Fall Conference 2006

Session IV Classes: Fall Conference 2006

Sunday, November 12, 9:00-10:30 am

ALL GENRES - Panel: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Book Reviews and Book Reviewing, with Moderator Peder Zane, Janet Lembke, Phillip Manning, and Ruth Moose
Are book reviews the Big Bad Wolf of publishing? If so, how do you avoid getting chomped? This panel will answer all your questions: How do you get a book reviewed? Who decides that a book will get covered? What are the trends in newspaper book review pages? What does a good book review include? How do you become a book reviewer? Why should writers even care about book reviews? Join the book page editor from the Raleigh News & Observer and some of his reviewers for a discussion of the mysterious process of reviewing books. Find your seat early for an eye-opening Sunday morning discussion.

PUBLISHING - Panel: Publishers Roundtable, with Moderator David Perry, Chuck Adams, Amy Cherry, Stephen Kirk, and Jeannette Pascoe
What does it take to get a publisher's attention? Is it true that only memoirs are being published these days (according to editor Nan Talese and James Frey's novel/memoir Million Little Pieces)? What role does marketing have in deciding how a book is chosen for publishing? Join editors from UNC Press, Algonquin Books, W. W. Norton, and John F. Blair, and a publicist from Sarabande Books for a lively discussion of trends in publishing, the role of the publisher in a writer's career, and insights into the daily work that takes place in the business of publishing and promoting books. Hint: to get the most out of this panel, Google these publishers, familiarize yourself with their titles, and bring your questions!

CREATIVE NONFICTION - Writing the Memoir, with Paul Cuadros
Are you writing your life story? What's the difference between autobiography and memoir? How do you find the dramatic arc in autobiographical writing, shaping a plot from real life? This workshop will explore the variety of styles and approaches to putting your life experiences onto paper and creating a memoir.

CREATIVE NONFICTION - Panel: History, Myth, Fact, and Fiction, with moderator Philip Gerard, MariJo Moore, Robert Morgan, and Joseph Bathanti
They say all's fair in love and war. How about in creative nonfiction? It spans the nebulous areas of history and myth, fact and invention. How does effective writing weave the literal and figurative into whole cloth -- without deception? Or is deception part of the craft of creative nonfiction? How can we use all the elements available to us in creative nonfiction writing? Does working with "history" mean working with facts? Or is history as nebulous as myth? Panelists will talk a bit about their own thoughts on the subject and read a short piece from their own or another's work, reflecting the uses of fact and fiction, history and myth.

FICTION - The Sublime Fiction Triangle, with Darnell Arnoult
Good fiction stands on three legs: character, language, and action. At the heart of these three well-used elements emerges the organic plot of a novel or story. In this short workshop we will examine ways to use these three legs of the triangle effectively, to create enough forward and sideways momentum through applied characterization and experimentation, to generate the story's organic nature and purpose.

FICTION - Panel: Social Commentary in Fiction Writing, with moderator Michael Malone, Valerie Ann Leff, Sean Murphy, and Nancy Peacock
Join four novelists whose work has a biting edge, set in cultural milieus from a fictional Ivy League campus filled with egos the size of the dorms to a Fifth Avenue penthouse seething with class warfare; from a gonzo future Texas revolutionary outpost to a post-Vietnam commune in the South. Whether you have something to say in your fiction about the state of the world today, 15th century China, or Western civilization, this is a chance to find out how it's done, and done well. Tip: Read these authors' books and come with questions.

POETRY - First Person Narrative Voice: Finding the Writer's Place in History & Ceremony, with Anjail Rashida Ahmad
The value of one's life experience can too often be dwarfed by the notion of History (capital H), which can focus on "major players" as if the roles or presence of so-called "minor figures" are deemed less important -- or even omitted. Using photographs from our lives, we will write poems in which the narrative voice seeks its authority by stationing itself in the first person. We will examine how one might locate one's own story within a larger more humane and historical backdrop. Participants can bring pictures of themselves from a particular context (event or surroundings) upon which to focus. The older the photo is, the better. Black and white photos tend to work best. Using either an actual photo or a time from memory, participants will write autobiographical/biographical, historically inspired poems.
* Writing exercises: Bring photos!

POETRY - Death, Trauma, and Mortality: Writing About Taboo Topics, with Michael White
Many of our best-loved poems deal with experiences of death, trauma, or mortality. But these difficult subjects tend to yield unpredictable results; poems written out of life's dire moments can be either much better than usual, because they draw on deeper resources, or much worse than usual, perhaps for the same reasons. Often, in fact, we're taught to avoid these subjects in workshop, and stick with safer, more manageable themes. In this class, however, through discussion of great poems by Keats, Celan, et. al., and through two writing response exercises, we will attempt to court these high-risk themes.
* Writing exercises