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Sample Faculty Presentation Descriptions From Our Recent Residency Each residency, Stonecoast offers an array of classes and panels including presentations in each of our six areas of emphasis: craft (C), creative collaboration (CC), publishing (P), social action (S), teaching (T), and literary theory (LT). Taught by Stonecoast faculy along with visiting writers, editors, and publishers (and sometimes making use of the talents of our current students and alums), these fertile offerings, along with writing workshops, a roster of stimulating graduating student presentations, social events, and evening readings, provide Stonecoast students plenty of creative nourishment in preparation for the intense six months of writing ahead. While students are required to attend a minimum of four faculty and two graduating student presentations, most Stonecoast students are eager to attend as many as possible. The following is the roster of presentations for our most recent residency. Further examples of presentations in particular genres and emphases are available through the links to the right; schedules from previous residencies are archived here.
Harry Potter and What We Can Learn From Him (C, P) Kazim Ali, James Patrick Kelly and Elizabeth Searle
On the eve of the publication of the final Harry Potter volume, Elizabeth Searle, Jim Kelly and Kazim Ali will lead a free-wheeling discussion on the Harry Potter phenom and what we as writers can learn from it. Love him or hate him, Harry Potter is the biggest seller of our time, holding young readers spellbound. Why Harry? Why do he and HogwartsSchool and the Wizarding World speak so powerfully to an entire generation? How does his saga fit in with the traditions of Popular Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction? How do we assess JK Rowling as author? What, if anything, does all the fuss say about future readers? Join the fray; bring your unbridled opinions and earn your O.W.L. Required Reading: JK Rowling, one or more volumes of the Harry Potter series
May at Play: The Inventions of Structure in May Swenson (C) Jeanne Marie Beaumont
May Swenson was one of the most playful and adventurous poets with regard to how a poem is placed or composed onto the page. This formal conscientiousness was the natural extension of her avid curiosity about the world and the range of subject matter she brought into her poems. Whether using shapes, space, columns, or a variety of nonce forms, her poems exhibit an ongoing engagement with what we might call “the pleasure of structure.” Many of her poems are visual puzzles that the reader must solve by close reading. In other poems, the poet uses formal elements to complement her sense or to provide a keen tension. Swenson provides an energizing antidote to the poetic ruts and habits we can all fall into in our writing lives. She awakens us to new possibilities for the use of the line and the field of the page. We will look at a representative selection of her poems to examine the elements put in play and how they work together. We will also discuss the possible risks and pitfalls in such “exuberancies”.
Required Readings: May Swenson, Nature: Poems Old and New
Suggested Readings: Philip Crumbley, and Patricia M Gantt, eds, Body My House: May Swenson’s Poetry and Life Other books by May Swenson, most of which are out of print but easily found through used book dealers or in libraries. These include: May Swenson, In Other Words , Half Sun Half Sleep New and Selected Things Taking Place The Complete Poems to Solve To Mix with Time: New and Selected Poems * Most of Mary Swenson’s books are out of print, but are easily found through used book dealers or in libraries.
Humor Writing: It’s No Joke (C) Tanya Barrientos Comedians will tell you it’s all in the timing and, in a way, the same rule applies when it comes to humor writing. The difference is a writer’s jokes have to work on the page instead of at the microphone, and there’s the rub. While you can’t learn how to have a sense of humor, or how to adopt a purely comic view of the world, you can learn a few techniques for writing humor. Snowballing. Thinking backward. Sentence Structure. Word choice. Those are some of the tools. In this presentation we will dissect short humor essays by writers such as David Sedaris, Steve Martin, Paul Rudnick, Cindy Chupack (and, yes, even me ) to evaluate the tricks of the trade. Required Readings (bring a copy of these essays to class): All found in Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker. Steve Martin, “Writing Is Easy” Ian Frazier, “A Reading List For Young Writers” Jack Handy, “Thank You for Stopping” David Sedaris, “FrontRowCenter with Thaddeus Bristol” found in Holidays On Ice Other short readings will be handed out and discussed in class.
