Conference Program: Pre-Conference Workshops

Thursday, March 2, 2006

Now open to the public

Our pre-conference workshops offer conference attendees an opportunity to delve into an extra full or half-day of writing instruction. This year, we are offering five full-day workshops, and new for 2006, one half-day workshop.

Day-long Workshops
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Limited to 15 participants
Price (lunch included): $100 conference registrants, $135 WIWA members not attending conference, $150 non-WIWA members not attending conference

Bruce Holland Rogers: Empty Headed Writing -- FULL
One model of writing holds that the writer must first fill her head with ideas, then organize them, and finally start to write. However, writers on deadline know that sometimes you can’t wait for the perfect idea – or even any idea at all – to start writing. You have to write, even if your head is empty. Excellent stories, poems, essays, and scripts can emerge when a writer just starts writing with only the barest notion of a subject. Writing with an empty head can sound intimidating, but it is easiest and most fruitful if the writer sets off on the writing journey with a compass, a guiding principle that keeps the writer on track even without an idea. In this workshop we will practice writing poems, stories, essays, and dramatic dialogue, each exercise guided by a different compass. Even though we will practice writing in four different genres, we will discuss how each compass could be used to guide the writing in any particular genre.

Eva Shaw: Write Your Book in 20 Minutes
You can (almost) write your book in 20 minutes or less. Quickly jot down ideas, create concepts, and craft compelling characters and format chapters. Using the techniques that are accomplished within 20 minutes, you’ll know what to include in your book to make it good and to make it marketable. In no time at all, you’ll learn how to create titles to tables of content, from protagonists to plots. The method also works for articles and short stories.

Jack Dalton: When Polar Bears Wishes Came True: Understanding and Creating Meaningful Stories
Join Alaska Native storyteller and writer Jack Dalton as you discover the power of story to shape cultures in this interactive and entertaining writing workshop. Discover simple, easy and sometimes challenging techniques for brainstorming, creating, plotting and completing stories, based on the Alaska Native tradition of storytelling. Listen to Alaska Native stories; learn about story theory and the Value Learning Process Map. Perfect for emerging writers, but challenging enough for experienced writers.

Percentage of the day spent:
Instructing 25%
Group processing of information 45%
Active writing and related exercises 30%

Carolyne Wright: “Speak, Muse!”—The Art of Narrative Poetry
Before the novel, The Iliad, Odyssey, Beowulf and other epic poems told the big stories. Closer to our time, poets like W. C. Williams, Derek Walcott, and Ann Carson have told stories in poetic narrative. In this workshop, we will read and discuss some well-known narrative and long poems – examples both historical and contemporary – and talk about how narrative poems resemble and differ from narrative prose and lyric poetry. We will experiment with narrative poetic forms and strategies that lend themselves to the development of a sustainable narrative voice and rhythm through the lyrical narrative –including oblique, implied, even elliptical narratives, which move forward by a process of lyrical repetitions and variations, in fixed or variable forms. Besides new work generated on site in response to poetic exercises in free verse and form, course members may bring poems already in process, which they might transform into narrative forms, so that diction and syntax, as well as the content of memory, contribute to the process of imaginative discovery. Previous writing experience is helpful but not necessary.

Stephanie Bodeen: Take That Plunge; Write and Ready Your Picture Book for Publication
In this workshop, participants bring one or two picture book manuscripts. We will use a round table constructive critique method to share the manuscripts. Then, through writing exercises, a plan for revision is created. Participants are given time to revise and all will present their stories again. We will go over writing cover letters for submissions, and finding the right publisher. The objective is to send everyone home with a story ready to be submitted. This workshop is geared toward emerging writers who just haven’t made that final step of submitting their stories.

Instructional 25%
Group Processing of Information 45%
Active Writing and Related Exercises 30%

Half-day Workshop
Noon – 5 p.m.
Limited to 20 participants
$50 fee includes lunch

Penny Sansevieri: Making the Most of your Writers Conference!
You’ve signed up for the Whidbey Island Writers Conference – great! Now what? Well now’s the time to get ready to make the most out of this event. But how? This class will show you what to do, what to expect and what to prepare for so that you can make the most out of your time at Whidbey! Whether you’re attending your first event or your fifth, attending any writers’ conference can be challenging for even the most seasoned attendee. Don’t waste precious time or networking opportunities. This class will show you tips and insider secrets to leveraging your opportunities and expanding your reach in the writing and publishing community!

We’ll teach you:

• How to network like a pro
• How to prepare for your agent/editor meetings
• How to make the most of your time with the agents/editors
• How to craft your elevator pitch so you’re ready to pitch, pitch, pitch!
• How to select which classes to attend to further your writing career! (This is not pushing one class over the other but helping the attendees select the classes best suited to their needs)
• How to strike networking gold with our insider tips and secrets!