DESCRIPTION:
Announcing a unique and inspiring opportunity for students across the college: in May and June of 2008, the Hudson Valley Center will be hosting the Fourth Annual Weekend Writing Intensives in Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Memoir, Food Writing and Writing for Children. Beginners as well as seasoned writers are welcome.
These workshops are for the May A or B term.
Contact Steve Lewis (Steve.Lewis@esc.edu, 845 883-5332) for additional details.
WORKSHOP DETAILS AND FACULTY PROFILES
Writing for Children (4 Credits/Advanced/Liberal)
Tutor: Wendy Townsend
Location: Highland
Dates: Friday, May 23, 6-9 p.m.; Saturday, May 24, 10-4 p.m.; Sunday, May 25, 10-3 p.m.
A story can be described as being an emotional journey. Dramatic events, wild plots, extreme settings -- all grand! But the emotional core of the story carries the energy. Discovering the emotional core of your story -- whether novel, short story or picture book -- will be our focus. During our time together, wešll write, read our work to each other, and talk about it. Rather than criticize, we will ask plenty of questions, like, What is the character’s situation or quest, and how do we know (what clues have you given us)? How can the character come to terms with the situation or succeed in the quest - how will the character be okay? Have you moved us to care if the character is okay? The workshop goal will be for each of you to have your story, that is, to discover an emotion, issue or question that fascinates or haunts you, and to create a character who will take that emotional journey.
In 1993 Wendy Townsend co-authored a biology and husbandry book (on iguanas) and has since written many articles for magazines on similar subjects. When she made the leap into fiction in 2002 she began a Young Adult novel (first in an Empire State College study—and then en route to her MFA at Vermont college). The book, Lizard Love, has just been published by Front Street Books. Presently, she is working on a second novel.
Dramatic Writing (4 Credits/Advanced/Liberal)
Tutor: Laurence Carr
Location: Highland
Dates: Friday, June 20, 6-9 p.m.; Saturday, June 21, 10-4 p.m.; Sunday, June 22, 10-3 p.m.
This exciting and interactive course teaches the basic organizational tools that every writer needs to create a produceable play or screenplay without the anxiety of writers’ block. Each writer will shape an individual original project during the sessions through discussion and practical exercises. The major dramatic components of story structure, character development, dialogue, exposition and theme are explored, and the business of dramatic writing will be discussed as the writers prepare to enter the professional marketplace.
Laurence Carr works in the theater as a writer, director, actor and educator. His work has been seen in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle and in Rochester where he served as associate director and playwright-in-residence at The GeVa Theatre. His off-Broadway play, Kennedy at Colonus, directed by Stephen Zuckerman, was hailed by The New York Times as a "fascinating, well-built, often witty play" while the Burns Mantle Best Plays Series cited it as a "distinctly worthy play" and a "standout in independent off-Broadway production." Mr. Carr is the recipient of playwriting grants from The National Endowment for the Humanities, The New York State Council on the Arts and has been awarded numerous regional commissions. He received a B.F.A. from Ohio University and a master's degree from The Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. Currently, Laurence Carr teaches Dramatic and Creative Writing at SUNY New Paltz (where he runs the SUNY Playwrights’ Project), CUNY, The New School University and Empire State College. He's created dramatic writing and play making workshops throughout the U.S. and in Sweden, Poland and the Czech Republic. Locally, Mr. Carr is the playwright-in-residence at Mohonk Mountain Stage Company.
Fiction Writing (4 Credits/Advanced/Liberal)
Tutors: Patricia Dunn and Jimin Han
Location: Hartsdale
Dates: Friday, June 6, 6-9 p.m.; Saturday, June 7, 10-4 p.m.; Sunday, June 8, 10-3 p.m.
Are you in the middle of a first draft? Second, third or when-will-this-be-over draft? Or are you just starting to think about the possibility of writing a novel? Wherever you are in the process of writing an extended piece of fiction, this is a course that will challenge and support you. Along with group feedback, you—and your work—will receive a great deal of one-on-one attention from the instructors.
Patricia Dunn (M.F.A., Sarah Lawrence College) has been contributing editor of Muslim Wakeup!, America’s most popular Muslim online magazine, with over 200,000 monthly readers, since 2003. Her fiction has appeared in Global City Review and her nonfiction work in Women’s eNews, The Christian Science Monitor, The Village Voice, The Nation, L.A. Weekly, among other publications. Her work will be anthologized in Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies, Kent State University Press, in 2006.
Jimin Han (B.A., Cornell University; M.F.A., Sarah Lawrence College) has published nonfiction and fiction in The NuyorAsian Anthology, Global City Review, The Asian American Pacific Journal and EssentialMom.com . She recently completed her first novel, Meeda’s Gate, and is at work on her second novel.
