2nd Annual (2008)
Chattahoochee Valley
Writers' Conference
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2008 Conference Faculty and Workshop Descriptions |
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Mac McCool
Mac McCool had his first comics strips published at sixteen. He grew up in France, where the public and publishers take graphic novels just as seriously as we treat children's books in the U.S.A. For the last few years, he has championed the study of the art of the graphic novel, especially for children's graphic novels, at conferences and universities across the country (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, University of Central Florida, UCLA Extension, CSU-Fullerton, San Diego Comic-Con, etc.). He has also freelanced as an illustrator for Disney, the Smithsonian, and many dot coms. He has published more than a dozen articles on comics and graphic novels, and is busy working on two upcoming children's graphic novel projects.
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The Art of the Graphic Novel With the rise of graphic novels, skilled and creative writers can find yet another fulfilling venue for their craft. Yet, how different is writing a graphic novel from writing a novel, a screenplay, or a children¹s book? In this workshop, writers will find out that, with the right adjustments, many of their skills will apply to the creation of graphic novel manuscripts. By looking at familiar literary techniques found in acclaimed graphic novels, such as well-crafted dialogues, artfully timed scenes, rich characters, or finely woven plots, participants will first reverse-engineer a couple of graphic novel pages. Next, we will examine issues more specific to graphic novel writing including
During this exploration, many fun hands-on exercises will reinforce the learning. With this knowledge, we will address models of collaboration with an artist. Last, a survey of the four different types of graphic novel publishers will familiarize participants with industry traditions and standards, and how they apply to formatting and submitting graphic novel proposals. |
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Jo Kittinger
Jo Kittinger's passion over the past 17 years has been writing for the children's market. Her 15 books include middle grade nonfiction, both fiction and nonfiction easy readers, and a picture book, entitled The House on Dirty-Third Street, soon to be released. Jo's most recent books are easy-to-read biographies of Jane Goodall and George Washington Carver, and a vault-type novelty book, Primates. Her publishers include Scholastic imprints Franklin Watts and Children's Press, DK Inc, Dalmatian Press and Peachtree. In addition to her books, Jo has published craft projects, stories, photo essays and articles in various books and magazines including Highlights, Pockets, Boys Quest and The Flicker. She has written numerous feature articles for the Birmingham News and educational items for Harcourt Brace and CTB/McGraw-Hill. Jo also served as an editorial assistant with The Flicker children's magazine and is actively involved with the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, currently serving as a Regional Advisor for the Southern Breeze region (AL, GA, MS). A love of travel combines well with speaking at writers conferences from Florida to California, and even in the Philippines. As a children's writer, Jo has the added pleasure of speaking in schools to students about her books and the publishing process. |
Writing for Kids #1: Learn the Rules Before You Play the Game
An overview of the children's literature market, from picture books to teen novels.
Writing for Kids #2: Find the Right Voice for Your Story
Point of view is limited in children's books. "Voice" is the quality that editors are looking for.
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Nick Norwood
Nick Norwood’s poems have appeared in Paris Review, Southwest Review, Western Humanities Review, Southwestern American Literature, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Pleiades, Ekphrasis, Borderlands, storySouth, and in a number of other magazines and anthologies. He has been awarded an International Merit Award in Poetry from Atlanta Review, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship (1998) and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship (2004) from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, twice been a finalist for the Vassar Miller Prize, once each a semifinalist for the Verse Prize and the “Discovery”/The Nation Prize, and a finalist in the Morton Marr Poetry Contest. On March 5, 2004, he was the feature poet on the website Poetry Daily. His first book, The Soft Blare, selected by Andrew Hudgins for the River City Publishing Poetry Series, was issued in 2003; his second, A Palace for the Heart, one of the winners of the Mellen Press Poetry Contest for 2002, was published in 2004. Recently, he has collaborated with the artist and master printer Erika Adams on a fine press book called Wrestle, which features ten of his poems and ten of Erika’s images. He teaches creative writing and literature at Columbus State University.
