with them? To get the most out of this workshop, you are strongly encouraged to get CONVERSATIONS WITH LARRY BROWN by Jay Watson, published by University of Mississippi Press, 2007. Soft cover, $22.00. If you can't find it in the library or bookstore, see the University of Mississippi Press page: http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/865.
Darnell Arnoult’s novel Sufficient Grace (Free Press/Simon & Schuster) debuted to a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. Her collection What Travels With Us: Poems (LSU Press, 2005) was named SIBA Poetry Book of the Year and won the 2005 Weatherford Award for Appalachian Literature. Her poems and stories have appeared a variety of literary journals. Arnoult, recipient of the 2009 Mary Francis Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters and 2007 Tennessee Writer of the Year, holds a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, MA from NC State, and MFA from University of Memphis. She lives outside Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, metal artist William Brock. www.darnellarnoult.com.
CREATIVE NONFICTION AND PERSONAL ESSAY
with Alton Ballance
Course ID# 12373
How can we craft our memories into stories and stitch together a collection of these into memoir or personal essay? How can family photos, artifacts, and documents reveal telling stories about our lives and those we chose to describe? How can the traditional elements of fiction—plot, characterization, dialogue—be used to color these stories in creative ways while sticking to the essential truth of nonfiction? Our main focus in this workshop will be to explore these questions and consider how to create and structure writings that represent memoir and personal essay. I will have handouts of works from published authors of creative nonfiction so we can discuss their craft. We will also discuss your work and hopefully you will gain useful suggestions on how to develop your own writings.
You may send me up to 10 double-spaced pages of your creative nonfiction via e-mail by September 1 to altonballance@yahoo.com. I will return these to you, with my comments, on the first day of the workshop.
Alton Ballance grew up and still lives on the Outer Banks island of Ocracoke, where his ancestors on both sides of the family stretch back to the 1700’s. He graduated from the K-12 Ocracoke School, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and then received a degree in English Education from UNC-Chapel Hill. After teaching for two years in Hillsborough, NC, Alton returned home to teach English and journalism at Ocracoke School for twenty years. He also served as the island’s county commissioner for eight years. His first book, Ocracokers, a history of the island and its people, was published by the UNC Press in 1989. All proceeds from the book are donated to Ocracoke School to purchase elementary literature books. Alton now works as a center fellow for the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, whose mission is to advance teaching as an art and profession. In addition to a main campus in the mountains of North Carolina, NCCAT has an eastern campus at Ocracoke at the former Coast Guard station. Alton has just completed his M.F.A. from Goddard College and is at work on a collection of personal essays about Ocracoke.
STRUCTURE AND SCENE
with Abigail DeWitt
Course ID# 12374
If you can write a scene, you can write a novel. Scenes are the heart of any work of fiction: they are where your characters come to life and where your readers enter so fully into the story that they imagine they are living it.
In this class, we will focus on the five elements of a scene (place, lighting, character, time and purpose) with the goal of strengthening your work from the inside out. You will learn how to make your descriptions more vivid and immediate, how to deepen your characters, how to sharpen conflict and how to use dialogue effectively. Whether you are well into a novel or just beginning, whether you are interested in short stories or short shorts, you will learn how to make your reader forget everything but the world you are describing.
Because we will be doing in-class exercises that are useful at every stage of the writing process, this is a class for beginners and experienced writers alike. Please bring twelve copies of your favorite short scene from a published story or novel to share with the class at our first meeting.
Those who would like a critique of their work are welcome to send me up to 15 double-spaced pages of a novel or short story by September 1; I will return your work, along with my comments, at the first class meeting.Please send your work to: 160 Singing Frog Rd/Burnsville, NC 28714. I also strongly recommend that you read Anne Lamott's BIRD BY BIRD and Dorothea Brande's BECOMING A WRITER in advance of the workshop.
