Ann Arbor Book Festival
Writer's Conference
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The Ann Arbor Book Festival is pleased to bring another dynamic Writer's Conference to the community. This will be a full-day experience where attendees can hone their skills in sessions led by a noted group of writers and instructors. These teachers have very impressive resumes and are excited to bring you their expertise and share their passion for writing.
The conference sessions will be held in the new North Quad building at the corner of Washington and State on the University of Michigan Central Campus. Directions and location details are below.
Review the following information to make your selections for the individual sessions. When you are ready, click here to register and pay the registration fee. The $100 fee includes coffee, three small-group sessions, and lunch. After registering, you will receive an email listing your session assignments. Plan to stay for the Ann Arbor Book Festival's Book Fair on the nearby Ingalls Mall immediately following the conclusion of the Writer's Conference.
Alternatively, you may download a form, fill in all applicable information, and send the completed form along with a check (made out to Ann Arbor Book Festival) to:
AABF Writer's Conference
1118 Granger Ave.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
We are also very excited to bring you another "Breakfast with the Authors". For Conference attendees, the cost for the Breakfast is only $10. You may review the details of the Breakfast by clicking here. On our Events page in the Giftshop, there is an option for Conference / Breakfast combo.
Location and Check-In
We will be in classrooms in the North Quad Building on Central Campus. This building is directly behind Angell Hall (105 S. State St. AA MI 48109). There will be volunteers to direct you once you enter the building; please look for signs for the Writer's Conference.
Parking Close to North Quad
The City of Ann Arbor has numerous meters and parking structures for use. We recommend using the parking structure located on Maynard Street between East William and East Liberty (see the Central & South Campus map) or the William-Fourth or the Ann-Ashley Street structures.
Room Assignments
- "A" Sessions - Room 2135
- "B" Sessions - Room 2155
- "C" Sessions - Room 2175
- "D" Sessions - Room 2185
Writer's Conference Sessions
9:45 am - 10:00 am - Registration / Check-In
Please note: Check-In will take place in the Image Café in North Quad. This is where lunch and the Breakfast with the Authors will occur, as well as the Show Me a Story and Graphic Novels presentations as part of the Book Fair, and the evening's Author's Forum event with Karen Simpson.
10:00 am - 11:10 am - SESSION 1
A. Keepin' it Rea… ok, Seriously, Just Be Yourself in your Poems with francine j. harris
We know that we are moved by art that is "honest," but what does that mean? Some of the joy of writing is about exploring perspectives that are outside of our experience. But it's just as important to remember your place in all of it, your thread in the larger fabric of human history, your eccentric or quirky observations on the present time and place. No one else can account for you or be "honest" the way you can! In this workshop, you get to explore and celebrate your own unique take on the world and be present inside your poems, learning how to use rich language and poetic technique to get you there.
francine j. harris has recent work appearing in Rattle, Callaloo, Michigan Quarterly Review, and is the author of the recent chapbook, between old trees. She is a Cave Canem fellow, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and received an MFA in Poetry from the University of Michigan in 2011. Her first collection, allegiance, is scheduled for publication by Wayne State University Press as part of the Made in Michigan series in the spring of 2012.
B. Other People's Shoes: Writing in a Persona that Fits with Karrie Waarala
They say you need to walk a mile in another person's shoes to see that person's point of view. But what if you want to write from that point of view? Sometimes you only need to slip the shoes on for a few minutes, sometimes it takes running a marathon in them. We will look at (and listen to) some great examples of what's possible in regard to writing in persona, talk about the challenges inherent in creating that kind of art, and take some writing time to start creating our own.
Karrie Waarala is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing from University of Southern Maine. Her work has appeared in PANK, Arsenic Lobster, Foundling Review, Stymie, two national poetry slam anthologies, and on a coffee shop floor in Arizona. Karrie recently debuted her one-woman show, LONG GONE: A Poetry Sideshow, which is based on her forthcoming collection of circus persona poems. She really wishes she could tame tigers and swallow swords.
C. Perfecting Your First Five Pages with Lara Zielin
The shrinking book market has made publishing houses extra picky these days, meaning your manuscript, and especially the first five pages, can't just be good. Your text needs to be holy-wah-I-can't-believe-I-just-read-that amazing. In this workshop, young adult author Lara Zielin will highlight the common mistakes writers make in their first five pages, as well as fixes to get things back on track. Character motivation, setting, plot, pacing, and tension will all be covered. The class will engage in writing exercises and Lara will read, out loud, the first three paragraphs of work submitted by brave participants, which will serve as examples for the rest of the class.
Lara Zielin is the author of the young adult novels DONUT DAYS and THE IMPLOSION OF AGGIE WINCHESTER. By day she edits LSA Magazine, an alumni publication at the University of Michigan. By night, she writes, eats cheese, and bedazzles stuff that she probably shouldn't. Learn more at www.larawrites.com or www.help4writers.com.
