Tuesday, August 2
Morning: All students will attend this workshop.
Reading Like a Writer, Sandra Rodriguez Barron
Not every reader writes, but every writer reads—and usually a lot. That means reading not only for
what a work means but also for how it was done. In this workshop, we will practice looking closely
at the technical choices that authors make in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry in order to extract the
specific technique (s) that you can try on your own. Writers ask themselves questions such as:
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Why does this story/essay/poem begin where it does?
Why is this story in the point view that it is?
What details of this work make it especially vivid?
Is the writing ever less clear than it should be?
How is this piece structured? How else could it be?
Reading to understand craft is at the heart of the MFA experience, and this workshop is tailored to
help you select and respond to works for “Reading for Writers” courses. It’s also an essential,
lifetime tool for any writer and requires writers to train themselves to think a lot like car
mechanics, who will unhook and rewire the terminals that trigger an engine to roar to
life. Similarly, we can look at the techniques that move and delight us as readers in order to
replicate them, and we’ll talk about some practical ways to manage your notes and integrate them
into your workflow. Some reading will be required and assigned in advance. Please bring your
laptop or tablet.
Sandra Rodriguez Barron’s debut novel, The Heiress of Water, was a Borders Original Voices
selection and won first place at the 2007 International Latino Book Awards. She is the grateful
recipient of grants from Bread Loaf, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the National Association of
Latino Arts and Culture, and Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.
Afternoon: Select one of the two workshops below.
There’s More to Writing a Book than Writing a Book, Brian Thiem
Many writers approach their first novel by typing Once Upon a Time and hope the creative process
will carry them through the next 80,000 words until The End. However, just a few builders would
pour the foundation for a house and begin putting up walls without detailed building plans.
Successful writers soon learn that any book-length project, be it fiction, non-fiction, or even an MFA
thesis, requires planning and organization. In this workshop, we’ll discuss ideas and themes,
outlines and synopses, timelines, character profiles and biographies, and other tools that you can
use to make your writing easier and less daunting. Although this workshop is designed for
novelists, it’s equally applicable to non-fiction writers. Bring your ideas for a current or future
writing project, and you’ll leave with templates, examples, and ideas that will help get and keep
your novel or other writing project on track.
BRIAN THIEM finished his MFA at WCSU in December 2013, and a month later he had a literary
agent. Eight months after that, he signed a contract with a New York publisher for a three-book
series. His first book, Red Line, was published in 2015, followed by Thrill Kill in 2016. In his
previous life, he spent 25 years with the Oakland Police Department, working Homicide as a
detective sergeant and the unit commander. He also retired from the Army after a tour in Iraq. He
lives in South Carolina where he’s working on his third novel.
Writing for Citizenship, Advocacy, and Careers, Sarah Darer Littman
In an election year that is getting more disturbing and post-factual by the day, learning the skills to
be a good citizen in a democracy and knowing how to advocate for yourself and others is essential.
Using her experience as both an author and a journalist, Sarah shows how combining critical
thinking, research and strong writing skills can be used to effect change in the real world—using
examples from her own work.
This hands-on workshop will cover:
- Media literacy, and how important it is to examine sources carefully and critically.
- Cultivating sources – Google is a great start, but not sufficient. Don’t be afraid to pick up the
phone.
- FOIA is a tool for holding government accountable. Learn how to file a FOIA request and an
appeal to the FOIA Commission if agency doesn’t answer.
- Potential submission outlets for op-eds.
Workshop attendees will pick an issue for they wish to advocate and map out a research strategy
and draft outline. Depending on time constraints, they may be able to start a first draft.
The skills in this workshop are important to being a citizen in a democracy, but also to any career.
The following chart from The Job Outlook for the Class of 2014 survey from the National Association
of Colleges and Employers lists skills important to employers.
Sarah Darer Littman is the critically acclaimed author of Backlash; Want to Go Private; Life, After;
Purge, and Confessions of a Closet Catholic, winner of the Sydney Taylor Book Award. When she’s
not writing novels, Sarah is an award-winning columnist for the online news site CTNewsJunkie.
Wednesday, August 3
All students will attend this Master Class.
