I make a point of going to the Writers' Institute conference held annually in Madison, Wisconsin no matter what else is going on in my life. For ten years I have listened to the best and the brightest discuss various aspects of writing: making characters come alive, themes in writing, the business side of writing, marketing, fiction, screenplays, short fiction, writing humor, short stories, poetry and much more.
This year Linda Seger, a script doctor in Hollywood for many years, www.lindaseger.com spoke in various sessions. "Creating the Character Spine", "Creating Cinematic Images", "Creating the Transformational Arc" were topics she clearly explored not only as applicable to screenplay writing but to all writing. She has consulted on over 2,000 scripts, including 40 produced feature films and about 35 television projects. She is the author of 11 books, eight on screenwriting and three on spirituality.
Les Edgerton was there. He has published nine books and his fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, O. Henry Award, Edgar Allen Poe Award, PEN/Faulkner Award and many more. He teaches creative writing online for the Gotham Writer's Workshop, for Vermont College, privides private coaching for a number of prominent Hollywood personalities and was the former head of Robin Williams production company. He gave sessions on "Story Beginnings", private workshops, "The Writer's Voice".
There were many other terrific lecturers: Victoria Goff on the business and marketing of your writing, Simone Elkeles on young adult fiction and many more. Agents fly in from New York as they always do and the place was alive with writer's adding and embellishing their knowledge.
Many of you know how wonderful Madison, Wisconsin is as a city that supports the arts and the individual entrepreneur. In the fall there is a book festival, in the spring a film festival, the wonderful farmer's market in the square surrounding the the Capitol during spring, summer and fall. The arts festival in the same square around the Capitol in July.
Best of all is the writing department with Chris DeSmet, Marshall Cook (now retiring) and Laurel Yourke. They sponsor Writers' Institute and give various writing classes during the year. What makes them different than other conference sponsors? They are available after the conference, during the year, to answer questions you might have or boost your ego. Other conferences I have attended don't do that. You walk out the door maybe learning something, maybe not, but generally speaking you don't have access to these speakers after the conference.
The conference is held at the end of March - next year check them out and try to make it to the conference. Not only do you get to enjoy the ambience of Madison but develop a network of friends and teachers who never let you down.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Language Poetry
Taking my third class with Matthias Regan Ph.D at the University of Chicago downtown Chicago I am again impressed with the quality of his teaching. Recently we have been talking about the language poets - those who came into the poetry scene around 1973 in reaction to the conventional rhyme and meter poets. The intention of language poetry was to be disruptive of old ways of thinking about poetry.
Lyn Hejinia says in her essay "Introduction from The Language of Inquiry" "Language is nothing but meanings, and meanings are nothing but a flow of contexts. Such contexts rarely coalesce into images, rarely come to terms. They are transitions, transmutations, the endless radiating of denotation into relation.
Poetry, to use William James's phrase, "is in the transitions as much as in the terms connected." This is not to say that poetry is about transitions but that "aboutness" (in poetry, but, I would argue, also in life) is transitional, transitory; indeed, poetry (and perhaps life) calls conventional notions of "aboutness" into question."
We read in class a poem by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge who is an influential language poet. She was influenced by New York school poets like John Ashbury as well as language poets Barbara Guest, Anne Waldman, Charles Bernstein, as well as artist Susan Bee.
The poems are composed by having one long line, then another underneath it. As we read each line it became apparent that each line existed to be read by itself. Not connected to the next line. A woman sitting next to me and I agreed that was fine. There is some abstract painting I just look at and move on not try to figure out meaning of the painting. Same thing in life: I don't know what is going on sometimes and that is just ok. The line on the page was the same thing for me - it didn't have to have a particular meaning, the language was interesting and I did not need to derive some particular meaning from the poem.
The rest of the class erupted. They were angry. It wasn't a poem. It wasn't even as good as a first grader's poetry. It was awful stuff these words on this page. I thought this was hilarious. If the goal was to be disruptive, it worked!
