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

Rick Hillis

Short Story Workshop
One-Week Workshop
July 12–17

Short Story Weekend
Weekend Workshop
July 18–19

Biography

Short Story Workshop
One-Week Workshop
July 12–17

What are your story’s strengths? Where does it falter? What’s it really about? We are often too close to our simmering sentences to know. Our painstaking struggle to get the story down has locked us into a mindset that won’t allow for further exploration. This workshop is for writers who have taken a story as far as they can and want feedback to push it to the next level. Perhaps by identifying a controlling metaphor that might be developed, questioning a character’s motivation, examining the logic of the structure, or choices of point of view or tense…you will see your story opening to a new direction and final form. Published writers may be held up as models when appropriate, and we may do one or two exercises, but the majority of class time will be spent reading your stories aloud and discussing them fully. Please plan to send me one or two double-spaced stories prior to the session.

Short Story Weekend
Weekend Workshop
July 18–19

This workshop is for writers of any level interested in getting both general and specific feedback on a finished short story. We will look at each story in its own light and in light of the elements of fiction, such as character, plot, point of view, metaphor, voice, etc. I suppose the final and terrible question, as always, will be: Will the reader be glad he or she read this, and, why or why not? Stories will be read aloud in workshop and discussed fully. Please plan to send me one story of no more than fifteen double-spaced pages prior to the session.

Biography
Rick Hillis (M.F.A., The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop) is the author of a book of poetry, The Blue Machines of Night, and a collection of short stories, Limbo River, which was awarded the Drue Heinz Prize. He has taught at Stanford University, Lewis & Clark College, California State Hayward, Reed College, and DePauw University, where he currently teaches fiction, screenwriting, and poetry workshops.

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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