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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

Wayne Johnson

Wayne Johnson

Story Structure For The Screen
Weekend Workshop
June 14–15

Novel Solutions
One-Week Workshop
June 15–20

All Purpose, Hard Drivin’ Narrative Strategies
One-Week Workshop
June 22–27

Biography

Story Structure For The Screen
Weekend Workshop
June 14–15

We all love well-made movies—in fact, so much so that we sometimes think of our experience of them as “movie magic.” But how is this magic created? In this class, we’ll take a look at a number of films to examine the basic elements of story structure that burst onto the screen to create engaging movement, riveting visual experience, and emotionally satisfying drama. We will also read and discuss portions of award-wining screenplays such as Chinatownand The English Patient, identifying the techniques and strategies employed by writers of these very successful film narratives. This is an interactive lecture course; participants, through immersion in written and visual media, will gain a greater appreciation for film narratives that will enable them to create their own movie magic.

Novel Solutions
One-Week Workshop
June 15–20

You’ve been working on this thing for . . . how long? Months, years? It’s supposed to look like a novel, but now that you’ve got it in front of you, it looks more like a six-legged cow, or a bus with wings. You’ve begun to wonder what exactly a novel is. Maybe you’re not writing one. You might be writing a cycle of stories. Or a reminiscence. Or a book, with some unifying structural element. In this class, we’ll look at ways of ordering narrative to create a variety of satisfying longer works. We’ll examine traditional linear plot structures, as well as the episodic and cyclic, using examples from contemporary literature. Students will not bring novels to class; rather, they will bring an opening chapter, or a middle chapter. Or even notes, or notions. We’ll consider the possibilities. Always, the structural solution will be novel to the writer, will fit his or her narrative impulses.

All Purpose, Hard Drivin’ Narrative Strategies
One-Week Workshop
June 22–27

Consider just one feature of winning storytelling: Dialogue. Great dialogue is many things, but it is not simply a repetition of what people might say—though, of course, great dialogue is that too. Writing great dialogue requires the author to shape, compress, and amplify, which is true for the storytelling process overall. This class will address dialogue, exposition, tone, effective use of setting, and dramatic structure, among other aspects of narrative. Through class readings, student exercises, and shared participant writings, students will leave the class with a new and sharper sense of narrative craft and the wildly powerful and various forms it takes in any well-wrought story.

Biography
Wayne D. Johnson (M.F.A., The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop) is a recipient of an O. Henry Award, a Transatlantic Review award, a Teaching-Writing Fellowship from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Story, and other magazines, as well as in various anthologies. Johnson’s first novel, The Snake Game, was a London Times Bestseller. Don’t Think Twice was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and Six Crooked Highways chosen as a “Booksellers Summer Bestseller.” His latest novel, The Devil You Know, was released in 2004. Johnson has been a Chesterfield Film Fellow in Hollywood and has projects with major and independent studios. His most recent book, White Heat: The Extreme Skiing Life, was released by Simon and Schuster in December 2007; a book on motorcycling is to follow.


 

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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