Upcoming Sessions

Presenter: Billy CollinsTrack: Writing Poetry

A Conversation with Former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins

Presenter: Billy CollinsTrack: Writing Poetry

While the content of a poem, insofar as it has any, is an expression of the poem’s interest in the world—be it love, Nature, injustice etc—the form of the poem, whether apparent in rhyme, cadence, echoing imagery or other patterning, is the poem expressing an interest in itself.  This workshop will be largely devoted to making sure both of these interests are visibly at work in the poems we discuss.  Really good poems often manage to strike a near balance between the two, the poem looking inward and outward at once.

Presenter: Alex DawsonTrack: Writing Fiction

A guy gets on stage and does a trick. Aztec Lady, Bullet Catch, Zig Zag Girl. It's a con. A dodge. The gun is made to fire blanks. The boxes are bigger than they seem. It's the person watching, their readiness to believe, that fills the deception with wonder and makes it magic. So, too, with writing. Fiction is a lie, by definition. And writers are liars. Shame on them. It's the reader's regard, their eagerness to give credence, that makes a story emotionally compelling and elevates it to art. A good lie rings true. And reveals truth. In the nineties, a poster hung above the desk of FBI agent Fox Mulder (and on the bedroom wall of every self-respecting X-phile): I Want to Believe. And it's true. We want to believe. In fact, we first believe, then, if the writing falls short (and if often does), we make a conscious effort to disbelieve. Whether you're writing about ordinary occurrences or an epic mytharc to rival X-files, the appearance of truth, that is to say, verisimilitude, is essential. We'll talk about concrete particulars and sensory details. About writing what we know (which simply means: if you don't know it, learn it). How an inside eye creates trust, what Coleridge might call "poetic faith." Good writers are farmers and mechanics and doctors and hunters. If we believe in the gun being cleaned, the Q-tip and the rifle grease, we're likely to believe in the werewolf at the door. We'll talk about putting the familiar (or natural) against the unfamiliar (or supernatural). The tangy smell of seaweed dying, for instance, alongside the metallic sheen of a mermaid. About credibility when accuracy is impossible (and it often is). What does battery acid taste like? Flat Sprite with a penny in it? Maybe. What does it feel like to have wings? To spontaneously combust? To turn invisible? Let's find out!

Presenter: April EberhardtTrack: The Business of Writing

Fiction authors often assume the only way to write a great novel is to sit by themselves in a room, writing and reworking until the manuscript feels “finished”—all hard work, and difficult to assess when it’s done. Consider an alternative: creating a novel in collaboration with others. How does that work? How many co-authors are enough—or too many? Who makes the rules, who does the drafting, the editing, the knitting together? How do you find co-authors? How do multi-author disagreements get ironed out? And in the end, how do you publish something written by more than one author? Come learn more about this intriguing model from an agent who has worked with authors collaborating on manuscripts, and has seen up close what works, what bumps get in the way, how to resolve them—and how to succeed, and have fun in the process!