Writers' Workshop
Faculty and Courses
September 29 - October 3, 2008
at Wildacres Retreat, Little Switzerland, NC
Structure and Scene: The Building Blocks of Fiction with Quinn Dalton
Course ID # 11693
One of the most common challenges I encounter when working with writers on in-progress stories or novels—and when wrestling with my own work—is the use of scenes. Often these scenes don’t provide information I’m interested in knowing, or they don't provide even the most basic information, such is who is in the room or when the action is happening. In this workshop we'll focus on creating scenes that contain everything they need to advance our stories and keep our readers enthralled until the final line. Some questions we'll address:
- What is a scene?
- What should scenes do?
- How do you get into—and out of—them?
- How do you assess whether a scene is doing the work you want it to do for the story?
Within this framework, we will also take a close look at our own work from a structural perspective. We'll "map" our in-progress stories or novels (bring complete or partial drafts) scene by scene, so we can really see how they are put together. This process will help us see what’s missing, what’s working well, and where we can go from there.
I find there’s a lot of ways into a story, so we’ll pursue all angles—in-class writing, discussion, exercises, whatever it takes. Participants of all levels are welcome.
Quinn Dalton is the author of a novel, High Strung, and two story collections, Bulletproof Girl and Stories from the Afterlife. Her stories have appeared in literary magazines such as Glimmer Train, One Story and Verb, and in anthologies such as New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best. Dalton has taught fiction workshops with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, UNC Greensboro, and the North Carolina Writers’ Network. She has written about the craft of writing and the publishing business for The Writer, Poets & Writers, and mediabistro.com. Visit www.quinndalton.com.
Making Poems You Already Know with Ava Leavell Haymon
Course ID # 11694
Most poems grow out of experience, out of something that makes words whirl in our minds, whether the catalyst experience is apparent in the finished poem or not. And all of us have them: experiences that are puzzling, ghastly, unresolved, or maybe even pleasant, but still nagging at us after all these years--so real they can’t be told over coffee but that keep on and on urging us to tell someone.
These are the very experiences that are good material for poem making. Making poems is a little like making mud pies. You reach down and scoop up what’s already there and pat it between your hands. It’s more tolerable if you do it with a trustworthy group, and it’s a LOT more tolerable if you don’t mind getting dirty. Life is a pretty big mess, it seems to me. Trying to make art out of it doesn’t save us from the mud. If anything, it throws us into the thick of it.
In the workshop, we will use movement, free writing, free drawing, and meditation to tap into the words that are swirling through us. I’ll give you specific assignments to get you started, and I’ll teach you a few tricks about getting the messy experience down on a page. You’ve already done the hard work, though. You’ve lived through the experiences and remembered them.
Participants may send two or three poems, or one that’s three pages or so for critique to Ava Haymon, 672 Nelson Dr, Baton Rouge, LA 70808 no later than September 1. I'll return the poems to you with comments in our first class meeting.
Poet and playwright Ava Leavell Haymon has published widely in literary journals, including Poetry, Prairie Schooner, The Northwest Review, and The Southern Review. She has five chapbooks, most recent of which is Why the Groundhog Fears Her Shadow. The Strict Economy of Fire, a full-length collection, was published by LSU Press in September 2004, and Kitchen Heat also from LSU Press in 2006. She was awarded the Louisiana Literature Poetry Prize for 2003.
Beyond Wading: Beginning a Novel with Lynn York
Course ID # 11695
In this course, we’ll focus on the thrilling and mystifying task of beginning a novel. Many aspiring novelists might favor the bold approach suggested by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "...plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far …." However, in our week together, we’ll begin by wading. We’ll each talk about the glimmer of an idea that draws us to our story, we’ll spend time developing that idea—writing short scenes, character notes, lists, and dialogue. We’ll talk about the process of writing a novel: how to know when you’ve found an idea that can be sustained in a book length form, what you might need to know before you begin (and what can wait), and how to gather material and the inspiration. Mostly, you will write during this week and share some of your work with your classmates. My goal is for each student to finish the workshop with new pages and fresh ideas about how to dive into the next 100 pages of your novel.
This course is designed to serve anyone who has not yet written a full draft of a novel. You may be a short story writer whose latest story refuses to come to a timely end. You may have written pages of notes and even several scenes from a novel. Or maybe you’ve just been thinking about writing for a while and want to use this course to get yourself started. In this setting, I’ll be able to adjust the assignments and class material to accommodate the assembled group.