Leaving and walking down the corridor toward the elevator the other woman and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. Mei Mei had accomplished her goal - she disrupted a way of thinking about poetry and it worked.
Poetry is alive and well and making us think in other than images and metaphors, rhyme and meter. What fun.
Lyn Hejinia says in her essay "Introduction from The Language of Inquiry" "Language is nothing but meanings, and meanings are nothing but a flow of contexts. Such contexts rarely coalesce into images, rarely come to terms. They are transitions, transmutations, the endless radiating of denotation into relation.
Poetry, to use William James's phrase, "is in the transitions as much as in the terms connected." This is not to say that poetry is about transitions but that "aboutness" (in poetry, but, I would argue, also in life) is transitional, transitory; indeed, poetry (and perhaps life) calls conventional notions of "aboutness" into question."
We read in class a poem by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge who is an influential language poet. She was influenced by New York school poets like John Ashbury as well as language poets Barbara Guest, Anne Waldman, Charles Bernstein, as well as artist Susan Bee.
The poems are composed by having one long line, then another underneath it. As we read each line it became apparent that each line existed to be read by itself. Not connected to the next line. A woman sitting next to me and I agreed that was fine. There is some abstract painting I just look at and move on not try to figure out meaning of the painting. Same thing in life: I don't know what is going on sometimes and that is just ok. The line on the page was the same thing for me - it didn't have to have a particular meaning, the language was interesting and I did not need to derive some particular meaning from the poem.
The rest of the class erupted. They were angry. It wasn't a poem. It wasn't even as good as a first grader's poetry. It was awful stuff these words on this page. I thought this was hilarious. If the goal was to be disruptive, it worked!
Leaving and walking down the corridor toward the elevator the other woman and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. Mei Mei had accomplished her goal - she disrupted a way of thinking about poetry and it worked.
Poetry is alive and well and making us think in other than images and metaphors, rhyme and meter. What fun.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Workshop! Performance Skills for Poets (and others):Getting Words Off the Page and Into Listeners Hearts and Minds
On Thursday, January 31, 2008 from 6:30PM-8:30PM Sue Roupp and Jennifer Dotson will be giving a workshop at the Bookstall at Chestnut Court, 811 Elm St., Winnetka, IL 60093 (847) 446-8880. This workshop is designed to help poets and other writers to gain confidence in speaking their work out loud. Sue Roupp is an award-winning poet, writer coach, host of rouppwrites workshops around the country and VP of Off Campus Writers Workshop (an about 200 member, 60 year old writers group that has speakers every Thursday from 9:30 to noon at the Winnetka Community House in Winnetka, IL), she is also a performance artist having honed her skills at Piven Theater Workshop in Evanston, IL, Jennifer Dotson is the mover and shaker behind highlandparkpoetry.org and teaches poetry in an evening poetry class at Highland Park High School and has a Master's in Drama and is a member of the Il. Poets Society. Join us to learn some useful techniques in speaking your work (bring along some of your work to read) and have some fun at the same time. www.highlandparkpoetry.org, www.bookstall.com
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Meanings...
I have noticed a discrepency between Ph.D's and others of us in the fiction/non-fiction writing world in interpreting what a poem means. Or what a phrase in a poem means. Academia tends to reinforce the notion that only they know poetry's secrets. If they don't know, well, sorry to say, they don't admit it.
Last week I heard a lecturer say, unequivocally, that poems only mean certain things. Period. Yesterday I attended another lecture by another Ph.D who couldn't imagine a bit of discord between two people in a scene in one of Billy Collins (former U.S. Poet Laureate) poems. He looked a bit confused when I suggested it. Then said "no it is an ordinary scene...".
At the Dodge Poetry Festival in 2006 I was able to hear Billy Collins talk about his poetry. How he found some of his poems in an anthology and was amazed to see the footnotes suggesting one meaning or another. He went on to say that even he wasn't sure what he meant when he wrote the poem.
