manhattanville college mfa creative writing program’s 35th ... · 2:30 - 5:30p.m. mini-workshop...
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Summer Writers’ WeekJune 22-26
Manhattanville College MFA Creative Writing Program’s 35th Annual
2:30 - 4 p.m. Craft TalkPublishing Alternatives with Melissa Marino
Monday, June 22
Tuesday, June 23
Wednesday, June 24
Thursday, June 25
4 - 5:30 p.m. Craft TalkTackling Mature Themes in Children's Literature with Janae Marks
2:30p.m. - 5:30p.m. Mini-Workshop1000 Words or Fewer: A Flash Form Workshopwith Jaclyn Waterson and Michael Shou-Yung Shum
MONDAY EVENING READING - 7 PM Travis Denton | Katie ChapleJoin us for a reading with our Summer Writers’ Week poetry faculty, in conversation with MFA Program Director Lori Soderlind. “Doors” open at 6:30 for a group chat!
2:30 - 4 p.m. Craft TalkThe Original Central Casting: Using Dream Archetypes to Deepen our Writing with Tzivia Gover
4 - 5:30p.m. Craft TalkPrepositions: An ecopoetics exploration of writing groundlessly with Kristin Prevallet
2:30 - 5:30p.m. Mini-WorkshopMastering Suspense, Structure, & Plot: Writing Crime Fiction that Sells with Jane Cleland
TUESDAY EVENING READING - 7 PM Lori Soderlind | Kristin PrevalletJoin us for this first event celebrating the relese of MFA Program Director Lori Soderlind’s new book, “The Change.” Lori will be in conversation with MFA poetry faculty member Kristin Prevallet, who will also read. “Doors” open at 6:30 for a group chat!
2:30 - 4 p.m. Craft TalkGreat Beginnings: Crafting the First Sentence with Nora Baskin
4 - 5:30 p.m. Craft TalkAuthenticating Voices with Janelle Williams
2:30 - 5:30 p.m. Mini-WorkshopPushing the Poetic Metaphor(For Prose Writers, Too!) with Suzanne Parker
WEDNESDAY EVENING READING - 7 PM SPECIAL GUEST: NICK FLYNNJoin us for a reading with our Summer Writers’ Week special guest and nonfiction instructor Nick Flynn, in conversation with MFA Program Director Lori Soderlind. Nick is both a memoirist and poet,so this reading will be extra special.“Doors” open at 6:30 for a group chat!
2:30 - 4 p.m. Craft TalkGoing Places: Writing the personal journey with Lori Soderlind
4 - 5:30 p.m. Craft TalkWriting with Animals with Alan Felsenthal
2:30 - 5:30p.m. Mini-Workshop Crafting a Page Turner with Hallie Ephron
THURSDAY EVENING - 5:30 to 9 PM STUDENT MARATHON READINGJoin us to celebrate Summer Writers’ Week with a reading by all those registered in our morning workshops! We will hear from them all for 3 minutes, till we’re done. Zoom “doors” open at 5!
Summer Writers’ Week is brought to you by the Manhattanville College Master of Fine Arts Degree Program in Creative Writing.
For more information: MvilleMFA.com
Afternoon events: all online, and all free!Click the name of each event to register (for free!) and receive a meeting link.
FULL DETAILS AVAILABLE AT MVILLEMFA.COM
Summer Writers' Week morning genre workshops still have seats available! Register before June 20.Go to MvilleMFA.com for details
Summer Writers' Week is the highlight of the Manhattanville MFA Creative Writing Program's academic year. For more information: [email protected]
2:30 - 4 p.m. Craft TalkPublishing Alternatives with Melissa Marino
Come meet Manhattanville MFA Program alumna Melissa Marino, and explore how a non-traditional publishing platform leads to independent success. Amazon? IngramSpark? Createspace? POD? Self-Publishing? Small Press? What does all this mean? Join us for a discussion, Q&A, and instructional workshop. Writers will have the opportunity to examine traditional vs. non-traditional pathways to publishing. Click here to register and receive the Zoom Link.
4 - 5:30 p.m. Craft TalkTackling Mature Themes in Children's Literature with Janae Marks
More and more young adult novels are tackling mature themes, such as systemic racism, the #MeToo movement, and drug addiction. What may come as a surprise is that these themes are becoming more common within middle grade novels as well. Many tough topics are acceptable in children's literature, as long as they are handled with sensitivity and care. In this workshop, we'll discuss what is taboo - and what isn't - when writing for these age groups, and how to incorporate mature themes into your own YA/MG novels in an age-appropriate manner. Click here to register and receive the Zoom Link.
