Workshop Descriptions & Instructors

Marilyn Abildskov
Mary Allen
Kate Aspengren
Thomas Fox Averill
Nancy K.Barry
Timothy Bascom
Kyle Beachy
Karen Bender
Linda Bendorf
Maudy Benz
Venise Berry
Bruce Bond
David Bouchier
Michael Dennis Browne
Maggie Conroy
Mary Cross
Thomas K. Dean
Amber Dermont
Janet Desaulniers
Kelly Dwyer
Hope Edelman
Josh Emmons
Jill Esbaum
Sarah Fay
Hugh Ferrer
Katie Ford
Geoffrey Forsyth
Cecile Goding
Douglas Goetsch
Sands Hall
Christine Hemp
Jim Heynen
Rick Hillis
Charles Holdefer
Richard Jackson
Rebecca Johns
Cheryl Fusco Johnson
Wayne Johnson
Daniel Khalastchi
Carolyn Lieberg
BK Loren
Peter Markus
Fritz Mc Donald
James McKean
Gordon Mennenga
Sharelle Byars Moranville
Michael Morse
Barbara Robinette Moss
Marc Nieson
Shannon Olson
Diana Ossana
Lon Otto
Juliet Patterson
Kiki Petrosino
Mark Jude Poirier
Leslie Carol Roberts
Anjali Sachdeva
Sarah Saffian
Sam Samuels
Sandra Scofield
Mary Kay Shanley
Robert Anthony Siegel
Carol Spindel
Karen Subach
Mary Vermillion
Kris Vervaecke
Ashley Warlick
Michelle Wildgen
Bart Yates

Josh Emmons

Advanced Novel Workshop
One-Week Workshop
June 14–19

Polishing Your Prose: Read and Write Like a Master
Weekend Workshop
June 20–21

Biography

Advanced Novel Workshop
One-Week Workshop
June 14–19

After working on your novel for six months or a year or—say it proudly—ten years, you’re finally ready to show it to other people. This bold step requires a great deal of personal bravery and artistic fortitude, so take a moment to congratulate yourself (listen to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” if possible) and then commit to the inevitable, necessary work of revision. In this advanced workshop, we will spend most of our class time discussing a section of writing that you put before the group. Come prepared to give and receive valuable feedback on your and others’ manuscripts, with the goal of helping each toward artistic and professional success. Along the way, we’ll look at aspects of craft as they pertain to the novel in general and to yours in particular, from characterization to voice to pacing to plot to language and dialogue. By the end of the week, you’ll have a clear sense of how to transform your rough draft into a triumphant, publishable manuscript.

Polishing Your Prose: Read and Write Like a Master
Weekend Workshop
June 20–21

What makes for an interesting, believable protagonist? How do you know when to start and stop a short story at its essential moments? Are there guidelines for choosing whether to put action in scene or exposition? Although hard and fast rules for writing fiction don’t exist—art isn’t algebra, after all, thank goodness—it can be very easy to make mistakes when doing it. In this weekend, we’ll closely examine several short stories in order to determine why the authors made the choices they did, and what effect these choices have on us as readers. We’ll focus on the connections between reading well and writing well, and on how others’ narrative strategies can inform our own. By the end of our time together, we’ll be in a better position to produce the next great American short story.

Biography
Josh Emmons (M.F.A., The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop) is the author of two novels, Prescription for a Superior Existence and The Loss of Leon Meed. He has written for The New York Times Book Review, People, The San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. Currently, he lives in Philadelphia.

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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 February 10, 2009