I believe there are accepted truths used for poems written in earlier centuries. We take into account the historical time-frame of their writing, metaphors appropriate to their style at that time, rhyme and meter and form used by previous generations of poets. There are also universal (loss, love, lament etc.) and general (rural countryside, city problems etc.) experiences mentioned in all poetry.
However, I also believe in interpreting a poem, whenever it was written, each human being brings to the poem their own relevant life experiences and skill.
This experience and skill, I argue, is equally important when reading poetry.
Emotionally, we cannot remove ourselves from what we read or what we write as much as some like to try to do that. I maintain it isn't possible or we would not be human...we would be word mechanics without thought and experience.
Do I mean that academics are wrong? No. Defintely not. I do make the case that some academics get stuck in the logic of what they know - and dismiss emotion or another way of looking at content. It is this stubborn refusal that turns people off to poetry because they are afraid they will make a mistake in interpretation.
My advice? Enjoy each word on the page - let the images (flowers in the field, or a red wheelbarrow) conjure up in your mind whatever associations you bring to these images. Respond to a phrase with a quick association and enjoy the experience. It will bring the poetry alive for you. Sure you can enjoy reading about various interpretations from other scholars - but never discount your own impressions. Never.
Last week I heard a lecturer say, unequivocally, that poems only mean certain things. Period. Yesterday I attended another lecture by another Ph.D who couldn't imagine a bit of discord between two people in a scene in one of Billy Collins (former U.S. Poet Laureate) poems. He looked a bit confused when I suggested it. Then said "no it is an ordinary scene...".
At the Dodge Poetry Festival in 2006 I was able to hear Billy Collins talk about his poetry. How he found some of his poems in an anthology and was amazed to see the footnotes suggesting one meaning or another. He went on to say that even he wasn't sure what he meant when he wrote the poem.
I believe there are accepted truths used for poems written in earlier centuries. We take into account the historical time-frame of their writing, metaphors appropriate to their style at that time, rhyme and meter and form used by previous generations of poets. There are also universal (loss, love, lament etc.) and general (rural countryside, city problems etc.) experiences mentioned in all poetry.
However, I also believe in interpreting a poem, whenever it was written, each human being brings to the poem their own relevant life experiences and skill.
This experience and skill, I argue, is equally important when reading poetry.
Emotionally, we cannot remove ourselves from what we read or what we write as much as some like to try to do that. I maintain it isn't possible or we would not be human...we would be word mechanics without thought and experience.
Do I mean that academics are wrong? No. Defintely not. I do make the case that some academics get stuck in the logic of what they know - and dismiss emotion or another way of looking at content. It is this stubborn refusal that turns people off to poetry because they are afraid they will make a mistake in interpretation.
My advice? Enjoy each word on the page - let the images (flowers in the field, or a red wheelbarrow) conjure up in your mind whatever associations you bring to these images. Respond to a phrase with a quick association and enjoy the experience. It will bring the poetry alive for you. Sure you can enjoy reading about various interpretations from other scholars - but never discount your own impressions. Never.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Writing Fiction and Poetry Give and Take
Writing poetry allows you to compactly express emotion telling a story through use of metaphor, the story and the powerful rhythm of the lines on the page. The lines don't have to rhyme but each word must move us easily to the next word and the next until the end of the literary journey.
We can laugh, we can cry, be amazed or surprised- even delighted and soothed -and so much more. That is the universality of the emotional content of the poem. The story can proceed through metaphor (an apple represents the world) or through words selected describing what is in the scene and what is not.
As in dialogue, it is this tension between the words on the page and what is not said that provides us with the give and take in our imaginations. In other words, "she sat so still the room did not know she was there" allows us a visual image and the absence of her taking up little in the room.
We wonder what will happen on the next line "her thin breath rode the back of a horse invisible and, yet, in the race to win". Well. The give and take of the tension is accelerating.
The same thing happens in fiction. We must keep our lines spare and chose each word so it can bump into the next one without word parasites nibbling the life out of surrounding words leeching meaning out of our sentences. This builds interest and tension and, above all, clarity.