2:30p.m. - 5:30p.m. Mini-Workshop1000 Words or Fewer: A Flash Form Workshopwith Jaclyn Waterson and Michael Shou-Yung Shum
Twenty-first century readers have more demands on their time and attention than any previous generation. In response, the quick impacting “flash” form has emerged in recent years as perhaps the form de rigueur in the contemporary literary landscape. Many publications, including American Short Fiction, Los Angeles Review, Hippocampus, and Kenyon Review, specifically seek out very short pieces—often only 500-1000 words—and offer annual contests featuring cash prizes and prestigious judges. In this extended workshop session, we will examine the principles of flash prose, considering examples from both fiction and non-fiction, and attendees will have the opportunity to draft, develop, and workshop their own flash piece. Click here to register and receive the Zoom Link.
MONDAY EVENING READING – 7 PM Travis Denton | Katie Chaple
Join us for a reading with our Summer Writers’ Week poetry faculty, in conversation with MFA Program Director Lori Soderlind.“Doors” open at 6:30 for a group chat! Click here to register and receive the Zoom Link.
Summer Writers’ WeekJune 22-26
Manhattanville College MFA Creative Writing Program’s 35th Annual
EVENTS FOR Monday, June 22
Summer Writers’ Week is brought to you by the Manhattanville College Master of Fine Arts Degree Program in Creative Writing.
For more information: MvilleMFA.com [email protected]
FREE AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS - ALL ONLINE!CLICK THE LINK IN EACH DESCRIPTION TO REGISTER for MONDAY’S EVENTS
EVENTS FOR Tuesday, June 23
2:30 – 4 p.m. Craft TalkThe Original Central Casting: Using Dream Archetypes to Deepen our Writing with Tzivia Gover
Joseph Campbell said that “Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream.” In this workshop we’ll use dreams and imagination to connect with the mythic elements of our poetry, our stories and our lives. Specifically, we’ll identify and explore archetypes to help us deepen the characters in our writing and add new levels of creativity and meaning to our craft. Drawing from literature, popular culture, and myth, we’ll identify the core personalities—from the lover to the destroyer, the nymph to the crone—and everything in between, inviting them into our writing. Our work will connect the personal and contemporary to the ancient patterns at the core of who we are. This workshop is open to writers of all genres, whether they remember their dreams or not.Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
4 - 5:30p.m. Craft TalkPrepositions: An ecopoetics exploration of writing groundlessly With Kristin Prevallet
We are living in a world where the ground is continually shifting, and severe changes of weather patterns are magnifying human suffering. In this workshop, we will take a deep dive into one of grammar’s most underrated (yet often used) parts of speech: the preposition. But don’t worry! This won’t be a grammar lesson. Instead, we will focus on the somatic effects of prepositions as they work to locate our position in time and space, as well as work to affect movements of emotion and thought: up and down, over and under, to and from, in and out, about or around (etc.) After looking carefully at how usages of prepositions make meaning in a few contemporary poems, we’ll set about writing without them — and see if we don’t just float away. In the end, we can experience what it means to come into alignment with uncertainty, flux, chance, and change as this underwhelming part of speech shapes our body’s relationship to planetary consciousness. Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
2:30 - 5:30p.m. Mini-WorkshopMastering Suspense, Structure, & Plot: Writing Crime Fiction that Sells with Jane Cleland
Award-winning author Jane Cleland will share her tool kit for success with you. By integrating these thirteen thinking, writing, and revising tips into your writing process, you’ll write tighter, more polished novels. You’ll find your crime fiction niche; improve your story’s pace; create surprising, compelling characters; and develop a fresh, suspenseful plot.Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
TUESDAY EVENING READING – 7 PM Lori Soderlind | Kristin Prevallet
Join us for this first event celebrating the relese of MFA Program Director Lori Soderlind’s new book, “The Change.” Lori will be in conversation with MFA poetry faculty member Kristin Prevallet.“Doors” open at 6:30 for a group chat!Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
Summer Writers’ WeekJune 22-26
Manhattanville College MFA Creative Writing Program’s 35th Annual
Summer Writers’ Week is brought to you by the Manhattanville College Master of Fine Arts Degree Program in Creative Writing.