Writing the World for Fresh Eyes: An Exploration of Young Adult Literature, Tawni Waters
Good adult literature and young adult literature have a lot in common. Both employ strong
characters, engaging plots, and authentic voices/dialogue. But young adults see the world through
different eyes than adults, and if you want to write for them, you need to freshen up your eyes--look
at the world the way they do. This workshop will help you to do just that! In this workshop, we will
explore the traditional craft elements of fiction writing as well as the challenges that are unique to
writing YA fiction. In addition to sampling great YA literature that captures the teen perspective
(think Sherman Alexie, John Green, and Rainbow Rowell), we will learn by doing. Please come
ready to write, share, and talk about your writing! Attendees will be encouraged to share their work
in class.
Texts will be sections taken from the following books. All students should read/listen to
these excerpts before class.
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The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_vFvbfn9Fs
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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16420671
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Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell
http://issuu.com/stmartinspress/docs/eleanorpark_excerpt
Tawni Waters is the author of Beauty of the Broken, (Simon & Schuster) and Siren Song (Burlesque
Press). Beauty of the Broken won the prestigious International Literacy Association’s Award for
Young Adult Literature, the Housatonic Book Award, was named an Exceptional Book of 2015 by
the Children’s Book Council, was shortlisted for the Reading the West Book Award, and was
included on the Kansas State Reading Circle List. Her work was featured in Best Travel Writing
2010 and has been published in myriad journals. She teaches workshops at universities and
conferences throughout the U.S., Mexico, and Europe. She currently lives in a medieval French
village, where she’s editing her YA novel, The Long Ride Home (Sourcebooks Fire, Summer 2017).
You can get to know her through her blog https://tawniwaters.wordpress.com, and her Facebook
page, https://www.facebook.com/tawniveewaters/
Thursday, August 4
Select one of the two workshops below:
Mastering Story Structure With Jane’s Plotting Roadmap, Jane Cleland
Structure is the foundation of your story—you’ll learn when to use a linear structure and when a
nonlinear structures is the better choice. Using Jane’s Plotting Road Map helps you translate your
story into a well-structured and deliciously complex plot or storyline. This workshop shows how to
use structure to build suspense.
Jane K. Cleland is the author of the multiple award-winning Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries (St.
Martin’s Minotaur and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine) and Mastering Suspense, Structure, &
Plot (Writer’s Digest Books), which Louise Penny called “Brilliant! A gold mine of information.” Jane
is a featured speaker at major writing conferences, the chair of the Black Orchid Novella Award, and
a former president of Mystery Writers of America/New York Chapter. She’s a member of the full
time faculty at Lehman College, part of the City University of New York. www.janecleland.com
Digging Deep: Archival Research, Laura Hayden and Melissa Gordon
By using primary sources that provide unfiltered windows to the past, writers of all genres not only
convey history—they MAKE history. Archival research is a fascinating way of learning from
individuals and organizations that have left so much for us. We can dig for what we want to
discover and create anew: a setting or event in historical fiction or drama, fresh insight in to the life
and times of a ground-breaking individual, the process beneath the finalized lines of poetry, a
breakthrough in investigative reporting along with countless other possibilities.
Two WCSU MFA graduates immersed themselves in archival research last year, Melissa Gordon at
the John Berryman Archives in Minneapolis and Laura B. Hayden at the Woody Guthrie Archives in
Tulsa. In this workshop they will share their experiences as well as advice on how to excavate
online catalogues and archival sites, the protocol of the process, unique ways to include and embed
archival research in creative works, and ultimately, the joy of creating that which did not exist
before.
Assignment: In advance of the workshop, please select a person (from history, science, or the arts),
an institution, or a historical event that could be connected to you personally or to your work. Find
out where an archives exists that stores material about the subject. Are any parts of the archive
online or does viewing require an onsite visit? How might investigating this archive contribute to
your growth as a writer or spark a potential project idea?
Here are some sites you may find helpful. Many more archives can be found online by searching
your subject + archives.
National archives
http://www.archives.gov/locations/
Presidential Archives
https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/
US Department of State Archives
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/index.html
Directory of Corporate Archives in the United States and Canada
http://www2.archivists.org/groups/business-archives-section/directory-of-corporate-archives-inthe-united-states-and-canada-introduction#.VyDsjcj3aJI
Musicians Union Archives
http://libguides.stir.ac.uk/content_mobile.php?pid=337208&sid=2791968
Poets & Writer Magazine Archives
http://m.pw.org/archive
Laura B. Hayden is the author of Staying Alive: A Love Story (Signalman). She most recently
contributed to Three Minus One: Parents’ Stories of Loss (She Writes Press, 2015) and Poor Yorick.