Poetry (4 Credits/Advanced/Liberal)
Tutor: Doris Umbers
Location: Highland
Dates: Friday, June 6, 6-9 p.m.; Saturday, June 7, 10-4 p.m.; Sunday, June 8, 10-3 p.m.
four things / that are no good
at sea: rudder, anchor, oars,
and the fear of going down.
- Antonio Machado
For writers at all levels, this intensive poetry workshop explores the poetics of memory and place. We will generate new work through exercises in- and out-of-class and wide as well as deep readings of contemporary poetry. All work, in a sense, is a draft — this encourages us to take risks yet seek strategies for revision. Honest and generous in the quality of attention paid to our work, we will develop a critical eye for craft and language and reflect on what indwells in our poems.
Doris Umbers is the editor of
Harpur Palate, Binghamton University’s national literary journal, founder and editor of Bluestone Quarry Press, a chapbook and broadside press, and writing faculty member at Binghamton University. She is also a Ph.D. candidate in Binghamton University's Graduate English/Creative Writing Program and a graduate of Empire State College.
Her work has been published in
Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art,
The Paterson Literary Review, LIPS Literary Journal, Dyed in the Wool (Vivisphere Press, 2001),
Dialogue Through Poetry Anthology (Rattapallax, 2000)
, Heartsongs (Rodale Press, 1999),
If the Drum is a Woman (Wanganegresse Press) and
Poems from Prompts. She was named winner of the Academy of American Poets’ University Prize, 2003 and 2004.
The Art of the Memoir (4 Credits/Advanced/Liberal)
Tutor: Steve Lewis
Location: Hartsdale
Dates: Friday, May 30, 6-9 p.m.; Saturday, May 31, 10-4 p.m.; Sunday, June 1, 10-3 p.m.
In the process of piecing together the major events in our lives, separating fact from fiction and understanding that fiction is as important as fact when constructing a life, we come to better understand who we are and, to some degree, how we became that way. Writing a serious autobiography is an act of good faith towards oneself. With that in mind, the great novelist William Faulkner, whose forte was apparently not mathematics, advised would-be authors that writing is “Ninety-nine percent talent … 99 percent discipline … 99 percent work.” This unique weekend workshop immersion will allow novice and experienced writers alike to exercise 297 percent of their writing talent, discipline and work ethic toward the creation of short autobiographical narratives that are present, resonant and, ultimately, capable of blossoming into memoirs much larger than themselves (which they will).
Steve Lewis is a mentor at Empire State College and a longtime freelance writer with publication credits that include The New York Times Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, Washington Post, L.A. Times, The Christian Science Monitor and a biblically long list of parenting magazines. His recent books are Zen and the Art of Fatherhood, The ABCs of Real Family Values, and The Complete Guide for the Anxious Groom: How to Avoid Everything That Could Go Wrong on Her Big Day and Fear And Loathing of Boca Raton: A Hippie's Guide to the Second Sixties.A collection of poems, A Month on a Barrier Island, will be published in May 2008.
Food Writing (4 Credits/Advanced/Liberal)
Tutor: Gary Allen
Location: Highland
Dates: Friday, June 13, 6-9 p.m.; Saturday, June 14, 10-4 p.m.; Sunday, June 15, 10-3 p.m.
This fascinating workshop will explore several forms of food writing: food reminiscences, recipes, menus, restaurant reviews, "how-to" and other informative articles, and preparation for book-length projects. We will also introduce students to the professional practices of the working food writer, which might include editing, dealing with writer's block, formats, query letters and proposals, finding markets and literary agents, the writing community, and resources available for writers.
Gary Allen holds a B.S. in Writing and Design of Gastronomical Literature, Empire State College. He is the author/editor of several books on food (three published, two in the process of being published, another unpublished, plus several others in various stages of completion) as well as many magazine articles and academic papers on food studies. He is also Associate Editor of, and contributor to, Oxford University Press’s Encyclopedia on American Food: History, Society, Culture and The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink; contributor to Scribner Encyclopedia of Food and Culinary Biographie; and is currently co-editing an encyclopedia of the food business for Greenwood Press.
Formerly a guest lecturer on food and culture at The Culinary Institute of America, and ten years as editor and archivist of all CIA course guides, Gary Allen is presently the Food History Editor for Leitesculinaria (http://www.leitesculinaria.com/) owner of the website, On the Table (http://www.hvinet.com/gallen), and publisher (for over six years) of a monthly electronic newsletter of updates to his book The Resource Guide for Food Writers.
Home
|
Prospective Students |
MyESC |
Search Tools |
Request Info
