Marvin Bell

August 16, 17, & 18, 3:15-4:15: What I Have Learned about Writing Poetry from Writing It

Marvin Bell talks about how he came to read and write as he does, and why you might choose to change your ways.

Marvin Bell's nineteenth book was the wartime collection, Mars Being Red (2007), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards. His twentieth is 7 Poets, 4 Days, 1 Book (2009), a collaboration of seven poets from five countries. Bell taught forty years for the Iowa Writers' Workshop, retiring in 2005 as Flannery O'Connor Professor of Letters. He served two terms as Iowa's first Poet Laureate. A song cycle, "The Animals," commissioned by the composer David Gompper, premiered in Oct. A back-and-forth with the songwriter, Marvin Tate, appeared in the eighth issue of Make and was made into a CD, "The Dead Man & Your Hands." He is the creator of a poetic form known as the "Dead Man" poem and is at work on a new book of dead man poems and a collaboration with the photographer, Nathan Lyons. .

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Deb Caletti

August 19, 3:15-4:15: Writing the Y/A Voice

 Your inner Holden Caulfield has you inspired to be part of one of the hottest areas in publishing today: Y/A. But Y/A relies more heavily on the ever elusive "voice" than any other genre. How do you bring a believable fifteen-year-old to the page without, like, resorting to cliché? We'll discuss creating the authentic juvenile character, examine the roles of honesty and empathy in voice, and look at the coming-of-age story today - what's working now and why.

August 20, 3:15-4:15: After "The End": Preparing Your Book and Yourself for What Comes Next

Your novel, memoir, young adult book, or whatever-it-is (you may not be quite sure) is taking shape. Now you're beginning to wonder what happens after that last sentence is written, and what to expect from the new universe that is publishing. In this class we'll address the fears, conundrums, and mysteries about the "here" to "there," discussing ruthless editing, agents, markets, and the nuts and bolts of the publishing process itself.

Deb Caletti is the award-winning author of The Queen of Everything, Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, The Nature of Jade, among others. In addition to being a National Book Award finalist, Deb's work has gained other distinguished recognition, including the PNBA Best Book Award, the Washington State Book Award, and School Library Journal's Best Book award, and finalist citations for the California Young Reader Medal and the PEN USA Literary Award. Her eighth book with Simon & Schuster, Stay, will be released in April 2011. She lives with her family in Seattle.

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Timothy Egan

August 17 & 18, 2:00-3:00: Finding Narrative from the Muddle of Facts in Nonfiction

We'll look at one approach to finding a strong narrative line for nonfiction. The talks will deal with practical and structural concerns: how the book takes shape as the research deepens, how to bring real people to life (harder than bringing fictional characters to life, in many cases) and seeing the dramatic highs and lows in the book.  The first talk is more about the fact-gathering; the second is about the writing.

Timothy Egan worked for The New York Times for 18 years - as Pacific Northwest correspondent and a national enterprise reporter. In 2001, he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that wrote the series "How Race Is Lived in America." He is the author of several books, including The Worst Hard Time, a history of the Dust Bowl, for which he won the National Book Award, and most recently, The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America.

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Mary Guterson

August 16, 4:30-5:30: BECOMING THE READER OF YOUR OWN WORK: Learning the Art of Revision

You've written your first draft--congratulations. The anguish of putting something down on paper where earlier there was only a blank page is over. Now you have something to work with. But how to begin? In order to revise your draft--to deepen it, find connections, make it satisfying to a reader, give it shape--you must first learn to listen to what your story is telling you. Drawing on the elements of fiction, a writer who is open to listening to his or her own work can learn to ask the necessary questions for making their revisions successful.

August 17, 4:30-5:30: THE ROLE OF DESIRE IN STORY STRUCTURE

Conflict. It's the engine of every story. The dictionary defines "conflict" as a "violent collision," but what if the story you want to write doesn't strike you as violent, but as something much more gentle or subtle? Not every story is a war between man and nature, or man and man. In fact, some stories seem to have almost no conflict at all. How then to conjure the story? One possibility to to think in terms of "desire," and its nemesis, thwarted desire. By structuring your tale in these terms, a writer can rethink the conventional conflict/resolution model of story writing, and still come up with a resolution that satisfies.