Abigail DeWitt is the award-winning author of Lili (WW Norton), as well as numerous short stories, which have been published in such journals as The Carolina Quarterly, Salamander, and The Journal. She has completed her second novel, Dogs, for which she received both an NC Arts Council Regional Artists Project Grant and a Tyrone Guthrie Fellowship from the McColl Center for the Arts and the NC Arts Council. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Harvard University, she has taught fiction at the Duke Writers' Workshop, Harvard Summer School, Appalachian State University, and UNC-Asheville. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and Harvard University, Abigail has been teaching creative writing to students of all levels for over twenty years. She has led private workshops and taught in programs at Harvard Summer School, Appalachian State University and the University of Iowa. A passionate believer that anyone who wants to write can, she has learned most of what she knows about writing from her students.
WRITING MEMOIR:
PLAGIARIZING FROM REAL LIFE
with Judy Goldman
Course ID# 12375
It was Mary McCarthy who said, “I can’t help plagiarizing from real life.” In this workshop (geared to both beginning and advanced writers), you’ll learn how to craft your personal essays or memoir into something of value for others. We’ll discuss coming up with that seductive beginning sentence or paragraph, finding your way into your voice, setting scenes as though you’re writing fiction, using dialogue, turning the people in your life into characters readers care about. I’ll encourage you to have a naive faith in yourself, a sense of optimism about your work so that you can keep going even when you know you’re about to step off the edge of the world. We’ll discuss establishing a writing schedule that works for you and making time to write. I’ll address truth vs. betrayal – how much to reveal about people close to you. I’ll give publishing tips. Class will include exercises to help you discover your most engaging material. Bring 13 copies to Wildacres of the first 2 pages (double-spaced, please) of your essay or memoir for group discussion and critique. Send 15 double-spaced pages (which include the 2 pages you’re bringing for group discussion) in 12 point type or larger to me at 1121 Scotland Ave., Charlotte, NC 28207 BY SEPTEMBER 1. I'll return these 15 pages to you -- with my detailed written comments -- at the workshop. Of course, if you're just beginning and have no pages to send, that's fine; you don't need to submit pages for critique. Questions: Email me at: judygoldman@earthlink.net
Judy Goldman is the author of a memoir she's now revising, two published novels, and two published books of poetry. Her latest novel, Early Leaving (published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins) was called "masterfully written and fast-paced - highly recommended" by Library Journal. Her first novel, The Slow Way Back (Morrow), won the Sir Walter Raleigh Fiction Award, Mary Ruffin Poole First Fiction Award, and was a finalist for the Southeast Booksellers Association's Novel of the Year. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Ohio Review, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Kenyon Review, and other literary journals. A long-time teacher, Judy received the Fortner Writer and Community Award for "outstanding generosity to other writers and the larger community." www.judygoldman.com
WOMEN'S WRITING INTENSIVE
with Zelda Lockhart
Course ID# 12376
This writing workshop, exclusively for women, is designed to help you to and through a whole short project, or to get you through the first deep writing of a longer project of fiction, creative non-fiction, personal writing, or poetry. Participants will write during the workshop using a series of “Jump Starters” to inspire soulful writing, and to inspiring writing moments within the busy life most of us lead. Each participant is required to submit the first 15 double-spaced pages (or less) of their current project to: zelda@zeldalockhart.com by, September 1, 2009.
Zelda Lockhart is author of the novel Fifth Born, which was a 2002 Barnes & Noble Discovery selection and won a finalist award for debut fiction from the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Foundation. Ms. Lockhart holds a Bachelor's Degree from Norfolk State University, a Master's in English from Old Dominion University, and a certificate in writing, directing and editing film from the New York Film Academy. Her other works of fiction, poetry and essays can be found in anthologies, journals and magazines. Lockhart is also the author of The Evolution, a serial novella, currently appearing in the archives of USAToday.com's Open Book series. Her most recent novel, Cold Running Creek, publication January 2007, is a work of historical fiction that has already garnered the attention of noteworthy literary organizations, such as the Historical Novel Society, and has won a 2008 Honor Fiction Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. This year, Cold Running Creek was chosen as the "Text in Community" read for all incoming students and North Carolina A&T State University. Universities throughout the United States and abroad have recognized Ms. Lockhart's talents as a writer and speaker. She is currently working on her third novel, lecturing, and facilitating a variety of workshops that empower adults and children to self-define through writing. She lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina.