Session V Classes: Fall Conference 2007

Sunday, November 18, 11:00 am-12:30 pm

CREATIVE NONFICTION - Biography as Narrative, with Robert Morgan.
We will look at biography from the standpoint of writing both fiction and nonfiction narrative, with a special interest in American history, culture, and folklore. Some suggest that biography has replaced the novel as our most important literary genre. Could this be true?

FICTION - When Short Stories Don't Work and Why, with C. Michael Curtis.
A discussion of the form seen from an editor's point of view, with thoughts about format, diplomacy, mechanics, and narrative strategy.

POETRY - Panel - It’s All About Me: The Use and Misuse of Autobiography in Poetry, with Joseph Bathanti, Tony Abbott and Carole Boston Weatherford, moderated by Pat Riviere-Seel.
Your poem is not your autobiography, but when you write, you bring all your experience, your family and friends to the blank page. The panel will discuss ways we use autobiographical material -- what’s effective, what’s not and what are some of the pitfalls? What’s "confessional poetry"? Why -- or why not -- write it?

PLAYWRITING, SCREENWRITING - Characterization: in Plays, Screenplays & Spoken Word, with Nathan Ross Freeman.
In writing fiction, non-fiction for scripts for stage and film; biographies, memoirs, journals and poetry you conjure personae, characters of self, who long to actualize. These personae ultimately achieve a breathing life on paper, stage and film. The written characters must, therefore, be potent to behave: present authentic voices, grow into breathing icons and demonstrate lifestyles constituent to the reader and audience; a constituency who will experience from page to page or stage and screen a view of themselves. Each character you create is a conjured voice and persona reared in the 'dream consciousness', experiential and enacted life. For even the historic or biographical manuscript each character is born either to, from, or, through your layered self - a exhuming and healing exercise.

WRITING MARATHON - Getting in the Zone, with Quinn Dalton.
The exercises in this workshop will help you generate new material for further development later, or to go deeper into works in progress. We'll use exercises that help you "get into the zone" for when you feel stuck, as well as more specialized exercises focusing on character, setting and scene development. Come prepared to write.