Festival Overview

Welcome

The Workshop Method

Levels of Writing Skills

Summer in Iowa City

Elevenses

One-Week Workshops

Typical Weekly Schedule

Weekend Workshops

Typical Weekend Schedule

Meet Our Staff

Testimonials

Important Addresses

Credits

Typical Weekly Schedule

One-Week Workshops
Week-long workshops begin on Sunday evening with a light dinner, orientation, and the first class meeting. For the rest of the week, workshops meet each afternoon for at least three hours, Monday through Friday. An individual conference of 20–30 minutes with your workshop leader will be scheduled during the week, as well as other activities. Week-long workshops are designed to give you plenty of time to write, revise, read and critique in the mornings and evenings.

Typical Weekly Schedule

SUNDAY

MONDAY-FRIDAY

Each week will also include the following events:

One-Week Workshops

June 7-12
One-Week Workshops

An Enormous Eye: Writing the Contemplative Essay	Timothy Bascom
The Novel in Miniatures	Janet Desaulniers
The Talent of Reading (and What It Means to Writing)	Sarah Fay
“This Too Is Life”: Memoirs on Illness and Health	Cecile Goding
Poetry New & Revised: A Workshop for All Levels	Douglas Goetsch
Novel Fundamentals	Charles Holdefer
Novel Solutions	Wayne Johnson
Beginning Memoir	Barbara Robinette Moss
Introduction to Feature Film Screenwriting	Diana Ossana
Short Story Exercises	Mark Jude Poirier
Fantasy and Science Fiction: Creating and Populating a World Apart	Anjali Sachdeva
Creative Veracity: Book-Length Creative Nonfiction	Carol Spindel
Twenty Dances toward Flapping Your Wings Again: A Generative Workshop for Writers	Karen Subach

June 14-19
One-Week Workshops

What a Character!	Kate Aspengren
Frontloading: The Crucial First Chapters of Your Novel	Kyle Beachy
Have I Got a Story for You: Short Fiction Workshop	Amber Dermont
Advanced Novel Workshop	Josh Emmons
Subject Matters: Advanced Poetry	Katie Ford
From Memory to Art: Poetry, Prose Poems, Short-Short Fiction	Jim Heynen
Telling the Tale, a Nonfiction Workshop	Wayne Johnson
10,000 Words	Carolyn Lieberg
Memoir: On Self and Society	Marc Nieson
Passionate Revision—Fiction & Narrative Nonfiction	Lon Otto
Scrubbing the Engine: Craft and Repair Workshop for Poets	Juliet Patterson
Outside/Inside: The Art and Craft of Nature Writing	Leslie Carol Roberts
How to Talk about Fiction	Sandra Scofield

June 21-26
One-Week Workshops

Finding the Story in Your Story: A Memoir Writing Workshop	Mary Allen
Playwrights Workshop	Kate Aspengren
Talking, Doing, and Seeing: Making a Scene in the Novel and Short Story	Kyle Beachy
Powerful Plots: Strengthening Story and Structure in Novel Writing	Venise Berry
The Poem’s Process	Bruce Bond
What the Poem Wants: Advanced Poetry	Michael Dennis Browne
Shadows, Hands, Petals: The Unbearable Lightness of Imagery	Hugh Ferrer
Tools of the Writer’s Craft	Sands Hall
The Artful Essayist	Christine Hemp
Writing Fiction for Literary Magazines	Gordon Mennenga
The Traveler’s Story—Literary Nonfiction & Fiction	Lon Otto
Tweaking Life: Make Yours into Fiction	Sandra Scofield
Patience, Caffeine, and Pigheadedness: Everything You Need to Write Your First Novel	Bart Yates

July 5-10
One-Week Workshops

Writing Humor	Kate Aspengren
Memoir: The Writer As a Window on the World	Timothy Bascom
Re-Visioning Your Short Story	Karen Bender
Finding Your Place in the Personal Essay	Thomas K. Dean
Plotting the Plot in the Novel	Kelly Dwyer
On Thought: Writing Non-Narrative Essays	Cecile Goding
Five Not-So-Easy Pieces: A Week of Honing Fiction	BK Loren
Beginning the Novel	Gordon Mennenga
Generating Poetry—Contemplation, Play, and Discovery	Michael Morse
The Seven Deadly Sins: A Poetry Series	Kiki Petrosino
The Feature Article, or Write What You Don’t Know	Sam Samuels
Coming to Your Senses—Strategies for the Memoirist	Mary Kay Shanley
Advanced Novel Workshop	Robert Anthony Siegel

July 12-17
One-Week Workshops

The Beauty of Brevity: Autobiography Distilled	Marilyn Abildskov
Get Your Prose in Shape: Revision Strategies for Essayists	Nancy K. Barry
Finding Your Story	Karen Bender
Bringing Your Novel to Life	Maudy Benz
The Lyric Essay	Mary Cross
Short Story Workshop	Rick Hillis
Generating Poems	Richard Jackson
Advanced Novel Workshop	Rebecca Johns
Why Are You Telling Me This? Core Essentials of Memoir Writing	BK Loren
Eleven Points of Revision in Fiction	Sharelle Byars Moranville
Apprenticeship and Inspiration—(20th Century) Foxes in the Hen House	Michael Morse
Who Dat? Bringing Your Profile Subject to Life	Sarah Saffian
Taking the Brakes Off: How to Begin Your Novel	Robert Anthony Siegel

July 19-24
One-Week Workshops

Exploring Spiritual Writing	Mary Allen
Jumpstarting Your Creativity	Linda Bendorf
Ideas on the Wing: Writing the Spontaneous Essay	David Bouchier
Advanced Memoir: In the Muddle of the Middle	Hope Edelman
The Very, Very Short Story	Geoffrey Forsyth
Betting on the Muse: A Poetry Workshop	Daniel Khalastchi
Wild Hope: Writing Activists Essays	BK Loren
Memoir: Pieces for the Whole	James McKean
Riding the Horse Backwards: A Writing Intensive for Poets	Juliet Patterson
Beginning the Mystery Novel	Mary Vermillion
“I Met My Old Lover on the Street Last Night”—Writing Fiction	Kris Vervaecke
Through a Different Lens: Advanced Novel Workshop	Ashley Warlick
Novel Workshop: Crucial Moments	Michelle Wildgen

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 9, 2009