For more information: MvilleMFA.com [email protected]
FREE AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS - ALL ONLINE!CLICK THE LINK IN EACH DESCRIPTION TO REGISTER for TUESDAY’S EVENTS
2:30 – 4 p.m. Craft TalkGreat Beginnings: Crafting the First Sentence with Nora Baskin
The entry to any piece of writing does a lot of work: it engages the reader, sets the tone, and builds a purpose to all the writing that follows. Whether you’ve written a 1,000 word story or a 100,000 word book, finding just the right words to begin with is a job all by itself. In this craft workshop, we’ll break down the elements of a strong start, and examine first sentences in a variety of books and stories to see how they contain all the ingredients. Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
Events for Wednesday, June 24
4 - 5:30 p.m. Craft TalkAuthenticating Voices with Janelle Williams
While pursuing her MFA at Manhattanville, Janelle was inspired by her Summer Writers’ Week Instructor, Janet Desaulniers, who urged her to make her work more like itself. Since graduation, Janelle has realized that perspective and voice are everything. They offer context, pinpoint relevance, refine language, and are a driving function of every story. However, the goal of cultivating one’s “voice” can feel daunting and sometimes prohibitive. Janelle will discuss her methods to making her own voice more like itself, while inspiring all of the writers she works with to do the same. Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
2:30 - 5:30 p.m. Mini-WorkshopPushing the Poetic Metaphor (For Prose Writers, Too!) with Suzanne Parker
The unconscious instinct that is metaphor is thrilling and one of poetry’s greatest tools. Through the associations metaphor brings to your writing, it adds complexity, tension, and thrusts the work into the unexpected. However, often, we each have our own “unconscious vocabulary”: the images and comparisons that spring frequently to mind. This workshop will explore pushing past these limits. We will look at writing that leaps and twists and settles in unexpected places. We will do prompts that challenge us to take greater risks in our work, and we’ll discuss your poems and prose, examining how metaphor and its associative power enriches and serves and how it might also lead your writing to new places. You will leave with prompts to keep you writing and playing with the power of metaphor!Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
WEDNESDAY EVENING READING – 7 PM SPECIAL GUEST: NICK FLYNN
Join us for a reading with our Summer Writers’ Week special guest and nonfiction instructor Nick Flynn, in conversation with MFA Program Director Lori Soderlind. Nick is both a memoirist and poet, so this reading will be extra special.“Doors” open at 6:30 for a group chat! Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
Summer Writers’ Week June 22-26
Manhattanville College MFA Creative Writing Program’s 35th Annual
Summer Writers’ Week is brought to you by the Manhattanville College Master of Fine Arts Degree Program in Creative Writing.
For more information: MvilleMFA.com [email protected]
FREE AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS - ALL ONLINE!CLICK THE LINK IN EACH DESCRIPTION TO REGISTER for TUESDAY’S EVENTS
FREE AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS - ALL ONLINE!CLICK THE LINK IN EACH DESCRIPTION TO REGISTER for WEDNESDAY’S EVENTS
2:30 – 4 p.m. Craft TalkGoing Places: Writing the personal journey with Lori Soderlind
The road trip story is at least as old as Homer, who set the model for the “road story” in ancient times. Modern literature is full of examples of “our hero sets out on a journey,” each with its own twist: Jack Kerouac dashed around the country in a heady beatnik coming of age; John Steinbeck traveled with Charley, his poodle; William Least Heat-Moon traveled the Blue Highways. These journeys may be misspelled as “travel writing” in a bookstore; at its best, the road story is a form that takes both author and writer on a deeper exploration of themselves. Join author and MFA Program Director Lori Soderlind in examining how the “road” story might work for you, whether it’s a trip to the moon or a ride on the downtown bus. Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
4 - 5:30 p.m. Craft TalkWriting with Animals with Alan Felsenthal
In the province of poetry, animals can be seen as many things in as many ways: the brides of humans, part-human creatures, gods, value concepts, and various other entities. Turned into symbols and metaphors, their own actual experiences can be degraded by representation. But can they also be exalted through invocation? Despite a necessarily limited access to their private lives, this workshop looks at what several poets have done to depict them. For inspiration, we will read and discuss a selection of animal poems, and we will try our hands at writing involving animals. Results might include a more complicated uncertainty concerning our taxonomic arrangement and a deeper appreciation of the animal in poetry. Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
THURSDAY EVENING - 5:30 to 9 PMSTUDENT MARATHON READING
Join us to celebrate Summer Writers’ Week with a reading by all those registered in our morning workshops! We will hear from them all for 3 minutes, till we’re
done. Zoom “doors” open at 5! Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
2:30 - 5:30p.m. Mini-WorkshopCrafting a Page Turner with Hallie Ephron
A page turner keeps readers up nights turning pages, vowing to read “just one more chapter” and one more after that. This workshop examines what exactly writers can bake into their novels to make that happen. The workshop will be packed with tips and tricks for capturing the reader’s attention, hooking the reader with scene structure, building characters that make the reader care, Infusing the story with suspense and action, and building momentum while leaving room to grow. Topics include: the expected and the unexpected, backstory, viewpoint, and much more. This will be an interactive workshop with plenty of examples drawn from a range of works and writing exercises. Click to register and receive the Zoom Link.
Events for Thursday, June 25
Summer Writers’ Week June 22-26
Manhattanville College MFA Creative Writing Program’s 35th Annual
Summer Writers’ Week is brought to you by the Manhattanville College Master of Fine Arts Degree Program in Creative Writing.
For more information: MvilleMFA.com [email protected]
FREE AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS - ALL ONLINE!CLICK THE LINK IN EACH DESCRIPTION TO REGISTER for THURSDAY’S EVENTS