The Art of Creative Research: Philip Gerard
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WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH—Award-winning author and longtime professor in the Creative Writing Department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington Philip Gerard will lead the class "The Art of Creative Research" at the North Carolina Writers' Network 2017 Fall Conference, November 3-5, at the Holiday Inn Resort in Wrightsville Beach.
Registration is now open.
Philip Gerard is the author of four novels and six books of nonfiction, most recently The Art of Creative Research—A Field Guide for Writers. His novel The Dark of the Island (2016) was awarded an Ippy for regional fiction. He teaches in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
NCWN has been celebrating literary journals this year, so we asked Philip to tell us about his first publication.
"I used to send out my short stories, and as the rejections came back in the postpaid manila envelopes, I’d stack them on my desk," Philip said. "Then every few weeks, I’d open them and extract the rejected manuscript. And send it off again. A story called 'Death by Reputation' came back that way from New England Review/Bread Loaf Quarterly and I threw it on the pile. Some weeks later when I opened it, I found a very gracious letter along with the returned manuscript. Indicating that the editors wanted to publish the story but didn’t feel that the ending was quite right, and would I make another pass at it?
"So as you can imagine, I immediately dashed off a letter (in those pre-email and texting days) and wound up writing several more versions of the ending before I got it right—and they published the story, which appears in my collection Things We Do When No One Is Watching. So now I read my mail a little more diligently. It was my first story to be published in a reputable magazine."
"The Art of Creative Research" will address ways to explore the world in search of stories. Crucial to this process is re-imagining the "known"—applying imagination as an investigative tool. Research is an adventure that can reinvigorate the writer’s work in any genre, grounding stories, poems, and essays of ideas in the authentic stuff of the world. Participants will leave with a template for how two plan their own research adventure.
Fall Conference attracts hundreds of writers from around the country and provides a weekend full of activities that include lunch and dinner banquets with readings, keynotes, tracks in several genres, open mic sessions, and the opportunity for one-on-one manuscript critiques with editors or agents. This year's Master Classes will be led by Dan Albergotti (Poetry); Wendy Brenner (Creative Nonfiction); and Nina de Gramont (Fiction). New York Times bestselling author Wiley Cash will give the Keynote Address.
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to all writers, in all genres, at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.
Meet a Literary Agent: Christopher Rhodes
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WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH—At the North Carolina Writers' Network 2017 Fall Conference, November 3-5, at the Holiday Inn Resort in Wrightsville Beach, Christopher Rhodes of The Stuart Agency will serve as a reviewer for Manuscript Mart and sit on the popular Sunday morning panel, "Agents & Editors."
Registration is now open.
Manuscript Mart provides writers with the opportunity to submit their manuscripts and get feedback from an editor or agent with a leading publisher or literary agency. A one-on-one, thirty-minute session will be scheduled for you, to take place on Saturday, November 4, sometime between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm, or on Sunday, November 5, between 9:00 am and 12:30 pm.
Please note, a Manuscript Mart session can lead directly to publication—but don't expect it to do so. Think of it, instead, as a learning opportunity, and you'll get more out of it.
Manuscript Mart sessions are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
NCWN has been celebrating literary journals this year, so we asked Christopher to tell us about his first publication.
"As a literary agent, one of my biggest thrills was having my client Daniel Hoyt published in Ecotone magazine. Ecotone is a journal I adore and to see my client's story in its pages was very satisfying. "
Christopher Rhodes works for The Stuart Agency in NYC and specializes in well-crafted debut fiction and platform driven nonfiction. He represents award winning authors Taylor Brown, Peter Selgin, Gayle Brandeis, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, as well as rising stars like Jared Yates Sexton, Gwendolyn Knapp, and Andrew Hilleman. Christopher is always on the lookout for exciting debut voices and for nontraditional work from writers who may want to publish outside of their established form. Before joining The Stuart Agency, Christopher was an agent for The James Fitzgerald Agency, and before that, he worked at The Carol Mann Agency and in the sales and marketing departments at Simon and Schuster.
Fall Conference attracts hundreds of writers from around the country and provides a weekend full of activities that include lunch and dinner banquets with readings, keynotes, tracks in several genres, open mic sessions, and the opportunity for one-on-one manuscript critiques with editors or agents. Master Classes will be led by Dan Albergotti (Poetry), Wendy Brenner (Creative Nonfiction) and Nina de Gramont (Fiction).
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to all writers, in all genres, at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.