Multilingualism in Writing Panel (S, LT) Tanya Barrientos, Susan Bouchard (moderator), Greg Chabot, Jaed Coffin and Reza Jalali Due to the growing diversity in our country’s cultures, bilingualism in the United States is broadening. What are the implications of this fact for literature? How do our respective cultures’ views of such areas as family, faith, ambition, and self identity influence our writing? The panel will represent three cultures/languages and will discuss the myriad possibilities bilingualism brings to a writer and what kind of fetters or restrictions (if any) they may impose. Suggested Readings: Tanya Maria Barrientos, Frontera Street or Family Resemblance Tanya Maria Barrientos, “Am I Latina if I don’t speak Spanish” from Borderline Personalities: A New Generation of Latinas Dish on Sex, Sass, and Cultural Shifting Greg Chabot, An Interview by Leslie Choquett, available at Amazon.com as a download. Greg Chabot, “Un Jacques Cartier Errant,” in Jacques Cartier Discovers America Reza Jalali, “You Can Go Back”
Small Press Publishing from Both Ends of the Spectrum: Stonecoast Alums and Their Publishers (P) Patrick Shawn Bagley (student moderator), Marcia Brown, Annie Farnsworth (Sheltering Pines Press) and Alice Persons (Moon Pie Press)
This panel offers a rare look at small press publishing from both sides of the fence. Stonecoast alums who have published chapbooks with Maine small presses get together with their publishers for a candid discussion of the author-small press relationship in the twenty-first century. What kinds of conflicts may arise between the writer and the press, and how are they resolved? What is the ideal editor/writer relationship? The panel will also cover such topics as funding, promotion, and the future of small presses. Suggested Readings (please read at least two): Annie Farnsworth, Angel of the Heavenly Tailgate Annie Farnsworth, Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light Alice Persons, Never Say Never Alice Persons, Be Careful What You Wish For Michelle Lewis, The Desire Line Robin Merrill, Laundry and Stories Peter Manuel, ¡¡exclamations!! Marcia Brown, The Way Women Walk All these titles are chapbooks that can be ordered though the publishers’ websites. Moon Pie Press Sheltering Pines Press
Writing About the Fantastical in Literature: Anne Carson’s Mythic Obsessions in Autobiography of Red (C) David Marshall Chan
Borges, Kafka, Calvino, Gogol and many other writers are known for incorporating elements of the fantastical and extraordinary in their literary work: basements housing other dimensions, office workers who transform into cockroaches, noses that come alive. In this seminar we will investigate how some contemporary writers have approached fantastical elements in their writing, looking specifically at Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse, a book steeped in the extraordinary and arguably the writer’s best known work. In retelling a Greek myth about a red winged monster and contemporizing it into a modern day coming-of-age story, Carson employs a number of interesting narrative strategies, particularly in the book’s opening sections where the story’s framework is established. The book also raises the question of how an author goes about portraying their obsessions in their writing. Carson was over forty years old and well established as an academic when she began publishing creative work, and she makes use of her extensive knowledge of the Greek classics in this novel. While one innovative aspect of this book is how it is both a novel and a poem, this seminar will focus on particular narrative strategies for portraying fantastical elements in contemporary (non-genre) literature, and we will also discuss how other authors (including A.S. Byatt, Kelly Link, Haruki Murakami, and George Saunders) have presented fantastical elements such as monsters, animated corpses, UFOs and aliens, and haunted houses in their literary creations. Required Readings: Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse Suggested Readings: Jorge Luis Borges, “The Aleph” A.S. Byatt, “The Thing in the Forest” Kelly Link, “Stone Animals” Haruki Murakami, “UFO in Kushiro” George Saunders, “Sea Oak”
From Draft to Draft: The Revision Process (Student/Faculty Panel) Gen Creedon (student moderator), David Menzies (student moderator), Lewis Robinson and Baron Wormser As writers, we talk endlessly about the revision process and editing, but most of the time, all we ever read it a “product.” This panel will consider more closely different phases of the process, and talk about moving from one draft to the next. What considerations are made? Why are some things changed and others not? How does one move from draft to draft? Two Stonecoast faculty members (who together represent poetry, non-fiction and fiction) will talk about their editing processes and how they move from one draft to the next. We will be looking at early drafts of published work, as well as revisions made to work post-publication. Suggested Reading: Lewis Robinson, “Seeing the World” in Officer Friendly and Other Stories Baron Wormser, “A History of Photography” in The White Words Baron Wormser, “Friday Night” in Good Trembling Baron Wormser, “Fans’ in Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American Poetry) Baron Wormser, “Anti-Depressant” in Subject Matter Revised versions of the poems are available as email attachments from baronw@gwi.net Crossing Over: Trans-Genre Writing (CC, C)Joan Connor, Richard Hoffman, Lesléa Newman and Elizabeth Searle
