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

Kevin González

Novel: The First Chapter
One-Week Workshop
June 15-20

Making A Scene
Weekend Workshop
June 21-22

Biography

Novel: The First Chapter
One-Week Workshop
June 15-20

As readers, we often know whether or not a novel will be worth reading by the time we’re done with the first chapter. It is in the first 20-30 pages that the characters are introduced, and that the voice and point of view are established. In this course, we will read and discuss the beginning of each other’s novels in class, focusing on the characters, setting, voice and point of view. We will focus primarily on the work you’ll bring from home, while also doing some in-class exercises, and reading and discussing successful novel openings. By the end of the week, you will have heard the class’s response to the opening of your novel, and should have an idea of its strengths and shortcomings. Hopefully, as a result, you will know what to focus on as you continue to write.

Making A Scene
Weekend Workshop
June 21-22

While general discussions in fiction workshops tend to focus on certain elements of the craft—such as structure, characterization and conflict—this course will help you hone an essential skill that many writers find difficult to master: the art of writing in scene.  Essentially, scenes are the building blocks for stories. In a scene, you are provided with a fixed setting and a continuous stream of time. In it, all of the necessary elements of a story begin to come together: the characters interact, the conflict is carried out. Yet a great deal of contemporary fiction seems to rely heavily on summary, on unnecessary back story and flashbacks that instead of strengthening the story end up cluttering the narrative. We’ll focus primarily on work you’ll bring from home, as well as doing some in-class writing exercises. 

Biography
Kevin A. González was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He holds an M.F.A. in fiction from The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Dean’s Graduate Fellow, and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was a Martha Meier Renk Poetry Fellow. His stories have appeared in Playboy, Virginia Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 and Best New American Voices 2007 & 2009. He is also the author of a chapbook of poems, The Night Tito Trinidad KO’ed Ricardo Mayorga (Momotombo Press, 2007). Currently, he is the Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.

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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 January 10, 2008