2008 (Past) Summer Writing Academy

Karleen Koen

Something Novel: craft, technique, and basic elements of writing the novel

What combination of skill and talent allows a writer to birth a novel? Come explore creativity and tenacity in this workshop highlighting essential elements: scene building, the story question, character, voice. In each class, short, concrete writing exercises will sharpen skills, boost confidence, and jumpstart creativity. You'll learn about style--your own and another's--by examining structural processes in your favorite fiction. Topics include:

Beginnings: Yours and the Novel's
Plot: The Motor of Your Story
Query Letters: An Important Art
Creativity: On the Left and the Right
Magic: Its Place in the Process
Fear: The Dangerous Ally
Inspiration: Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are
Business: Selling Your Work and Yourself
Support: A Little Help from Friends

This is not a critique class. Work will not be critiqued.

Very important: Please bring your favorite novel to class. I mean your favorite novel, not what everyone is reading or what the critics have proclaimed good. Be it romance, science fiction, western, mystery, or literary, bring the novel you reread, as I do, in times of stress or the novel that you most enjoy (not admire, though the two may be the same). This is in the category of bringing your favorite teddy bear to class, worn, old, out of style, safe, comforting, beloved.

Something Novel comes with a 80+ page notebook of writing tips and advice culled from books on writing that Karleen Koen holds in high regard. Topics covered in the notebook include:

Karleen Koen is the author of three novels, Dark Angels, Now Face to Face, and Through A Glass Darkly. Through A Glass Darkly was on the bestseller list for 21 weeks. Her books have been published by Crown Publishing, Random House, Avon Books, Kensington Books, Sourcebooks, Three Rivers Press, Books on Tape, Brilliance Bookcassette, and Random House Audio and have also been published in foreign editions. The first two were Book of the Month Club main selections. The third was a Book Sense pick, Border's Books' New and Notable, the Historical Novels' Society's Editor's Choice, and the abridged audio won an Audiofile award. She is an experienced and award-winning magazine editor and writer/editor and cofounder of Women in the Visual and Literary Arts in Houston. She has taught this course at Rice University's Glasscock School of Continuing Studies for five years.

www.karleenkoen.com: web page for Dark Angels
karleenkoen.wordpress.com: Karleen's blog

Clay Reynolds

Making Fiction Out of Fact

The overall goals of the class will be as follows:

• To gain a fundamental understanding of the structure of contemporary American fiction, emphasizing the key elements of structure, character, plot, dialogue, setting, and language, and distinguishing between the principal forms of fiction as they are commonly acknowledged in today's publishing market.
• To produce a polished draft of a manuscript of fiction that will be presented to the class for critique and commentary.
• To obtain a basic understanding of the publishing market, both large commercial and small press, with instruction in the best ways to approach editors, agents, and participation in contests, conferences, and workshops such as this one.

Students need not have had any previous creative writing instruction or experience; however, they should have a good grounding in English usage, mechanics, and grammar and a reasonable understanding of fiction, both literary and contemporary.

The course will be fast-paced and intensive; students should be prepared to write, read, and revise daily throughout the week, to participate in oral critiques, and to be available to confer with one another outside class.

Depending on facilities available in the area, students should be prepared to produce their work in a form that can be distributed to the entire class for reading and commentary. Enrollment will not exceed 20 students. Distribution can be done via hard-copy or through electronic means, presuming that internet access is available.

The course will proceed as a combination of lecture and workshop/discussion. Individual conference times may be built into the class schedule, as needed.

Students should arrive with a hard copy manuscript in hand. This should be a brief (2000 word maximum) writing sample. It would be useful to have it in electronic format, as well. It may be a self-contained story or a fragment of a longer piece such as a novel chapter or prologue. This should be ready for distribution on the first day, and it will constitute the core of the student's work for the week. Students should email Clay the week before (July 7, approximately) to find out approximately how many copies they should bring.

The manuscript may be written toward any category, on any subject, and with any setting or background. The only recommendations are that it contain both narrative and dialogue elements, and that it be reasonably correct and proofread in advance.

Manuscripts should be prepared as follows:

• Typed, double spaced
• Black ink on white paper
• Normal margins
• All pages numbered, writer's name on every page
• Pages should be paper clipped

Textbooks for the course are as follows. All are available via www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, or through other on-line and physical bookstores.

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, by Janet Burroway. 7th Edition. Longman.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print, by
Reni Brown. Collins.

2008 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. Writer's Digest. (Recommended)

Calendar: (subject to change depending on course enrollment)

July 14: Course Introduction, distribution of first fictional material. First exercise.
July 15: Character and point of view. Discussion of characterization and point of view in fiction. Critique of introductory material. First Exercise discussed.
July 16: Plotting Fiction. Discussion of plot structures in short and long fiction. Second exercise.
July 17: Dialogue, setting and tone. Second exercise discussed. Final manuscripts distributed.
July 18: Discussion of professional writing and the market. Critique of manuscripts.