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T" for Texas, "T" for Tennessee: Writing Poetry in the South This workshop will quickly discuss sample poems by selected poets, which participants will have been sent via email or otherwise given a chance to read beforehand. Then we will workshop participants’ own poems, written and submitted via email attachment a few days prior to the conference. Participants will be asked to write their submitted poems on a similar subject and in a similar style to the sample poems. (Don’t worry!—it’s a subject we all know well and a style anyone can try.) The workshop will focus on the following topics:
Our goal will be to spend as much time as possible with each participant’s poem. |
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David Muschell
Another returning favorite! David Muschell, Associate Professor of English, teaches Scriptwriting, the Teaching Creative Writing Seminar, and other creative writing courses. He coordinates the undergraduate creative writing program and is the drama editor for Arts & Letters at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia. David Muschell’s plays have received over a dozen national and regional awards, including New York’s MultiStages New Play Festival, Buffalo’s Alleyway Theatre’s New Play Award, The Beverly Hills Theatre Guild’s Marilyn Hall Award, and the Southern Playwrights Competition. His work has been produced by many theatre companies and university theatre departments, including Polaris North in New York, Colorado Christian University in Denver, and St. Thomas Moore College in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. In the summer of 2005, Muschell traveled to Jacksonville State University to see the production of his play Heroes, which won the Southern Playwrights Competition in 2004. This summer (2006), he plans to return to Denver to see a production of Spoiling Prayers. Thirteen of Muschell’s plays have been published, and his most widely produced, Mixed Emotions, has been seen in over twenty-three states, Canada, and Japan. He has also written eight films for industry. In addition to plays and scripts, he has written two books about the origins of words: Where in the Word? and What in the Word? Muschell holds an MFA in playwriting from Goddard College. “…characters literally take over the page, and I let them talk and fight and work things out. Of course, I’m very consciously involved in their conversations, crises, and conversions, but I also want to be surprised as I write. Where they go may be inevitable, but I don’t want it to be predictable.” –David Muschell, “On Writing” (from Critique Magazine). http://al.gcsu.edu/muschell.htm or http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsM/muschell-david.html
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Coming to an End: The Hardest Part of Writing
This workshop will examine the importance of the ending in creative writing, especially in fiction and drama, though also in poetry. One of the most difficult tasks is finding that satisfying climactic moment that ties together all the threads of the story. David Muschell will discuss a variety of methods for doing this. |
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Chris Roerden
Chris Roerden, M.A., an award-winning editor for 44 years, has written
75 published articles, a game and ten books, most recently Don’t
Murder Your Mystery, the Agatha Award Winner for Best Nonfiction Book and Don't Sabotage Your Submissions.
Among Chris' other accomplishments are:
Macavity
finalist; Anthony finalist;
ForeWord Reference Book of the Year finalist; Writer's Digest Book Club. Reviews,
First four chapters:
www.bellarosabooks.com.
She holds an MA in English and a BA summa cum laude from the University of Maine, where she later taught writing. www.MarketSavvyBookEditing.com
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Don't Murder Your Mystery SM
28 Million Manuscripts Rejected Annually “Why was my novel rejected?” Millions of writers don’t have a clue, says Chris Roerden, a veteran manuscript editor. “Ninety-five percent of rejections are the result of dumb mistakes and average writing skill. Putting quotation marks around words doesn’t make it dialogue. In my opinion, the repetition that insecure writers do for insurance is malpractice.” Editors and agents spot such clues immediately and stop reading. I tell writers what the industry doesn't want them to know: • how their submissions are actually handled by an agent's or editor's "reader" — whom I call the screener-outer; • why manuscripts are judged on craft before content, and • why 90 percent of submissions are rejected in the first few pages — about 4 million a year. As soon as one or two clues to average writing are spotted, whether by page 10, or 2, or paragraph 2, the first reader stops reading. Manuscripts are rapidly tossed onto the "No" pile, long before anyone reads far enough to appreciate plot and character. Second, I explain each clue to quick rejection and show how to find and fix these dead giveaways to average writing. This gives a writer's manuscript a better chance of being read. Third, I review examples from 212 authors who write romance, short story, young adult, paranormal, mystery, and so on, and I show how others solved the same problems that every fiction writer deals with. When writers see options for, say, an intriguing opening hook or effective body language, they try techniques they never realized were possible. |
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Sue Fagalde Lick
Sue Fagalde Lick, a former newspaper editor, has published countless freelance articles, short stories and poems, plus three books on Portuguese Americans and her newest book, Freelancing for Newspapers. She is currently working on a book about childless women. She earned her BA in journalism at San Jose State and received her MFA in creative writing 29 years later at Antioch University Los Angeles. She has taught freelance writing workshops at Oregon Coast Community College, online through Writing-World.com, and at various writing conferences. In addition to her writing, she sings and plays guitar and piano, leads her church choir and performs at local venues. Sue and her husband Fred live in South Beach, Oregon. For more information, see her website at http://www.suelick.com.
