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RALEIGH—Registration for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2018 Squire Summer Writing Workshops ends July 5. On-site registration will not be available, and spaces are very limited.
This year's workshops will be led by Paul Cuadros (Creative Nonfiction); Rob Greene (Poetry); and Elaine Neil Orr (Fiction).
"The Squire Summer Writing Workshops introduced me to NCWN, and that connection has been key for me,” said Janet Ford, winner of the 2017 Guy Owen Prize from Southern Poetry Review. “Through this organization, I have discovered the members of my writing group, as well as the Spring and Fall Conferences and many meaningful opportunities to publish and read.”
The Opening Session on Thursday evening will give writers the opportunity to rewrite North Carolina's official State Toast, "Here's to the Old North State."
Friday evening will offer a panel discussion, "The Cross-Pollination of Page and Stage," featuring distinguished playwrights Ian Finley and June Guralnick, as well as screenwriter Ellen Shepherd.
The long weekend also includes faculty readings, open mics, and the opportunity to purchase books by faculty and attendees.
There will be a celebratory dinner on Saturday night.
"Because the pace of the weekend is slower, participants tend to build strong bonds with one another," said NCWN communications director Charles Fiore. "There's space in the schedule for writing, and reading, and going to meals together, and there's plenty of time for sitting around and talking about all the things that inspire us."
Registration is open through July 5 at www.ncwriters.org.
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RALEIGH—The North Carolina Writers' Network 2018 Squire Summer Writing Workshops offer the chance for attendees to study one genre with one instructor over the course of the weekend. Paul Cuadros (Creative Nonfiction), Rob Greene (Poetry), and Elaine Neil Orr (Fiction) will serve as faculty.
The registration deadline is June 30: register now.
Additional programming includes faculty readings, open mics, and the annual "All Stories Connect" panel discussion.
This year's panel will cover the topic "The Cross-Pollination Between Page and Stage." Panelists include Ian Finley, June Guralnick, and Ellen Shepherd.
What are the cross-pollination and crossover possibilities between writing for stage and screen and other writing genres? What can dramatic principles teach all writers about characterization, dialog, plotting, and rhythm? What can authors teach playwrights about subplots, creating suspenseful "page-turners," and more? What sorts of things can a story tell when told on stage or screen, and how are they different from what a story can tell on the page?
Ian Finley is the former Director of Education for Burning Coal Theatre Company, having headed its WillPower (now Fuse) residency programs, its Summer Theatre Conservatories, its New York and London tours, and many other programs. He is author of 1960 (Burning Coal, 2009), Green Square, Suspense, Nightengale Song, and The Nature of the Nautilus (winner of the Kennedy Center’s Jean Kennedy Smith Award), as well as Burning Coal’s Oakwood cycle of plays. As an actor, he has performed in Burning Coal’s Twelfth Night, KidsWrite ’08, Inherit the Wind, 1776, Pentecost, The Taming of the Shrew, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and James Joyce’s "The Dead." He holds an MFA from the NYU Tisch School of Arts and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. Ian was the 2012 Piedmont Laureate for playwriting.
Native New Yorker June Guralnick is the author of thirteen full-length plays performed at venues including the Kennedy Center, Abrons Arts Centre/Henry Street Settlement (NY), Spirit Square (Charlotte, NC), Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre (NC), North Carolina Museum of Art, as well as arts centers in the U.S. Plays include Memories of Childhood, Containments (The Home Project, Part I), In Gold We Trust (with Guy Nickson), Art Tales of Thaddeus, Women of the Light (with Cynthia Mitchell), Space Interlude, Finding Clara, Across the Holy Tell, and work-in-progress Birds of a Feather: A Comedy about De-Extinction. Selections from her plays have been published by North Carolina Literary Review, Playwrights’ Center (Monologues-Heinemann Press), Blackbird Press, and Left Curve.
Ellen Shepherd is currently in production on the upcoming documentary Turn. She recently produced and directed the feature length documentary Sitting at God's Table that included screenings at the NC Museum of History. As an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Film for sixteen years at St. Augustine's University in Raleigh, she created and developed the Film portion of the major, which included writing curriculum, teaching courses in documentary, screenwriting, directing, theatre, playwriting, abstract thinking, and more. Her duties included hiring faculty, advising students, and fundraising. She also developed and lead the Teen Summer Film Workshop for thirteen years; students came from all over the US and foreign countries in order to study at this workshop. Her work as Senior Producer/Director at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) afforded her the opportunity to sharpen her documentary filmmaking skill sets.
The "All Stories Connect" panel happens Friday, July 20, at 7:00 pm on the campus of NC State University.
All registrants are welcomed to attend. A Q&A follows.
For more information, and to register for the NCWN 2018 Squire Summer Writing Workshops, click here.
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Raleigh—Elaine Neil Orr's new novel, Swimming Between Worlds, was published in April.
New York Times bestselling author Charles Frazier called Swimming Between Worlds "A perceptive and powerful story told witih generosity and grace." And Buzzfeed named it one of seven coming-of-age tales to pick up this April.
Fiction registrants for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2018 Squire Summer Writing Workshops will have the opportunity to spend a long weekend learning from Elaine, July 19-22, on the campus of North Carolina State University, in Raleigh.
Registration is open.
In Elaine's workshop, "From Character to Plot to Atmosphere in Fiction," attendees will explore how the heart of the fiction workshop is their own writing, which they will prepare to discuss in advance and give attention to in every session. This work naturally leads participants to think about all the key elements of fiction: conflict, character development, place, dialogue, structure. In addition, students will place special emphasis on how to improve language and develop atmosphere and mood. For guidance, conferencegoers will read and discuss selected passages from great writers whose work they might emulate. In the course of the weekend, registrants will also begin one or two new pieces of fiction in response to prompts.
Each registrant should be ready to handle the intensive instruction and atmosphere of the workshop.
Elaine Neil Orr writes fiction, memoir, and literary criticism. Swimming Between Worlds is her newest novel. In a starred review, Library Journal said of Orr’s last novel, A Different Sun, “this extraordinary novel shines with light and depth.” Her memoir, Gods of Noonday: A White Girl’s African Life, was a Top-20 Book Sense selection and a nominee for the Old North State Award. She is associate editor of a collection of essays on international childhoods, Writing Out of Limbo, and the author of two scholarly books. In 2016, she was Kathryn Stripling Byer Writer-in-Residence at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. Orr has published extensively in literary magazines including The Missouri Review, Blackbird, Shenandoah, and Image Journal. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
The NCWN Squire Summer Writing Workshops offer attendees the chance to study one genre with one instructor over the course of the weekend. There also will be programs, panels, readings, open mics, and more.
Paul Cuadros will lead the track in Creative Nonfiction, "Storytelling from the Point of Truth." Rob Greene will lead the track in Poetry, "Poems of Experience." Registration is capped at forty-two registrants, first-come, first-served.