Mary Guterson is the author of the novels We Are All Fine Here (Putnam, 2005), and Gone To The Dogs (St. Martin's, 2009). Her work has appeared in journals, magazines and on public radio, and she often speaks on topics of interest to fiction writers at conferences and workshops.

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Sarah Ketchersid

August 14, 4:30-5:30: Session 1: The Evolution of a Picture Book

What is a picture book and what goes in to creating a successful one? We'll examine both classic and contemporary picture books to try and identify the elements that make them work. I'll also take the group through a few of the picture books I've edited, sharing the decisions that went into their creation.

August 15, 4:30-5:30: Session 2: Creating Characters with Character

What makes a character likable, relatable, and memorable? We'll look at classic and contemporary examples of well-loved (or well-hated!) children's book characters to examine just what it is that gives them so much character.

Sarah Ketchersid is a senior editor at Candlewick Press where she edits picture books, chapter books, fiction, board books, and the occasional novelty book. Some of the books she's edited include A Visitor for Bear written by Bonny Becker and illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton, Library Lion written by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, the 'Ology books, Mostly Monty by Johanna Hurwitz, and Bee-Wigged by Cece Bell, among many others.

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Sharlene Martin

August 19, 4:30-5:30: Session One

"How to Surf the Tidal Wave of Competition in Today's Mainstream Publishing Market"
"The Platform Dance - Why It Is Essential and How To Do It"
"The Power of Story Rights - and Why You Must Get Them"
"The Essential Elements of a Winning Book Proposal"

August 20, 4:30-5:30: Session Two

"The Tao of the Query Letter, plus True-Life Crazy Queries"
"From Agent to Deal - How Your Deal is Made - High Fives: the Book Contract!"
"A Targeted Public Relations Campaign - Your Ticket to the Top"

Sharlene Martin is the Founder of Martin Literary Management, a nonfiction agency located on Bainbridge Island, WA. She specializes in highly commercial nonfiction genres including memoirs, prescriptive (how to) parenting, health, business (entrepreneurial driven) true crime, celebrity related books and pop culture. She is the co-author of the Writer's Digest Book: Publish Your Nonfiction Book: Strategies for Learning the Industry, Selling Your Book, and Building a Successful Career. "Considerate Literary Management for the 21st Century" is her motto and she tries to honor that daily in her business relationships. See www.MartinLiteraryManagement.com

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Tom Masters

August 19, 2:00-3:00 pm: Blog to Book Techniques

Learn specific techniques to quickly and effectively produce a book based on your blog and accelerate your audience building.  Topics include:

• Blog to book process
• Techniques for beating "blogger's block"
• Using tags to align blog content with your book outline
• Handling references and photos
• Editing considerations when making the blog to book transition
• Building buzz while you blog

August 20, 2:00-3:00 pm: Blog Touring 101

Learn how to set up and manage a successful blog tour for your book.  Topics include:

• What a blog tour is
• How to find and recruit bloggers for your tour
• Preparing your blog tour materials
• Scheduling and tracking blog tour appearances
• Examples of blog tours

Tom Masters writes:

My interest in blogging grew out of a 30+ year background in software technology and more recent work as a consultant for a regional creative agency specializing in social media marketing.  I started blogging several years ago to pursue my interest in new forms of publishing.  At first it felt like I was talking to myself.  Then, I saw traffic begin to grow and got my first comments.  Soon some major publishers were contacting Future Perfect Publishing as part of their press campaigns.  I was hooked!  I realized the power of blogging and began researching what makes it such an effective communications medium.

Since that time I have taught regular blogging classes at a variety of venues including Discover U, the University of Washington Experimental College and self-hosted seminars.   In addition, I am a frequent speaker and lecturer on blogging and social media, and have published two books on blogging, Blogging Quick Easy: A Planned Approach to Blogging Success and Blog to Book & Beyond:  A New Path to Publishing Success.  I am an independent publisher, and serve as the president of Book Publishers Northwest, the northwest regional affiliate for the national parent organization, the Independent Book Publishers Association.