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Freelancing to Newspapers and Magazines
Pick up the Sunday paper and consider how many stories it takes to fill all those pages. How can any newspaper staff produce so many articles every day, every week, every month of the year and keep up with breaking news, too? They can't. They use freelancers. And it's not just newspapers. Thousands of magazines, including many specialized publications that don't appear on the newsstands, are aching for articles by good writers. While the Internet offers a whole new world of content, people still want stories they can hold in their hands. Sue Fagalde Lick will take course participants on a quick ride through the business of freelancing. Topics will include:
Participants should come prepared to do some exercises and bring publications they would like to write for. Everyone should come away with fat handouts, ideas ready to polish and send out and answers to many of their freelancing questions. |
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Brian Jay Corrigan
Also back by popular demand! Brian Jay Corrigan is a multiple award winning novelist and playwright who won his first international writing competition at the age of seventeen. He has been a professional daredevil, actor, director, theatrical producer and stage designer. His writing has won the Lincoln University Prize, the Bancroft Award in Fiction, the Florida First Coast Writers Prize and been a finalist for the Townsend Literary Award. In 2006, he was named Georgia’s Author of the year for his novel, The Poet of Loch Ness. He sits on the board of two literary festivals and is the chairman of one. His novels, articles, and books have been published in seven countries. Brian is senior professor of English in the Georgia University system, a world-known expert on Renaissance drama, and the general editor of the groundbreaking electronic database, The Compendium of Renaissance Drama. He has been a guest lecturer and keynote speaker around the world from the Amelia “Book Island” Festival to the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He holds doctorate degrees in both law and English literature, is an officially recognized Master Teacher and “teacher of teachers,” a member of “Who’s Who Among American Professors” and was the 2005 Georgia Board of Regents Professor of the Year. Brian’s master class on the novel, from which The Shape of Words derives, has been presented at lecture halls, colleges, conferences, and writers’ clubs across the country.
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1. Character, Setting and Atmosphere, and 2. Drive, Focus and Pace
Who else but an international, award-winning author and professor can teach you the three building blocks that get novels noticed and sold? Join Professor Brian Jay Corrigan as he discusses focus, subordination, and narrative drive. Writers will learn to make characters breathe, stories move, and dialogue crackle. What's more, they will be entertained and enthralled in the process, making what they learn all the more memorable! |
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Memye Curtis Tucker
Memye Curtis Tucker, Ph.D., is the author of The Watchers (Ohio
University Press, 1998), chosen by Louis Simpson for the Hollis Summers
Poetry Prize, and of three award-winning chapbooks. Her poems have
appeared in Poetry Daily, The Southern Review, Colorado Review, Georgia
Review, Denver Quarterly, Shenandoah, Oxford American, and numerous
other journals and anthologies, and have been set as art song and an
Austrian artist’s book and featured in translation in Korea’s Shidae
Manhuk. She has received artist’s grants from the Georgia Council for
the Arts and residency fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, VCCA, and
Hambidge.
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Poetry Workshop
Information pending
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John P. Travis
John P. Travis, Editor and Publisher of Portals Press in New Orleans, teaches American Literature and Creative Writing at Our Lady of Holy Cross College. He has written for several publications and is a graduate of West Georgia College and Northeastern University (in Boston). His novel, Pitching in the Dark, won the Hackney Literary Award. |
Marketing to Regional Presses After a brief overview of the challenges and opportunities of publishing today, workshop participants will explore questions that small press publishers want answers to prior to investing in a manuscript and an author. Participants will examine several “case studies” of regional press books. In addition to assessments of the interests of various presses, other topics that will be discussed include:
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Stephany Evans
With a background in theatre, film and painting, Stephany Evans began agenting in 1990 with Sandra Martin/Paraview. In 1992, she formed her own agency while serving as editor for alternative health, healing, and personal growth magazine, Free Spirit. In October 2007, her Imprint Agency Inc. merged with Peter Rubie Literary to form FinePrint Literary Management. Stephany serves as President of FinePrint Lit, and is the ghost author of five published books in the categories of memoir and spirituality. For 17 years, Stephany has represented nonfiction writers in the areas of health and wellness, spirituality, lifestyle, popular reference, and narrative nonfiction. In fiction, her core interest is in stories with a strong and interesting female protagonist, both literary and upmarket commercial - including chick lit, romance, mystery, and light suspense. In literary fiction, a sure-footed, original voice is of highest importance. Stephany's greatest pleasure comes from discovering a formidable new writing talent, or helping an author shape and take to market her or his potentially world-altering idea. Stephany is a member of the Association of Author's Representatives, the Author's Guild, and Romance Writers of America; she is a member of the Women's National Book Association, and a member and former co-chair of New York Women in Publishing. She splits her time between her offices in New York City and Marfa, Texas. |
Marketing Your Book-Length Fiction
This workshop will help novelists understand the business side of their craft, and maximize their chances for publishing success. Subjects to be covered include:
Participants should bring a one-page query letter addressed to an agent s/he feels would be a good match for his or her work, and be prepared to explain what led them to select this particular agent. |
