Iowa Summer Writing Festival


Previous Page \| Registration Form \| Site Map \| Next Page
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	Leslie Carol Roberts Outside/Inside: The Art and Craft of Nature Writing One-Week Workshop June 14–19 Science Fiction and the Scientific Fact of Cataclysm Weekend Workshop June 20–21 Biography Outside/Inside: The Art and Craft of Nature Writing One-Week Workshop June 14–19 Writers organically wander out to consider all sorts of things—birds, rocks, the effect of water across vast plains. We wander out as performance—see Walden—and we wander out in order to see into ourselves. The long, rich tradition of nature writing will form the spine of this class—reports from the 17th century by Basho to 1789 and Gilbert White offering us The Natural History of Selbourne,to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in Concord, to John McPhee, Gretel Ehrlich, and Terry Tempest Williams reporting from the American West. You’ll assemble a tool kit for telling stories of place. Come with 10-15 pages of work that places us in a landscape of your choosing—these might be linked essays, short stories, or a part of a novel or play—which we’ll consider in workshop, as well as with notebooks and comfortable shoes. We will spend time outside each day, walking along the Iowa River and elsewhere, honing our skills as field reporters and diarists. We’ll write daily observations then polish these as we stretch to understand and record the Earth and sky. Science Fiction and the Scientific Fact of Cataclysm Weekend Workshop June 20–21 We live in times of extraordinary environmental change. Or do we? Scientists around the globe concur human activity is to blame for global climate change. Yet the naysayers argue it’s all part of the Earth’s natural cycle. Throughout time, people have rarely agreed on what “story” science tells us. In this class, we’ll read more recent climate change fictions—such as Crichton and Boyle—and see how they use science fact to create works of the imagination. We’ll also look at how Hollywood has taken on science—that is, how science fact morphs into science script. We’ll cast our minds back to the science fictions of Wells and Verne and look at the work of their scientific contemporaries, such as Tyndall, a journey designed to reveal how writers can adapt “blue-sky” and other research for their work. We’ll generate new work based on assignments, and read and discuss it in class. Biography Leslie Carol Roberts, (M.F.A., The University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program; M.A., University of Canterbury, New Zealand) was a Fulbright Fellow at Gateway Antarctica. Her book The Entire Earth and Sky, Views on Antarctica (University of Nebraska Press, 2008) is a kaleidoscope of Antarctic myth, story, scientific and historical facts, and recounts her three journeys to Antarctica. Roberts teaches in the M.F.A. Writing and Design Programs at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

	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