D. The Art of Designing and Building a Narrative with Cynthia Furlong-Reynolds
Do you have a great story idea, but you don't know how to begin? Have you ever struggled with writer's block? Have you ever felt swamped with materials and ideas, but you don't know how to organize them logically? When you break a writing project—no matter how large or daunting—into component parts, the job of writing becomes an exciting adventure, not a daunting task. Whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, in short or long narrative form, building a story is like building a fine piece of architecture. Writers, like architects, need to lay a strong foundation and refer to blueprints that ask and answer all the right questions from the start of the story. We'll discuss the six-block foundation, based on journalists' six questions: WHO? WHEN? WHERE? WHY care (theme, moral, heart message)? WHAT are the problems? And, HOW are they solved? Then we'll discuss how to choose an appropriate structure for those building blocks, and how to begin and end a narrative.
An award-winning journalist, Cynthia Furlong Reynolds has written a dozen children's books, a chapter book series for elementary students, several novels, six histories, and a writing textbook. She has won two Michigan Notable Book Awards, a 2008 Mom's Choice Award, the Young Hoosier Book Award 2004-05, four CASE awards, and several Press Association awards. She frequently works with students of all ages on writing projects within schools, and she offers Teachers as Writers workshops for faculty members. A resident of Dexter, Michigan, she is finishing up a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Stonecoast, in Wolf's Neck, Maine.
11:20 am - 12:30 pm - SESSION 2
A. Aggressing the canon with Roger Bonair-Agard and Angel Nafis
This workshop will examine experimental works in poetry that challenge both poetic form in its definition, and the tropes of poetic collection. The workshop will look at poetry by Thomas Sayers Ellis, Brenda Hillman, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Doug Kearney, Joy Harjo, Shira Ehrlichmann, and Avery Young. Writing exercises will examine how we might deliberately change the look of the canon, how the speech of communities of color are radically (and necessarily) involved in this, and how me might engage in the celebration that language rededication and redefinition mean.
Roger Bonair-Agard is a native of Trinidad and Tobago and author of two collections of poems: tarnish and masquerade (Cypher Books, 2006) and GULLY (Cypher Books, Peepal Tree Press 2010). A Cave Canem fellow, Roger is a 2-time National Poetry Slam Champion and co-founder and Artistic Director of New York's louderARTS Project. Roger is an MFA candidate in the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine. He teaches at Fordham University in NYC and the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in Chicago. He is poet-in-residence at Young Chicago Authors.
Angel Nafis is an Ann Arbor, Michigan native where she resided as the VOLUME Youth Poetry Project's Poet-in-Residence at the Neutral Zone two years. She represented Ann Arbor in the Brave New Voices festival two years in a row as a member of the Ann Arbor Youth Slam Team and performed on the finals stages at the San Francisco Opera House and the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Her work has appeared in FOUND Magazine's Requiem for a Paper Bag (2006); Unsquared, Ann Arbor Writers Unleash their Edgiest Poems and Stories; Decibels: An anthology of work by the VOLUME Youth Poetry Project, GirlSpeak Webzine, and The Bear River Writing Review. This spring she represented the legendary Louderarts Poetry Project from New York City at the Women of the World Poetry Slam. Her own chapbook of poetry is scheduled to be released in 2011. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
B. Building Character with Adam Mansbach
Great fiction begins and ends with character. In this workshop we will explore the sources of character, and work on techniques for developing full, resonant, paradoxical people on the page.
Adam Mansbach's novels include The End of the Jews, winner of the California Book Award, and the bestselling Angry Black White Boy, which is taught at more than 100 schools. His new book, Go the Fuck to Sleep, is a national bestseller, and is forthcoming as a feature film from Fox 2000. A regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review and The Believer, he is the 2011 New Voices Professor of Fiction at Rutgers University.
C. What is your book about? Synopses, query letters, and log lines with Margaret Yang
Talking about your novel or non-fiction book in a concise way is an essential skill for writers at every stage of their careers. In today’s competitive environment, you need to sell your book over and over again, to agents, editors and book buyers. Can you summarize your entire book in one page, one paragraph, or one sentence? In this interactive workshop, Margaret Yang will show you the difference between a synopsis, a query, and log line, and how to write effective versions of all three.
Margaret Yang is a past winner of the Ann Arbor Writer's Festival Short Story contest. A former restaurant critic, she now spends her days as a full-time parent and writer. She has published numerous short stories and one novel. More about Margaret and links to her published work can be found at www.yangandcampion.com.
D. Writing Magic with Jeff Kass
Whether writing poetry, fiction, essay or any other kind of prose, writers often seek moments of transcendence, moments where something magical seems to happen on the page that transforms the experience of both the reader and writer. What do such moments look like? What, specifically, do they have in common? Participants in this workshop will look at examples of writers who achieve moments of transcendence in their work and will strive to create such moments of their own.