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Scott Russell Sanders

August 14, 2:00-3:00: Workshop: "The Essay as a Way of Discovery"

One of the most intriguing aspects of the essay is the spectacle of a mind searching for a way through some difficult terrain. The terrain may be emotional, intellectual, or geographical; the difficulty may arise from uncertainty or complexity, from confusion or pain, or from the mystery that surrounds and saturates all of existence. The search for pattern and meaning occurs not only in the preliminary stages of writing, but in the composition process as well. The most powerful examples of such inquiring essays preserve the drama of discovery in the finished work. To illustrate, we will look at a series of openings from published work. Handouts will be provided.

August 15, 2:00-3:00: Lecture: "Telling True Stories"

Is the writer of personal nonfiction responsible to any reality outside of the imagination and the requirements of art? If so, to whom or what is the writer responsible? In particular, what are the ethics of writing about real people? Sanders will explore these questions using examples from his own writing from the past thirty years.

August 16, 2:00-3:00: Reading: A Private History of Awe

Sanders will read from A Private History of Awe, which he calls "a coming-of-age memoir, love story, and spiritual testament." The book traces the story of one man's moral education , as it was shaped by personal and public events between the end of World War II and the end of the Vietnam War

Born in Tennessee and reared in Ohio, Scott Russell Sanders studied at Brown University and earned his Ph.D. from Cambridge University before going on to become a Distinguished Professor of English at Indiana University.  Among his more than twenty books are novels, collections of stories, and works of personal nonfiction, including Staying Put (Beacon, 1993), Writing from the Center (Indiana U.P., 1995), and Hunting for Hope (Beacon, 1998).  His memoir, A Private History of Awe (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006), was nominated by the publisher for a Pulitzer Prize. His latest book is A Conservationist Manifesto (Indiana U.P., 2009), which envisions a shift from a culture based on consumption to one based on caretaking.  For his writing, Sanders has won the AWP Creative Nonfiction Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, the Lannan Literary Award, the Indiana Humanities Award, and the Mark Twain Award.  His work has appeared in such magazines as Orion, Audubon, and The Georgia Review, and it has been reprinted in The Art of the Essay, The Norton Reader, and more than fifty other anthologies, including the annual Best American Essays. In all of his writing he is concerned with our place in nature, the work of social justice, the practice of community, and the search for a spiritual path. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have reared two children in their hometown of Bloomington in the hardwood hill country of Indiana's White River Valley. 

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David Wagoner

August 2, 1:30-4:30 (with breaks): Experiences with The Escape Artist

The film The Escape Artist, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, was made from David Wagoner's novel of the same name. This session will explore the process of having a movie made of a novel, option problems, script problems, experiences on the set with Coppola, previews, and so forth. The talk will be followed by a showing of the movie, using a DVD with commentary by the director and the magician adviser.

January 11, 2:00-3:00: The Original Idea - The Heart of Your Story and Conflict

The Fuel of Your Story: Can you say what your book is about in 25 words of less? This is essential to writing a tight book. We'll discuss ways to find and state your original idea so that you stay on course while writing the book. Conflict drives your story. Not only must conflict escalate throughout the entire novel, every single scene must have conflict in it. The Conflict Box is an effective technique for focusing your story on the protagonist, antagonist, their goals and finding out if you have the necessary conflict lock.

David Wagoner is the author of eighteen collections of poems, including A Map of the Night (2008), The House of Song, Good Morning and Good Night and Traveling Light, as well as ten novels. He has received numerous honors and awards, including an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the Sherwood Anderson Award, the Fels Prize, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. His novel The Escape Artist was made into a movie.

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Virginia Euwer Wolff

August 18, 4:30-5:30: Discussion of True Believer

For each residency, the faculty select one book which everyone in the program reads. This August's book is True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff. The author will join us for a discussion of the book during this hour and will take part in a faculty reading this evening.

Virginia Euwer Wolff's first book for young readers, Probably Still Nick Swansen, was published in 1988 and won both the International Reading Association Award and the PEN-West Book Award. Since then she has written several more critically acclaimed young adult novels, earning more honors, including the Golden Kite Award for Fiction and the Jane Addams Book Award for Children's Books that Build Peace.

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