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NOTE: Michael Bishop's class, limited to 12, is full and no longer available. |
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Michael Bishop returns this year to focus on the Basics of Creative Writing. Michael Bishop returns this year to focus on the Basics of Creative Writing. Mike received his B.A. with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1967 from the University of Georgia. He earned his masters in English, also from UGA (1968), with a thesis on Dylan Thomas’s poetry. He taught English at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School in Colorado Springs (1968-72) and at the University of Georgia (1972-74). A freelancer since 1974, he is now writer-in-residence at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His first fiction sale was “Piñon Fall” to Galaxy (Oct/Nov 1969) for $100. Having his name on the cover under Robert A. Heinlein’s, however, added more to his spirit than the $100 did to his pocketbook; and within a few years, he had published in all the major genre magazines. By 1974, three novellas—“On the Street of the Serpents,” “The White Otters of Childhood,” and “Death and Designation Among the Asadi”—had established him as a watchable protostar in the science-fiction sky. In 1974, Mike left the University of Georgia to write full-time. Since then, he and his family have lived in the small West Georgia community, Pine Mountain. This region provides the backdrop for many of his stories, including the Kudzu Valley series, and for the novels Who Made Stevie Cry? (1984), Ancient of Days (1985), Philip K. Dick Is Dead, Alas (1987), and Brittle Innings (1994), which Mike likes to call his “Southern Gothic World War Two Baseball Novel.” In 1975, Mike’s first novel, A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire, appeared—the first of his so-called “anthropological novels”—and received favorable comparison to the early novels of Ursula K. Le Guin. Although later novels—the Nebula-winning No Enemy But Time (1981) and Ancient of Days—also deal with anthropological issues, their Earthly settings (prehistoric Africa for the former and modern-day Georgia for the latter) clearly distinguish them from his youthful “space operas.” Indeed, if one plotted the output of Michael Bishop’s writing career, a definite arc would develop, revealing an irresistible closing in from the ends of the universe toward his own hometown. Also, this arc would move, literarily, from the workings of the alien mind deep into the complexities of the human heart. Recently, Mike edited A Cross of Centuries: Twenty-five Imaginative Tales about the Christ (April 2007), published an elegiac poem, “Jamie’s Hair,” in the Virginia Quarterly Review (Spring 2008), had a psychological horror story, “The Pile,” posted online at Subterranean.com (Dec 2007), and finished two more stories, “The Library of Babble” and “Purr,” based on notes that his son, teacher and digital artist Jamie Bishop, left behind in a computer file. (“Purr” will appear soon in a freshly designed incarnation of the legendary horror magazine, Weird Tales.) http://www.michaelbishop-writer.com/
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Short-Fiction Workshop "Intensive - Challenging - Helpful" A Three-Hour Session Limited to 12 Persons thinking about signing up for this workshop should have: 1. satisfactorily completed a high-school education, 2. a good understanding of basic English grammar and composition, or 3. satisfactorily completed at least two freshman English courses at the college level.
Alternatively, the publication of a short story or a nonfiction piece in a literary magazine or journal edited by someone other than the writer (ideally a professional), or the publication of an article or an editorial in a newspaper (ditto), would also indicate that would-be registrants most likely have the basic skills to enroll in and take this workshop. By no means, however, do I mean to exclude persons who have taught themselves to write by dint of wide reading and great personal effort, and if they lack a high-school degree, college credits in English, or prior publication, they can still register for the workshop by allowing me to see polished examples of their own writing -- at least until the workshop's enrollment has reached its maximum number of twelve participants. Those interested in registering for this workshop may contact Mike (mlbishop@juno.com) to ensure that they meet the pre-requisites (above). All those qualifying and registering should also remember that, at least two weeks prior to the workshop (earlier, if possible), they must send to me a story in proper manuscript format* of between four and seven pages using one of the two following prompts:
In either case, compose a story with a recognizable conflict, crisis, and resolution, even if the resolution is of the indeterminate sort. Pay strict heed to the guidelines, and do not submit any story under four pages or over seven. Those stipulations, and all the others, are deliberate aspects of your assignment.
Send your story to Mike by
Mike will select two of the twelve stories submitted by those who have registered for a critiquing session during the final hour of our 3-hour workshop. All the stories, whether formally critiqued or not, Mike will read closely and evaluate as judiciously, objectively, and helpfully as he can. Mike says, "I will do my best neither to inflate unduly nor to deflate unfairly any participant's ego." * Manuscript format: ~ double-spaced, ~ one-inch margins at top and bottom and on each side, ~ consecutively numbered pages, and ~ correctly formatted dialogue Once the twelve participants have registered, Mike will contact those participants by e-mail in advance of the session so that he can supply them with handouts:
Participants will also receive a set of guidelines about how to critique the stories of one's fellow workshoppers (without either pulling too many punches or insulting the person whose story is being workshopped). These guidelines are clear and stringent, and everyone who enrolls must agree to abide by them in our actual work-shopping session. Mike says this session will be "intensive, challenging, and helpful." He asks that every person participate fully and give his or her all to this endeavor. It will be worth it.
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This page last updated 06 Aug 08. |
