Iowa Summer Writing Festival


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Workshop Descriptions & Instructors Marilyn Abildskov Mary Allen Kate Aspengren Thomas Fox Averill Nancy 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 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 Swander Mary Vermillion Kris Vervaecke Ashley Warlick Michelle Wildgen Bart Yates	James McKean Memoir: Pieces for the Whole One-Week Workshop July 19–24 Biography Memoir: Pieces for the Whole One-Week Workshop July 19–24 If a “memoir” is one’s whole story, where do we start? This workshop is based on the less daunting premise that memoir writing starts with a compilation of many pieces—episodes or anecdotes or stepping stones or moments held in memory, what Annie Dillard calls those “fragmentary patches of color and feeling”—and that each piece deserves attention to its own structure and language. Designed for those who are in the process of sketching out those pieces, this workshop will provide a sympathetic and informed audience. We will look for form inherent in the material, narrative potential, vividness of detail and language, and threads that might suggest ways of weaving small pieces into a larger memoir. We will spend some time looking at short nonfiction examples to discover the possibilities of form. But the majority of the workshop will be given to reading your work. Please bring two short pieces of your work in progress, a variety of questions, and curiosity about how all this is done. Biography James McKean (M.F.A., The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop; Ph.D., The University of Iowa) writes nonfiction and poetry. He teaches writing and American literature at Mount Mercy College and has taught writing at Columbia Basin College and The University of Iowa. His first book of poems, Headlong, won the Great Lakes Colleges New Writer Award in Poetry, and his second, Tree of Heaven, won an Iowa Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, Prairie Schooner, and The Southern Review. His nonfiction has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Gray’s Sporting Journal, The Iowa Review, and The Best American Sports Writing 2003. His memoir, Home Stand, was published by Michigan State University Press in 2005.

	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 19, 2009