Iowa Summer Writing Festival


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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	Jan Weissmiller Writing And Revision: A Poetry Workshop Weekend Workshop June 21–22 Useful Tools: A Poetry Workshop One-Week Workshop July 20–25 Biography Writing And Revision: A Poetry Workshop Weekend Workshop June 21–22 If writing is to be great it will be, in Einstein’s formulation, 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Wordsworth defined poetry as great emotion recollected in tranquility. It takes courage, time, and discipline to effect this transformation. This workshop asks you to be ready to do that work. Participants will be asked to send up to five poems to the instructor prior to the session, and to bring copies of these poems to share with the group. In the workshop, we will aim our discussion toward specific suggestions for revision as we balance critical strategies with the inherent goals of the poem. We will read essays on revision and look at manuscript drafts of well-known poems, but most of the weekend will be devoted to critiquing work brought to the session. Any revisions completed over the course of the weekend will also be shared with the group. Useful Tools: A Poetry Workshop One-Week Workshop July 20–25 In this workshop, we will explore many and varied formal strategies that can help to generate and shape poems. We will do exercises based on both traditional forms and structures used in the composition of “free verse.” In this way, we will look at writing as a process of trial and error against a backdrop of form. Whether a poem is inspired by an event, a deep thought, or a ghostly music, it is finally formed by the resistance of language to this inspiration. During the course of the workshop we will consider the formal elements— conscious and unconscious—that we work with and against in order to best capture the feelings that inspire our poems. We will spend some of our time analyzing poems brought to the session, but much of the week will be devoted to strategic exercises that can be used in both revision and in generating new work. Biography Jan Weissmiller (M.F.A., The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop) won the Loess Hills Poetry Award for her collection In Divided Light, published by Loess Hills Press. She co-edited, with Jerry Harp, A Poetry Criticism Reader, published in 2006 by The University of Iowa Press. Jan has taught creative writing workshops to high school teachers and been a guest speaker at Drake University, Cornell College and Mt. Mercy College. She has long been on the staff of Prairie Lights Books, where she is the poetry buyer and coordinates the poetry readings for WSUI’s Live From Prairie Lights.

	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 January 10, 2008