Course Descriptions

**Registration is closed**

Thursday, April 22
Online

7:00–8:30 pm Master Classes

Creative Nonfiction Master Class, Part 1
Creating Presence: Voice in Creative Nonfiction with Eric G. Wilson**Closed**

Without a strong voice, prose, no matter how stylistically felicitous, feels generic, institutional, and bloodless. Animated with an engaging persona, the same words spring into an essay: idiosyncratic, imaginative, vibrant. But while essential for powerful creative nonfiction, voice is notoriously difficult to define. Sure, we say it is the personality of the writer, the unique presence, the controlling consciousness, the point of view, the constructed “I” behind the “eye,” and so on. These traditional definitions, however, are almost as vague as the term they are meant to clarify. In this workshop, we will do our best to understand voice conceptually and practically. We will discuss how important writers have understood voice as well and how it works in selected essays (including those submitted for this workshop). We will also complete exercises designed to strengthen your voice. You should come away from the session with strategies for creating a more captivating verbal presence and thus more powerful essays.

Please submit up to 1,200 sequential words from a single work, along with your current CV in a separate attachment, on the same day that you register for the conference. Submissions should be saved in an MS Word document, using double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman font, with numbered pages, and sent as an attachment to masterclass@ncwriters.org. The Word document’s file name should include your own last name, and the title of the work and your name should appear on the submission itself. If accepted into the Master Class, your submitted work will be shared with other Master Class registrants.

Each registrant should be ready to handle the intensive instruction and atmosphere of the Master Class.

Fiction Master Class, Part 1
Writing Effective Dialog with Valerie Nieman**Closed**

Sponsored by Press 53

Does your dialog crackle? Sing? Does it have the pungency of people chatting or chewing the fat or conversing in real life? We’ll use exemplars of realistic, dramatic, and downright startling dialog, from True Grit to A Clockwork Orange, Hamilton to The Good Lord Bird. We will discuss the uses and abuses of regional accent and dialect, and issues around emulating historical speech. Participants should be prepared to create and share exploratory writing. The second portion of the class will be devoted to workshopping participants’ submissions.

Please submit up to 1,200 sequential words from a single work, along with your current CV in a separate attachment, on the same day that you register for the conference. Submissions should be saved in an MS Word document, using double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman font, with numbered pages, and sent as an attachment to masterclass@ncwriters.org. The Word document’s file name should include your own last name, and the title of the work and your name should appear on the submission itself. If accepted into the Master Class, your submitted work will be shared with other Master Class registrants.

Each registrant should be ready to handle the intensive instruction and atmosphere of the Master Class.

Poetry Master Class, Part 1
The Autobiography of the Imagination: Transforming Personal Experience into Dynamic Poetry with Emilia Phillips **Closed**

“I am not the ‘I’ / in my poems. ‘I’ / is the net I try to pull me in with,” writes Toi Derricotte. In this class, we’ll go over a brief history of the self as a poetic character, from Dante to 20th-century Confessionalism to the present day, examining closely a few works by poets who have transformed the personal into compelling, multi-layered art through various poetic techniques, especially those related to form and music. We’ll ask ourselves a number of context questions, including “How American is the first person?” and “How can the imagination recast personal experiences?” All writers have probably heard the old writing aphorism, “Show, don’t tell.” We’ll interrogate the universality of such a statement, pondering the situations in which telling has been used to great effect. Participants will scrutinize their own use of the first person, as well as try their hands at writing exercises meant to make their autobiographical poems less journalistic, and more elastic and dynamic.

Please submit three poems, totaling no more than five pages, on the same day that you register for the conference, along with your current CV in a separate attachment. Poems should be saved in a single MS Word document, using single-spaced, 12-point, Times New Roman font, and sent as an attachment to masterclass@ncwriters.org. The Word document’s file name should include your own last name, and your name and the title of each poem should appear on the submission. If accepted into the Master Class, your submitted work will be shared with other Master Class registrants.

Each registrant should be ready to handle the intensive instruction and atmosphere of the Master Class.

Friday, April 23
Online

7:00–8:30 pm Master Classes

Creative Nonfiction Master Class, Part 2
Creating Presence: Voice in Creative Nonfiction with Eric G. Wilson**Closed**
Continued: See Above

Fiction Master Class, Part 2
Writing Effective Dialog with Valerie Nieman**Closed**
Continued: See Above
Sponsored by Press 53

Poetry Master Class, Part 2
The Autobiography of the Imagination: Transforming Personal Experience into Dynamic Poetry with Emilia Phillips**Closed**
Continued: See Above

Saturday, April 24
Online

10:30 am Session I

Authors as Entrepreneurs (All Genres) with Terry L. Kennedy and Ross White

With the business models of traditional publishing changing, authors are increasingly being asked to act entrepreneurially. But a publisher’s only concern will be selling books, and there are many other ways authors can build a sustainable living by developing creative businesses and services that serve other writers and change the world. In this session, two arts entrepreneurs will look at business model developed by writers and discuss best practices for starting businesses that benefit both the individual writer and the larger literary community.

Dramatic Tension and the Core of Hope vs. Fear (Fiction) with Zelda Lockhart**Closed**

In this session, Zelda will lead participant through a fun and enlightening writing exercise from The Soul of the Full-Length Manuscript. This workshop will help you build realistic, authentic dramatic tension for your fictional characters.

How to Read Your Work to Others (Poetry) with Joseph Mills

Sponsored by Press 53

Why does listening to some readers help us more fully understand their work while others make us wish we were anywhere else, even the dentist? What are the elements of a “good reading”? What should someone consider when giving a reading? In this workshop, we’ll talk about what it means to have an audience and what, if any, are your obligations to them. Some topics will include delivery, “poet voice,” poem selections and sequences, forums, and, yes, Zoom.

12:00–1:00 pm Online Picnic Social Hour

A Zoom social hour for all registrants.

1:00–2:00 pm Faculty Readings

Sponsored by Plottr

2:30–4:00 pm Session II

Authors as Entrepreneurs (All Genres) with Terry L. Kennedy and Ross White

With the business models of traditional publishing changing, authors are increasingly being asked to act entrepreneurially. But a publisher’s only concern will be selling books, and there are many other ways authors can build a sustainable living by developing creative businesses and services that serve other writers and change the world. In this session, two arts entrepreneurs will look at business model developed by writers and discuss best practices for starting businesses that benefit both the individual writer and the larger literary community.

Form and Freedom (Poetry) with Ashley Lumpkin

Form and Freedom is an exploration of traditional and more recently created poetic forms. In this generative workshop, participants will explore how forms are developed and the many creative doors opened by adhering to the constraints they provide.

Writing Trauma (Creative Nonfiction) with James Tate Hill**Closed**

Traumatic experiences can be the hardest to write about, but they are often our richest material. “To bring one’s self to others makes the whole planet less lonely,” writes Mary Karr in The Art of Memoir, but how do we translate pain into writing that might interest an audience beyond our therapist? This course will explore the essential elements of creative nonfiction with a focus on structure, voice, narrative, and the ethics of writing about real people.

4:00–5:00 pm Open Mic**Closed** 

Sign up during online pre-registration only; there will be no day-of registration or day-of Open Mic sign-up.