Keep writing!
We can laugh, we can cry, be amazed or surprised- even delighted and soothed -and so much more. That is the universality of the emotional content of the poem. The story can proceed through metaphor (an apple represents the world) or through words selected describing what is in the scene and what is not.
As in dialogue, it is this tension between the words on the page and what is not said that provides us with the give and take in our imaginations. In other words, "she sat so still the room did not know she was there" allows us a visual image and the absence of her taking up little in the room.
We wonder what will happen on the next line "her thin breath rode the back of a horse invisible and, yet, in the race to win". Well. The give and take of the tension is accelerating.
The same thing happens in fiction. We must keep our lines spare and chose each word so it can bump into the next one without word parasites nibbling the life out of surrounding words leeching meaning out of our sentences. This builds interest and tension and, above all, clarity.
Keep writing!
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Writers Institute 2006-University Wisc. Madison
Writers Institute 2007 held April 27-29 in Madison, WI on the UW campus. Over 300 writers attended covering all genres. They met with agents, pitched manuscripts, took an all day Saturday workshop with New York agent, Donald Maas "Writing the Breakout Novel" or attended any of the many lectures on marketing, platform building, writing columns, researching, getting ideas and more. Then there were awards given for contest entries in poetry, fiction and narrative non-fiction.
I am pleased to say I won second place for a poem of mine: "Washington, D.C." Last year I won first, second and honorable mention. This year a sonnet came in first - they are difficult to write - and I will just have to try harder for next year (what? a competitive poet? how could that be?)
Networking went on all day in the halls, at lunch, at dinner and through the exchange of business cards and email addresses. Of all the conferences I have attended, this one not only has energy and information, but an amazing assortment of published writers. The information given is excellent, the follow-up help given by each of the presenters is unflagging and the level of enthusiasm contagious.
Given in April starting with 2007 (it used to be held in June), this is one weekend not to miss. Donald Maas' workshop alone was magnificient. Detailed information presented by a successful NY agent using humor, concise information and involving various writers in huge room overlooking Lake Mendota.
Donald Maas cajoled writers to take a chance, allow him, for a moment to work with them changing a troublesome bit of manuscript. And some did. At the end of the day hundreds of writers took home practical information about revising what they had written. These changes always made the story clearer and with Don's information and energy one absorbed not only a wealth of information, but his own can-do attitude seeped into each writer's very pores.
In 2008 the conference will be held on April 18-20. So make your plans now you won't be sorry.
I am pleased to say I won second place for a poem of mine: "Washington, D.C." Last year I won first, second and honorable mention. This year a sonnet came in first - they are difficult to write - and I will just have to try harder for next year (what? a competitive poet? how could that be?)
Networking went on all day in the halls, at lunch, at dinner and through the exchange of business cards and email addresses. Of all the conferences I have attended, this one not only has energy and information, but an amazing assortment of published writers. The information given is excellent, the follow-up help given by each of the presenters is unflagging and the level of enthusiasm contagious.
Given in April starting with 2007 (it used to be held in June), this is one weekend not to miss. Donald Maas' workshop alone was magnificient. Detailed information presented by a successful NY agent using humor, concise information and involving various writers in huge room overlooking Lake Mendota.
Donald Maas cajoled writers to take a chance, allow him, for a moment to work with them changing a troublesome bit of manuscript. And some did. At the end of the day hundreds of writers took home practical information about revising what they had written. These changes always made the story clearer and with Don's information and energy one absorbed not only a wealth of information, but his own can-do attitude seeped into each writer's very pores.
In 2008 the conference will be held on April 18-20. So make your plans now you won't be sorry.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The King’s English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, Utah
Tall and thin she sat down next to me in the auditorium of a book trade show called BookExpo. Her energy radiated up off the chair as we talked about how independent bookstores survive in this difficult market. Especially in Salt Lake City.
Betsy Burton began the bookstore in 1977 and eventually started “The Westminster Poetry Series” The poet Mark Strand joined the University of Utah and he brought hundreds of poets to read at the university and TKE. On a given week you might hear Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, Robert Pinsky and many more. In Utah? In Utah.