Native Texan novelist, essayist, scholar, and critic Clay Reynolds is the author more than nine hundred publications ranging from critical studies to short fiction and poems, essays, reviews and twelve published volumes. Clay holds academic degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, Trinity University, and the University of Tulsa. He serves as Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Clay's published novels include The Vigil, Agatite, Franklin's Crossing, Players, Monuments, The Tentmaker, Ars Poetica, and Threading the Needle; a collection of essays, Of Snake and Sex and Playing in the Rain; and a collection of short fiction, Sandhill County Lines. His nonfiction books include Stage Left: The Development of the American Social Drama, Taking Stock: A Larry McMurtry Casebook, A Hundred Years of Heroes: A Centennial History of the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show, Twenty Questions: Answers for the Inquiring Writer, and The Plays of Jack London.

The author of more than six hundred critical reviews, as well as essays, poetry, and feature journalism, his novels, short fiction, and essays have won numerous awards, and he is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and serves as professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Reynolds lives in Lowry Crossing, a community near McKinney, Texas, with his wife Judy, a Medical Technologist.

Suzy Spencer

The True Kick in the Pants: Starting and Completing the First Three Chapters of Your Narrative Non-fiction Book

If you need a true kick in the pants to get your non-fiction book and proposal into tip-top finished shape, then this class is for you. Over five days we'll write and perfect those all-important opening three chapters and learn about and polish the non-fiction proposal including its overview and outline.

Authors should come armed with enough solid research on their non-fiction topic that they can write 60 tight pages packed with riveting information. Together, through critique and encouragement, through writing practice and discipline, we'll make sure that that information creates a story that hooks the reader, holds his attention, teaches him something, and entertains him, too.

Day 1, Morning: Get to know each other, team build and begin Chapter 1
Day 1, Afternoon: Write, critique and polish Chapter 1
Day 2, Morning: Update Chapter 1 and begin Chapter 2
Day 2, Afternoon: Write, critique and polish Chapter 2
Day 3, Morning: Update Chapter 2 and begin Chapter 3
Day 3, Afternoon: Write, critique and polish Chapter 3
Day 4, Morning: Update Chapter 3 and discuss the proposal
Day 4, Afternoon: Write, critique and polish the proposal overview
Day 5, Morning: Discuss and begin the proposal outline
Day 5, Afternoon: Write, critique and polish the outline and do victory dance

This is an intensive class for those who are serious about their writing. It's about craft of writing, but it's also about self-confidence and marketing. So we'll discuss story and self-editing, but we'll also discuss self-talk, discipline, determination, how to take criticism (constructive or otherwise), and how to bounce back and keep up one's confidence no matter the circumstances.

We'll laugh a lot. We may cry some. And we'll leave ready to conquer the publishing world with a non-fiction book that agents will want to represent and editors will want to publish.

Suzy Spencer earned a Master's of Business Administration degree in marketing at the University of Southern California (don't hold that against her) and a Master's of Professional Writing degree in fiction, also from USC. (She roots for the University of Texas as long as the game isn't against USC or Baylor, her other alma mater. Don't hold Baylor against her, either.)

Suzy's first book, Wasted, hit the New York Times bestseller list and was a finalist in the Violet Crown Awards. It's currently being updated, repackaged and reissued for publication in December 2008. Her third book, Breaking Point, has had so many printings that she's lost count. It was a Book of the Month Club, Doubleday Book Club, Literary Guild and Mystery Guild selection. Her fourth book, The Fortune Hunter, is in development as a Lifetime movie of the week.

Right now, Suzy's finishing up four years of research and writing on a book about Americans' sex practices, which will be a lead trade paperback for Berkley Books. (Yes, a Baylor girl can write about sex. She's definitely learned how to keep cool under pressure.)

Scott Wiggerman

Poetry 101: The Basic Toolbox

Intended primarily for the beginning poet (or rusty one), this course is an introduction to the tools of poetry, specifically imagery, metaphor, sound, rhythm, and rhyme, although we will touch upon other tools, including line breaks, stanzas, syntax, voice, form, and revision. The course is meant to provide a clear understanding of how poems are created through the use and combination of the many tools of poetry. The course employs several techniques to keep it instructional, yet lively and fun. Throughout the week, we will look at examples of each of the tools at work, then generate original poems through a variety of writing exercises and assignments. There should also be opportunity to workshop the newly generated poems.

The course is designed to cover one major tool a day in and of itself; however, each day expands upon the previous one to show the interconnectivity of these tools. While it is impossible to cover the tools without definitions and explanations, the focus is less on terms and more on processes. Discussion and constructive criticism are essential to creating poems and growing as a poet, and the course develops slowly so that students can feel confident about one tool before moving on to the next. This is why each day is devote primarily to one tool, beginning day one with imagery and ending day five with a focus on rhyme. Homework assignments are expected each night!

Scott Wiggerman is the author of Vegetables and Other Relationships (Plain View Press, 2000) and editor of the Texas Poetry Calendar (Dos Gatos Press), now in its eleventh year. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Poesia, Heartland Review, Midwest Poetry Review, Spillway, Sojourn, and the Paterson Literary Review. In addition, his poems appear in several anthologies, including This New Breed: Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians 2 (Windstorm Creative, 2004), In the Arms of Words: Poems for Disaster Relief (Sherman Asher, 2006), and The Weight of Addition (Mutabilis Press, 2007).