Iowa Summer Writing Festival


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Workshop Descriptions & Instructors Faith Adiele Mary Allen Kate Aspengren Thomas Fox Averill Nancy Barry Timothy Bascom Linda Bendorf Venise Berry Bruce Bond Michael Dennis Browne Susan Taylor Chehak John Dalton Thomas K. Dean Amber Dermont Kelly Dwyer Hope Edelman Josh Emmons Katie Ford Patricia Foster Laura Fraser Cecile Goding Douglas Goetsch Kevin González John Griesemer Sands Hall Christine Hemp Jim Heynen Rick Hillis Charles Holdefer Richard Jackson Cheryl Fusco Johnson Wayne Johnson Bret Anthony Johnston Daniel Khalastchi Zachary Lazar Carolyn Lieberg BK Loren Fritz Mc Donald James McKean Gordon Mennenga Katherine Min Sharelle Byars Moranville Michael Morse Barbara Robinette Moss Marc Nieson Shannon Olson Lon Otto Juliet Patterson Anjali Sachdeva Sarah Saffian Sam Samuels Leslie Schwartz Sandra Scofield Mary Kay Shanley Carol Spindel Karen Subach Mary Vermillion Ashley Warlick Jan Weissmiller Bart Yates	Timothy Bascom The Journey Within: Travel Writing And Transcendence Weekend Workshop June 21–22 and July 26-27 An Enormous Eye: Writing The Contemplative Essay One-Week Workshop July 6–11 Biography The Journey Within: Travel Writing And Transcendence Weekend Workshop June 21–22 and July 26-27 There is a reason many writers go on pilgrimages. Travel dislocates us. It awakens our senses in the process, making us hyper-alert. Disoriented, we start to see anew, whether we have crossed an ocean or driven fifty miles to an unfamiliar town. For a while we may feel “alive” in a spiritual way. Travel takes us somewhere internal, not only external. After cataloguing our own journeys, both literal and figurative, we will write about several that seem to have emotional or spiritual heat. We will also read from the rich traditions of travel literature that have a spiritual or internal dimension, giving attention to authors as diverse as Peter Matthiessen and Joan Didion, Viktor Frankl and Algazali, Scott Russell Sanders and Jack Kerouac. And in the process, we will look for ways to express transcendent experience without becoming predictable, clichéd, or dogmatic. Bring a work in progress and we will try to start another, looking at both in the workshop setting. An Enormous Eye: Writing The Contemplative Essay One-Week Workshop July 6–11 According to art critic Herbert Read, “True art persists as an object of contemplation.” One of the reasons that it has this capacity to hold our attention—like the note of a tuning fork—is that it has been created out of contemplation. The reflective, or contemplative, essay is characterized by such focused concentration. The author tends to circle a subject, spiraling away and dropping back to describe it from all angles and to plumb it for meaning. Though the writers of such essays may concentrate on a concrete object—a surgeon’s knife, a family photo, a dying moth, a buckeye—the writing almost always transcends that object, reaching toward provocative or universal insight. We will read from a range of essays, looking for useful techniques and searching for our own “objects of contemplation.” Writers of all levels are welcome. Our aim is to generate new material that can be workshopped during our time together, but participants are welcome to bring a work in progress as well. Biography Tim Bascom’s memoir—Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia—won the Bakeless Literary Prize and was published by Mariner Books in 2006. An excerpt was selected by Jamaica Kincaid for Best American Travel Writing 2005. Bascom has also published a novel anda critical study of Christianity in U.S. culture. His essays have appeared in The Missouri Review, Fourth Genre, Boulevard, Image, Modern Bride, and the in-flight magazine of China Airlines.

	Site Map \| Welcome \| Workshops by Session Date \| Workshops by Instructor Workshops by Genre \| Registration & Housing Information \| Registration Form Sponsored by the Division of Continuing Education Iowa Summer Writing Festival C215 Seashore Hall The University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 Phone 319-335-4160 FAX 319-335-4743 iswfestival@uiowa.edu Last updated on June 27, 2008