This is a panel discussion for writers interested in 'crossing' over to a new genre or for writers who consider themselves to be, as Lesléa Newman puts it, naturally 'multi-genre.' Joan Connor, Richard Hoffman, Lesléa Newman and Elizabeth Searle--who all have written in multiple genres—will discuss the pleasures and pains of the Cross-Genre/Trans-Genre writing life. Suggested Readings: Pushcart Prize 2006 (read one sample of fiction, nonfiction and poetry) Read at least two different genre pieces from one writer you admire Louise Bogan and the Torment of Perfection (C) Annie Finch and Carol Moldaw Louise Bogan, the poetry reviewer for The New Yorker for decades in the mid-twentieth century, was a rigorously self-critical poet. Her perfectionism probably contributed to her small output, yet her poems are lyric gems: highly compacted, flawlessly rendered in sound and image. They seem to exist outside of any contemporary moment, and yet they are very much of their times in their emphasis on ‘high art’ and in the conflicted intensity with which they treat distinctly female themes. This seminar will look at a number of Bogan's poems in depth, examining their formal qualities as well as their place in both the female and the male poetic tradition. We will also discuss the relationship between Bogan’s life and her art, paying particular attention to the tensions underlying being a woman poet at mid-century.
Required Readings: Louise Bogan, The Blue Estuaries: Complete Poems Suggested Readings: Louise Bogan, Achievement in American Poetry Gloria Bowles, Louise Bogan and the Aesthetics of Limitation Martha Collins, Critical Essays on Louise Bogan
Transcending Seeing for Setting (C) Aaron Hamburger Our first instinct as writers is to think of settings in purely visual terms. However, the way we experience a sense of place in life is much more complex than the things we see. Setting is also about the other four senses: taste, touch, smell, and hearing, as well as issues like the effects of money, cultural values, nature, time, and process. In this class, we’ll take a close look at excerpts from White Noise by Don DeLillo, the story “Brokeback Mountain” by Annie Proulx, the essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” by David Foster Wallace, and the first chapter of The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum to explore how a variety of authors use setting as an integral part of their stories. We’ll consider how setting is intimately involved in other elements of fiction, like plot and character. Then we’ll do some directed writing exercises to expand our skills at creating a lifelike sense of setting in our own fiction.
Suggested Readings: Don DeLillo, White Noise (the first chapter) Annie Proulx, “BrokebackMountain” David Foster Wallace, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz (the first chapter)
Roads to Publishing Popular Fiction (P) Nancy Holder
Using my own experiences as a popular fiction author, we'll discuss the publishing side of a freelance fiction writer's life. Our topics will include: the "big picture" of fiction publishing; finding markets for your work; understanding submission requirements; dealing with agents and editors; and the basics of reading a contract. We'll also cover writing in a genre; work for hire; writing under a house name; using a pseudonym; writing with a coauthor. We'll also do a short overview of some of the well-known writers organizations: the Romance Writers of America; the Horror Writers Association; the Mystery Writers of America; the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers; Thriller Writers of America; Western Writers of America; Novelists Inc., the Authors Guild, and others. Required Reading: David Trottier, The Freelance Writer’s Bible Suggested Readings: Stephen King, On Writing Chris Anderson, The Long Tail
On Andy Goldsworthy’s River & Tides, Beauty, and Paradox (CC, LT) Barbara HurdWhat do we mean when we say a work is beautiful? Is beauty even something to aim for in our writing? Can we? Should we? And if so, how? This class will begin with a showing of a brief excerpt from Andy Goldsworthy’s documentary Rivers & Tides. We’ll use his work with outdoor sculpture and some poems to talk about the impulse toward beauty and paradox in our writing and the place of subtlety, imperfection, even melancholy. Required Readings: Mary Oliver, “Gravel” (from The Leaf and The Cloud) Louise Gluck, “October” (from Averno) Louise Gluck, “Field Flowers” and “The Wild Iris” (from The Wild Iris) *If you can’t easily find copies of these poems, let me know and I’ll email them to you.