This gem of a bookstore has poets and writers on its staff. Betsy has hosted Isabel Allende and, I think, every other known author – but only Isabel Allende helped her cook dinner in Betsy’s kitchen. She also writes Book Sense items, appears on Utah public radio and is the co-author and editor of Inkslinger a nationally known bookseller newsletter.
There is no book they cannot find and no author they do not know. If you want to read more about this extraordinary place there is a book “The King’s English” by Betsy Burton complete with book lists dated by decade, mysteries, collections lists for kids according to their ages and interests and on and on. Read it and be amazed at how this woman built this store book by book, author by author and excels by expanding our idea of a bookstore from a bricks and mortar building into a center for ideas and words spoken and on the page. She is an inspiration to us all.
Betsy Burton began the bookstore in 1977 and eventually started “The Westminster Poetry Series” The poet Mark Strand joined the University of Utah and he brought hundreds of poets to read at the university and TKE. On a given week you might hear Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, Robert Pinsky and many more. In Utah? In Utah.
This gem of a bookstore has poets and writers on its staff. Betsy has hosted Isabel Allende and, I think, every other known author – but only Isabel Allende helped her cook dinner in Betsy’s kitchen. She also writes Book Sense items, appears on Utah public radio and is the co-author and editor of Inkslinger a nationally known bookseller newsletter.
There is no book they cannot find and no author they do not know. If you want to read more about this extraordinary place there is a book “The King’s English” by Betsy Burton complete with book lists dated by decade, mysteries, collections lists for kids according to their ages and interests and on and on. Read it and be amazed at how this woman built this store book by book, author by author and excels by expanding our idea of a bookstore from a bricks and mortar building into a center for ideas and words spoken and on the page. She is an inspiration to us all.
Directorial debut of my poem "Secrets"at Piven Theater Workshop, Evanston, IL on 3/19/07
I just completed my fourth class at Piven - this class is called "Advanced Story Adaptation" and is a combination of theater games and adapting a story to be performed in the last class. This class is open to anyone who wants to watch us work.
I directed a long, funny poem of mine called "Secrets". I had written and first performed this poem in 2005 at UW-Madison. This time I adapted it for three actors and it was performed by them interspersed with some improv and it was hilarious. I also acted with another actor in another story adaption. The evening was a combination of improv and storytelling and it was very well attended.
Acting and directing are ways to get your message to the other side of the page. You can feel what it is like to be another character - and you can also see how other people act or struggle with performing other scenes. When you return to your writing you have a different perspective on your own work. The work is fresher, more energized and interesting.
I directed a long, funny poem of mine called "Secrets". I had written and first performed this poem in 2005 at UW-Madison. This time I adapted it for three actors and it was performed by them interspersed with some improv and it was hilarious. I also acted with another actor in another story adaption. The evening was a combination of improv and storytelling and it was very well attended.
Acting and directing are ways to get your message to the other side of the page. You can feel what it is like to be another character - and you can also see how other people act or struggle with performing other scenes. When you return to your writing you have a different perspective on your own work. The work is fresher, more energized and interesting.
Off Campus Writers Workshop (OCWW)
Every Thursday from 9:30 AM until noon in the Winnetka Community House, 620 Lincoln Ave., Winnetka, IL 847.446.0537 there is a lecture on some facet of writing. "Writing Reviews", "The Prolific Book Author" "Art of the Interview" are just some of the current lectures listed on the website. You can network with accomplished, published and beginning authors. Everyone is welcome and nurtured in this 60 year old on-going writing group.
Writers Institute 2007
This year Writers Institute will be held over a weekend. Pitch your work to one of seven agents, attend lectures on "Writing the Breakout Novel" with Donald Maas, Donald Maas Agency NY or "Interviewing Your Way to Fabulous Features" or "10 Sure Fire Tools for Building Brick-Solid Publishing Platforms" or many more. See you there!
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