Willamette Writers Conference

One week until the Willamette Writers Conference, where yours truly will be offering two delightful workshops!

Here's the scoopage:

Sunday, August 7 @ 10:30
UNPACKING SEX AND DEATH: APPROACHING GRIEF, LOSS, AND SEX IN SHORT WORKS OF LITERATURE

Vivian Gornick claims that every work of literature has both a situation and a story. Tom Spanbauer refers to these same elements as the horizontal and the vertical. Whichever metaphor one chooses to evoke the relationship between plot and emotion, finding the right balance between the two concepts is central to successful prose. When taking on something as wrenching as death or as provocative as sex, it's particularly crucial to strike that balance. Too much plot and the reader won't care; too much emotion, and you've got melodrama. In this workshop we will consider the continuum of several short pieces: nonfiction to fiction, and look at how the writers balanced circumstance with grief - or sex - and in the process, we'll discover the roles of stance, form, objective correlative, metaphor and structure in issuing a composition that keeps us turning the pages.

Sunday, August 7 @ 1:15
THE HERMIT CRAB ESSAY: HOW APPROPRIATING A FORM CAN FREE YOU UP IN YOUR WRITING

In this personal essay-meets-poetry workshop, we will explore the possibilities of the hermit crab essay, as well as read three short samples of this lyric form. Writers will be invited to participate in a short free-writing assignment, and share their writing with the group. There will be resources and hand-outs.

Oh, and I'll be on an e-media panel on Friday morning (Aug 5) with a bunch of smart folks--including Jane Friedman!