Genre is not a Four-Letter Word (C) Nancy Holder, James Patrick Kelly, Kelly Link and Julia Spencer-Fleming Stonecoast is one of the few writing programs in the country that awards an MFA in popular fiction. For the most part, we have defined popular fiction in terms of genre. But where does genre come from? Writers? Readers? Editors? Some maintain writing to genre is an aesthetic decision; others claim genre is a creature of the marketing department. Meanwhile we are entering a golden age of genre blending. There are calls to tear down the walls that separate genre writing from literary writing. But did those walls ever exist? Was Kurt Vonnegut a genre writer? Can we now make the case for Raymond Chandler as a literary writer? Four writers closely associated with genre discuss why they write what they write and talk about the benefits and drawbacks of being labeled with the "G" word. Suggested Readings: Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely Kurt Vonnegut Cat'sCradle Daniel Chandler An Introduction to Genre Theory
Truth and Coherence in Nonfiction (C, LT) James Howard Kunstler (Visiting Faculty) A character in one of my novels once observed that “the truth is just different people's versions of the facts.” I don't know if I accept that per se, but the truth is often a slippery thing in practice, and therefore the best that a journalist can hope to do is adopt a coherent point of view about what the facts appear to be. I put it that way because my long acquaintance with statistical analysis suggests that facts or numbers alone do not necessarily lead to coherence. I would go a step further and argue that contemporary American cultural reportage proves that you can assemble vast quantities of information and fail to arrive at a coherent vision of any given subject. The subject of my session, therefore, has to do with developing coherent non-fiction prose.
Facing the Beauty: Divining Your Book’s True Shape Through the Chaos of Drafting (C, LT) Debra Marquart
A developing book project is like a free-floating constellation full of orbiting planets, meteor showers, spare moons, and all manner of flotsam, jetsam, and interesting space junk that has wandered into your book’s gravitational field throughout the process of researching. While drafting, one wonders what to leave behind, what to keep, where to put everything, and whether or not all this accumulating detail will amount to any kind of meaning for a reader. The idea for the book was beautiful when you first imagined it, almost fully formed in your mind. Now, as each line and paragraph develops—so steeped in the particular and the anecdotal—the process can get messy, making it hard, if not impossible, to glance up from the close work and divine the book’s true shape. At this point, some writers find it helpful to identify a higher theoretical structure appropriate to the book’s content (e.g., aesthetic, linguistic, mythic, postcolonial, feminist) as a sobering lens to re-illuminate the material and re-inform the process. In this session, we’ll talk about strategies for conceptualizing the book’s prevailing themes and theoretical intentions while in the middle of the often ugly process of drafting. Required Readings: Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History (Chapter 1: “Archetypes and Repetition,” pp. 3-48) Jane Smiley, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel (Chapter 9: “The Circle of the Novel,” pp. 178-203) Carole Maso, Break Every Rule: Essays on Language, Longing, & Moments of Desire. (“Rupture, Verge, and Precipice / Precipice, Verge, and Hurt Not,” pp. 161-191) Suggested Readings: Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text. Claude Levi-Strauss, Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture. Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, The Nature of Religion: The Significance of Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture. Helene Cixous, Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing. Thomas S. Kuhn,The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Get Obsessed and Stay Obsessed (C) Lewis Robinson
Opening Gambits (C)Elizabeth Searle What makes for great first paragraphs and pages? How, in your all-important novel or story openings, do you seduce your reader, cause them to fall through the page? And then to turn the page? How have great writers like Virginia Woolf, James Salter, Joyce Carol Oates and Dennis Lehane handled the openings to their major works? Douglas Bauer, The Stuff of Fiction, “Openings” David Huddle, The Writing Habit; “Mystery and Method” Debra Spark, Curious Attractions, “Beginnings and Endings”
June Jordan: Crouching Tiger (C) Timothy Seibles June Jordan was an incalculable force-- in both imaginative and political terms-- in the American literary scene. This class will explore some of the vast territory covered by June Jordan's poetry and essays. Willing to take on anything in her writing—issues of race, sexuality, religion, foreign affairs—she embodied a kind of Emersonian ferocity that seems all too rare these days. The full impact of her work continues to unfold. Required Readings: Kissing God Goodbye: Poems 1991-1997 Haruko / Love Poems Some of Us Did Not Die: Selected Essays of June Jordan Strongly Recommended Reading: June Jordan, Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint (A look at June Jordan's approach to teaching poetry to beginners and beyond.)
