Iowa Summer Writing Festival


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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	Jim Heynen From Memory to Art: Poetry, Prose Poems, Short-Short Fiction One-Week Workshop June 14–19 The Loaded Conversation: Writing Effective Dialogue Weekend Workshop June 20–21 Biography From Memory to Art: Poetry, Prose Poems, Short-Short Fiction One-Week Workshop June 14–19 Does art turn memory into a lie? Maybe, but it can more likely make what we remember worth remembering. This is a workshop that begins with our life experience and comes at it in ways that transform it into something new. The moment we give our attention to form, whether that be the music and repetition we associate with poetry or the structure and narrative progression we associate with fiction, what we thought was only a memory can take on new life. Even as many prominent authors today write in a variety of forms, we’ll try different approaches to discover which manner of saying says it best. We’ll use the writing process itself to see what in our experience is calling for our attention: lots of exercises, lots of fun, lots of surprises. This class is suitable for writers at all levels, beginners to advanced. The Loaded Conversation: Writing Effective Dialogue Weekend Workshop June 20–21 How do they do it—those effective writers of dialogue? Think of Grace Paley, whose characters can say the darnedest memorable things, like “Dying young is a terrible thing, but it saves a lot of time,” or of Lorrie Moore, whose own wit is such a natural fit with her witty characters, or Cormac McCarthy, whose characters’ clipped words can leave tremors in the dead space around them. In the best examples we can find in fiction, dialogue is always more than a tape recorder held up to ordinary speech. It is more than character revelation. It is double-edged, triple-edged, energized by paradox and surprise. Good dialogue can be like a fish leaping out of water or an electrical current coursing through the dry leaves of description. In this weekend, we’ll look at some lively examples of dialogue. We’ll practice the art itself in many short exercises—and we’ll have a ball doing it. Biography Jim Heynen is a widely published poet, short story, essay, and novel writer. He is perhaps best known for the short-shorts and prose poems that appear in his collections featuring young farm boys—The One Room Schoolhouse, The Boys’ House, You Know What is Right, and The Man Who Kept Cigars in his Cap—and more recently in two photography books published by The University of Iowa Press, Harker’s Barns and Sunday Afternoon on the Porch. His most recent collection of poems is titled Standing Naked: New and Selected Poems. He has written two young adult novels, Cosmos Coyote and William the Nice as well as Being Youngest, and one major nonfiction book, One Hundred Over 100, which featured 100 American centenarians. He has frequently been featured on National Public Radio reading his own stories and has been awarded National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in both poetry and fiction. Jim lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

	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 February 10, 2009