The 1999 Writers' Workshops will afford writer participants an
opportunity to examine, in depth, the writing of fiction with some of
the country¹s most renowned writers and writing teachers. This year¹s
Seminar will be followed by several writers' workshops; each will be
limited to ten participants to ensure individual attention and will
feature four days of intensive morning workshops, afternoon private
consultations, and evening events. Workshops are designed to support
writers of all levels of ability, published and non-published.
Applicants choose one of the workshops for the entire four day
session. Sorry, it is not possible to do more than one workshop.
Workshops will begin Monday morning, January 11, 1999, 10:00 a.m.
There will be an optional orientation dinner, Sunday, January 10, 7:00
p.m. Limited inexpensive group housing is available.
To register, please submit a sample of your writing (maximum of 15
manuscript pages), a $100 deposit (refundable if you are not accepted
into the workshop of your choice), a brief statement of your interest
and background, and indicate your first and second workshop choice.
The cost of the four day workshop workshop is $400 ($430 with tax);
the cost of the Seminar and Workshop is $725.63. (The seminar is now
sold out; if you are registered for the seminar, you qualify for the
combined rate.)
Mail all materials to:
Writers' Workshops
Key West Literary
Seminar,
9 Sixth Street
Plum Island, MA 01951 |
Direct questions to:
Miles Frieden, Executive Director
1-888-293-9291
(toll free)
or email keywest@seacoast.com |
Early registration is strongly encouraged, as we anticipate workshops
will sell-out early.
LIST OF WORKSHOPS
Click on workshop titles to read about them. Click on writers' names to read about them.
|
New Departures
with Harry Mathews |
Monday
thru
Thursday |
January
11, 12, 13, 14 |
10:00 AM
to
1:00 PM |
Whose story is it, anyway?
with Hilma Wolitzer |
Monday
thru
Thursday |
January
11, 12, 13, 14 |
Times to be
announced. |
Character as Fiction
in the Novel
with Susan Shreve |
Monday
thru
Thursday |
January
11, 12, 13, 14 |
Times to be
announced. |
Writing Action
(from Jane Austen to
James Elroy to you)
with Irving Weinman |
Monday
thru
Wednesday |
January
11, 12, 13 |
Times to be
announced. |
New Departures
with Harry Mathews
Monday thruThursday, January 11, 12, 13, 14 — 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM
It seems that many writers, perhaps most writers (and certainly
this writer) tend to hold on for dear life to assumptions about writing
that make the actual act of writing an occasion for doubt, anxiety, and
sometimes total paralysis. The purpose of the workshop is to enable its
participants to give up these often undeclared positions and attitudes so
that the act of writing becomes an exuberant opportunity for discovery, one
where possibilities are recognized, and where the prospect of achieving
them becomes real. To this end, there will be no coaching or instruction in
the techniques of fiction, poetry, or theater; no writing will be done
except what is assigned during the course; and all writing will be done
during the course itself. (If participants so wish, there may be additional
assignments to be completed between sessions).
The workshop has produced its results at every level of writing
competence. Past workshops, however, indicate that the greater the
experience and skills of the participants, the more useful the workshop
becomes. Applicants are therefore requested to submit a few pages of work.
"In the beginning was poetry - or call it song and dance - sometimes
ecstatic, sometimes serene, absolute and abstract, in no need of
explanation. In practice this meant: nursery rhymes (many of them sung),
clapping games, being rhythmically bounced on my grandfather's knee. Soon
after came story-telling: engaging, disturbing, never truly complete,
always demanding explanation, and more explanation. In practice this meant
my father, while he shaved, adding an instalment to whatever adventure he
was creating for us, in Madagascar or on the moon; and my parents reading
children's tales to me after supper.
"After I had learned to read by myself, there was more of the same:
I repeated incantatory lines from Tennyson or Keats and hummed unfound
words to favorite chord sequences at the piano keyboard. I read Big Little
Books, then Action Comics and its competitors, piled high each week in the
dark corner of my closet into which I had smuggled their wonders. I read
stories of Sigurd the Volsung, too; and at last Tom Sawyer.
"Age 11, I wrote my first poem, my first piece of music (for full
orchestra, no less), and my first story. The poem was all too poetic and
derivative, but rhyme and meter were happiness enough. The music was naïve,
but its lovely paraphernalia of notation made creation seem attainable. The
story was "true," and modestly and correctly told, and so highly praised by
my elders; and it was contemptible - nothing like Tom Sawyer.
"Since then, materials and methods have changed, not the addictions.
They verge towards the question: how can plain narrative prose acquire the
spellbinding authority of poetry, or the vivid, inexplicable hereness of
music? How can the banality of what I know - "experience" - enter the
magical realm of what I can never know?
"This is my work in progress.
|
Whose story is it, anyway?
with Hilma Wolitzer
Monday thruThursday, January 11, 12, 13, 14 — Time to be announced.
The aim of this workshop is revision, not despair. Hilma believes that
writing can be taught (to writers, that is) via their own manuscripts, in a
friendly and honest atmosphere. Participants are encouraged to truly
participate, and while negative criticism can be useful, discovering one's
strengths is usually even more so. Whose story is it, anyway? The answer, of
course, is: yours. No one will rewrite your work for you, but you might come
to some surprising and positive conclusions after absorbing the comments and
suggestions of the other participants. The workshop title also refers to the
defining voice each of us must find in order to tell a particular story
effectively. Voice, character, language, landscape, structure, as well as
other aspects of writing fiction will come up naturally during each session.
|
Character as Fiction in the Novel
with Susan Shreve
Monday thruThursday, January 11, 12, 13, 14 — Time to be announced
This workshop will look at the role of character as determining story in
the fiction of writers in the workshop as well as in some of the great
character driven novels we have all read.
|
Writing Action (from Jane Austen to James Elroy to you)
with Irving Weinman
Monday thru Wednesday — Time to be announced
Where's the action? Often considered the poor relation of fiction
writing, action is essential to and more wide-ranging as part of all
fiction. Broad action is at the heart of great novelists, from Balzac
to Dickens to Hemingway. Action on a smaller scale is key to supposed
non-action writers, from Jane Austen to Virginia Woolf; the best of
contemporary American fiction typically has both broader and smaller
scale action writing, as in Don DeLillo or Annie Proulx. The workshop
begins from your submissions and, with reference to published examples
and in-workshop writing, ends with a better understanding of method and
meaning for your own writing. The action is here.
Applicants should submit the action excerpt they wish to work on during
the workshop. Maximum length, 10 pages.
PLEASE NOTE: Unlike the other workshops, this will be a three day
workshop (Monday-Wednesday). The cost is $250 plus tax, $272.50.
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17th Annual Key West Literary Seminar