Laura writes regularly for The Sturbridge Times and teaches writing at Asnuntuck Community
College. She was recently named a 2016 BMI Foundation Woody Guthrie Fellowship recipient.
Melissa Gordon is a WCSU MFA graduate and an Advisory Board member for the journal, Poor
Yorick. Her poetry has been published in DMQ Review, Mom Egg Review, Gyroscope Review, and is
forthcoming in Masque & Spectacle. She conducts substance use research at Yale University and is a
contributing author on several articles in the American Journal of Psychiatry. She is currently
pursuing Secondary School Certification and a Masters in Education.
Friday, August 5
Select one of the two workshops below.
Critic for a Day!, Daniel Asa Rose
Have you ever dreamed of being a book reviewer? Or a food critic? Or a travel writer? They all
entail the same skills – looking closely, thinking clearly, writing briskly. In this seminar, we’re going
to try our hand at being all three. We’ll review a book we’ve recently read, a meal we’ve recently
eaten, a place we’ve recently been. We’ll try first and foremost to be fair to the subject (truthful)
and, at the same time, make our own writing as interesting (entertaining, original) as it can be. Can
we throw in a little Attitude, too? All to the good, so long as it doesn’t overshadow the subject being
critiqued. We’ll serve as each other’s critics, as we examine each other’s efforts in a spirit of mutual
support of encouragement. Finally, we’ll discuss some nuts and bolts of how to go about getting our
criticism published. Should be fun.
Daniel Asa Rose, a former Writer-in-Res at WestConn, has been a book reviewer for The New York
Times Book Review, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, The New York Observer, Washington Post,
Huffington Post, and others. He has been a travel editor/columnist/writer for Esquire, Outside,
Conde Nast Traveler, and served as arts & culture editor of the Forward newspaper, in which
capacity he oversaw reviews of movies, theater, dance, etc. in NYC. He was the food critic for Rhode
Island Monthly for eleven years, which translates as over 250 restaurants and 20 pounds.
What’s Going on Here, Brian Clements
One of the great misconceptions about poetry is that the poem’s “meaning” is its most important
aspect, that the poem is a kind of riddle whose answer we are expected to find and summarize in an
easy-to-digest homily. Faced with poems that do not open up to such strategies, many readers and
would-be writers of poetry give up.
In this workshop, we will take the attitude that John Ashbery takes in his poem “What is Poetry”
(read the title as both a question and a statement): there are many ways that poems move us other
than with their “meaning”—their surprises (both small and big), their music, their sometimes
mysterious ability to generate emotions, pleasure, or humor from seemingly innocuous phrases. We
will consider examples of poems that work inside and outside mainstream modes and will discuss
what those poems do to us as readers and how we can use those poems as models for our own
poems. We will do in-class writing to test out some of these strategies. In short, we will attempt to
loosen up and widen the scope of what we consider to be poetry and what it is possible to write in
poems.
This workshop is intended for poetry specialists, for poetry dabblers, and for students who think
they could use a bit of help in learning to respond more usefully to the poetry of their peers.
Brian Clements operates a matchmaking service for writers, mentors, and audiences. He is the
author of over a dozen collections of poetry, editor of the anthology An Introduction to the Prose
Poem, and was founding editor of Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics. His most recent book is A
Book of Common Rituals from Quale Press.
Saturday, August 6
States of Feeling, Leslie Jamison
If we are trained to despise sentimentality, how do we represent sentiment? This class will examine
emotion across a range of works—from Leo Tolstoy to Anne Marcus—in considering this primal,
impossible, necessary question: How can writing evoke feeling?
Participants will be provided with a prep exercise and will work with it during class, along with
another assignment and some discussion of texts.
Leslie Jamison is the author of The Empathy Exams, a New York Times bestselling essay collection,
and a novel, The Gin Closet, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award. Her work has
appeared in Harper's, Oxford American, A Public Space, Boston Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The
Believer, and the New York Times, where she is a regular columnist for the Sunday Book Review. She
lives in Brooklyn and is an assistant professor at Columbia University.