Participants should bring thirteen copies of two pages (double spaced 12 point type) of work to the conference. This can be a sample scene from your novel, a writing sample of any kind, or even a rough set of notes. You may also send me up to 15 pages (double spaced, 12 point type) for critique. Please send this by September 15 to: Lynn York, 116 Waverly Forest Lane, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.
Lynn York is the author of two novels. The Piano Teacher, published in 2004, was named on the year’s top debuts by the Rocky Mountain News. The Sweet Life, which Publisher’s Weekly called, “folksy, slyly erotic and immensely entertaining,” was published in 2007 by Plume. Lynn first came to the Duke Writers’ Workshop as a novice writer twelve years ago and has returned the past two years as a workshop leader. She has also taught at High Point University, Duke’s Osher Center, the UNCG CALL program, the NC Writers’ Network, and the Tennessee Mountain Writers’ Conference.
Creative Nonfiction: Memoir, Profile, and Personal Essay with Joseph Bathanti
Course ID # 11696
As much as anything, this class will be an ongoing discussion during which we will attempt to define creative nonfiction, sometimes called the fourth genre. I want to state emphatically that this IS NOT a Journalism class. Essentially creative nonfiction utilizes all the traditional elements of fiction--plot, narrative, point of view, characterization, dialogue, etc.--to relate what “really happened” and to uncover and discover the elusive ephemeral abstract known as truth. We'll be focusing on personal essays (autobiography, if you will), memoirs, and profiles that explore honestly the way we see things outside ourselves in relationship to ourselves. Honesty is a term that can be particularly idiosyncratic as it relates to creative nonfiction, but it is absolutely crucial. Class activity, in the main, will be exercises to tap into your best material and workshop discussions of your work. I'll also have handouts so we'll be able to read and discuss published essays to get a better sense of how different writers employ their craft.
You may send me up to 15 pages of your creative nonfiction via e-mail by September 1 to bathantjr@appstate.edu. I will return these to you, with my critique, on the first day of the workshop.
Joseph Bathanti was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. He came to North Carolina as a VISTA (domestic Peace Corps) volunteer in 1976 to work with prison inmates. For more than thirty years he has continued to teach in prisons, battered women’s shelters, and homeless shelters. He has B.A. and M.A. degrees in English Literature from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. At present he is Professor of Creative Writing, and Co-Director of the Visiting Writers Series, at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. Bathanti is the author of four books of poetry, including This Metal, which was nominated for The National Book Award. His first novel, East Liberty, won the Carolina Novel Award in 2001. His 2006 novel. Coventry won the Novello Literary Award. Bathanti’s poetry, fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications, including the Manhattan Poetry Review, The Nebraska Review, Carolina Quarterly, The Texas Review, California Quarterly, Studies in Short Fiction, Southern Humanities Review, South Dakota Review, Kentucky Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, South Carolina Review and many others.
How to Get There From Here: A Roadmap for Finishing Your Novel
with Abigail DeWitt
Course ID # 11697
If you’re ready to complete or revise a novel, this class is for you. Participants may have written as few as fifty pages, or as many as three hundred. The important thing is to have been working on a novel for a while, and to have experienced both the thrill of discovery and the panic of being lost—there’s no other way to write a book.
We’ll start by exploring ways to bring the kind of energy and inspiration you felt when you began your novel to the process of finishing it. Next, we’ll work on strengthening both major and minor characters as a way to bring your novel into sharper focus. Finally, as we consider strategies for organizing and shaping your chapters, we’ll discuss how to enliven a novel’s opening, tighten the middle chapters and compose an ending. At every stage, we’ll be doing in-class writing exercises designed to help you get past the stuck places, see your characters in a new light and generate key missing scenes.
At the end of the workshop, you should have strong, new material, a list of specific strategies and techniques for completing your novel, and, most importantly, renewed faith in your original idea.
Those who wish to do so may send me up to 20 pages of a novel-in-progress by September 10 to Abigail DeWitt, 106 Singing Frog Road, Burnsville, NC 28704 or via e-mail to: lelworth@earthlink.net. I will return these to you, with my critique, on the first day of the workshop.
Abigail DeWitt is the award-winning author of Lili (WW Norton) and has just completed her second novel, Dogs, for which she received a grant from the McColl Center for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council. Her short stories have been published in various literary journals, including The Carolina Quarterly, Salamander and The Journal. A graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Abigail has been teaching creative writing to students of all levels for over twenty years.