Jeff Kass teaches Creative Writing at Pioneer High School and Eastern Michigan University and is the Literary Arts Director at The Neutral Zone. He has won numerous poetry slam competitions and has had poems, stories and essays published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, journals and anthologies. His one-man performance poetica Wrestle the Great Fear debuted in April, 2009, his poetry chapbook Invisible Staircase was published by Winged City Press in January, 2010, and his short story collection Knuckleheads was published by Dzanc Books in April, 2011. From the front of the Room, a collection of essays about teaching is forthcoming from The Teacher's Voice in May, 2011, and a how-to-teach Creative Writing book is on its way from Red Beard Press and scheduled for release in June, 2011.
12:30 pm - 1:20 pm - Lunch in the Image Cafe
Come share sumptuous fare with your fellow attendees and check out a brief presentation from some of our authors on how they use social media to help spread the word about their work and enhance their writing careers.
1:30 pm - 2:40 pm - SESSION 3
A. Sonic Authority: Repetition as Rhetorical Device with Jamaal May
It is my belief that there is a reason political speeches and sermons are so rich with repetition. More specifically, anaphora and epistroph, which are defined, respectively,as the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning (anaphora) or end (epistrophe) of sentences, lines, stanzas, etc. I define sonic authority as a reliability attributed to the speaker of a poem that is obtained as a result of an accumulation of predictable sound. This will be a talk that examines varying amounts of sonic authority, primarily through the use of the lesser known rhetorical devices of polyptoton, epizeuxis, antanaclasis and epanalepsis. The talk will be brief and is meant mostly to introduce and define these terms, which I group under the device known as ploce - a technique of repeating a word in which the added significance is annotated by the way in which it repeats. This brief talk will be followed by a writing exercise.
Jamaal May is a Cave Canem Fellow, Callaloo Fellow and student in Warren Wilson's MFA for writers. He is the author of a poetry chapbook (The God Engine, Pudding House Press, 2009) and editor of the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Series. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Callaloo, Indiana Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Blackbird and Verse Daily among other magazines and anthologies. May has received two scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, an International Publication Prize from Atlanta Review, and he was a finalist for the 2010 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. Recently, he was named the 2011-2012 Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University.
May is a two-time Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam Champion, two-time Detroit Slam Champion, five time team member, and two-time Individual World Poetry Slam finalist. He has coached three Brave New Voices youth slam teams and teaches poetry classes through the Inside Out Literary Arts Project.
B. Writing What You Know with Jim C. Hines
It's one of the oft-repeated pieces of advice, but what does it actually mean? Should you limit yourself to writing only what you’ve personally experienced? (So much for science fiction and fantasy!) Do you have to base your characters on friends and neighbors (and hope they don’t find out)? Or is the key less about writing what you know and more knowing what you write? Learn how to use research and real-world experience to bring your stories to life, whether you're writing a real-world mystery or a 12th century historical romance.
Jim C. Hines is an award-winning fantasy author from Holt, Michigan. His seventh novel, The Snow Queen's Shadow, comes out in July of this year, wrapping up a series once described as the Brothers Grimm crossed with Charlie's Angels. He's also published more than forty short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and maintains a popular blog at www.jimchines.com. Jim's books have been translated into French, Czech, Polish, Russian, and German. (His goblin books were especially big in Germany.) He lives with his wife and two children, as well as half an ark's worth of pets. Jim is currently working on a new fantasy series to be set in Michigan.
C. Working Class Poetics with Kevin Coval
In these times where unions and members of the working class appear to be in the cross-hairs of numerous Midwestern governors, it’s vital to remember the power of art to bring the everyday lives of workers into the forefront of the public's literary imagination. This workshop will explore the history of writers' relationships to work and labor, both from personal and historical perspectives. Come prepared to write about the beauty, the honor, the dignity, the challenges of work.
Kevin Coval is author of the forthcoming, L-vis Lives! (Haymarket Books, Fall 2011), Everyday People and Slingshots (A Hip-Hop Poetica), named a Book of the Year finalist by the American Library Association. Coval has been called "the voice of the new Chicago" by Rick Kogan of The Chicago Tribune and is one of the most widely read poets in the country. He has performed in seven countries on four continents, toured the country, appeared on four seasons of HBO's Def Poetry Jam, and is Co-Founder of Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, the largest youth poetry festival in the world, which is the subject of the award-winning documentary by the same name. Coval is the Artistic Director of Young Chicago Authors and teaches at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago.
D. Visualizing Structure: How Picturing Shapes Can Help Your Writing with Lori Tucker-Sullivan
The essayist and nature writer Barry Lopez has said that he sees structure in his writing as the scaffolding on which he can hang his ideas. Once the scaffolding is solid, it frees him to suspend his writing within the structure of the scaffold. John McPhee similarly visualizes the structure of his works, and has said they appear to him as circles, spirals or V's. In this workshop, we will look at examples of structure as used in a selection of essays and how they give shape to the writing. We will also look at some shapes, designs, and even squiggles on the page that, if followed, can provide exercises that will help you be more aware of structured writing.
Lori Tucker-Sullivan received her BA in Communication from the University of Michigan. She has worked as a freelance writer, and has contributed works to a variety of trade publications and literary journals. She is currently completing her MFA in Creative Nonfiction writing at the Spalding University Low Residence program in Louisville, KY. She lives with her two children in Dexter.