Translation for Writers and Poets (C, LT) Laima Sruoginis (Visiting Faculty) Many of the most competent and successful literary translations are produced by writers and poets. The impetus to translate often grows from a curiosity over foreign language texts and a need to understand those texts in their fullest capacity. Essentially, a strong literary translation is produced from a successful close reading and interpretation of a text. Also, a strong translation succeeds in bringing the sounds, sights, smells, and cultural sensibility of a source language text into the target language text. This lecture will examine the relationship between writing and translating; translating and writing; the role of research in translation; the translator’s role as “cultural translator,” and practical information on grants available to literary translators, as well as information on organizations that specifically support literary translators. I will also talk about the market for literary translation and various types of publishing contracts, translation contracts, and author’s and translator’s rights. We will discuss what elements make up a successful translation and how writers and poets apply voice and vision to translation. I will talk about the role of research in translation and about how to build a strong working relationship with your source language writers. I will also talk about how translation work can lead to writing partnerships and projects that are a type of “hybrid” translation. Students will be asked to participate in a few translation exercises (no foreign language skills are necessary). Required Readings: Burton Raffle, The Art of Translating Prose Part One Burton Raffle, The Art of Translating Poetry John Biquenet, Rainer Schulte, The Craft of Translation
Suggested Readings: Douglas H. Robinson, Becoming a Translator: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Translation Imagination Connections: Second Grade Bilingual Literacy Project (S, T) Lisa C. Taylor (Stonecoast Alum)
(This project has been run by Lisa for the past four years and managed by EASTCONN, a regional education service center in eastern Connecticut.)
This workshop will focus on introducing young students to the concept of multi-culturalism, using literacy as a common foundation. Highlights of a successful interdistrict literacy project that pairs urban and suburban or rural students to write, illustrate, and produce a storybook or book of poetry will be shared. This project has the basic premise that all children can develop an appreciation for poetry and language at a young age. A process for writing with children that is a result of both research and actual experience will be shared. Bilingual students are encouraged to write in their first language with teachers and college students acting as translators. Suggested Readings: X.J. Kennedy and Dorothy Kennedy, Knock at a Star Kenneth Koch, Wishes, Lies and Dreams Kenneth Koch, Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? Other Resources: Alan Say, Grandfather’s Journey (Japanese) Carmen Lomas, En Mi Familia Catharine Clinton, ed, I, Too Sing America: Three Centuries of African American Poetry Gary Soto and Ed Martinez, Too Many Tamales Langston Hughes, The Dream Keeper and Other Poems Naomi Shihab Nye, ed The Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World
Teaching Creative Writing in Non Traditional Settings Jack Wiler (Visiting Faculty) and Baron Wormser Whatever that means. Which is what it means. It means what I do. I, Jack, talk to students about writing and how it can shape their lives. I talk to college students and high school students and the last thing I talk about is poetry. Except as passion and art. Many writers and teachers of writing are called upon to walk into groups of students, either in high schools or jails or prisons or technical schools and talk to them about how poetry works and how it is important to their lives. This session will focus on that aspect of teaching. The session will focus on the importance of paying attention to the needs of each individual group-the need to gauge individuals' desires and wants and respond to them,and the role of spontaneity and message all at the same time. We'll discuss various methods of engaging students, the needs of various groups, and how best to address them in a brief period of time. God knows they need it. Support materials: Bring your favorite poem. Or the poem you hate most in the world. If possible memorize it. Be prepared to be laughed at. Be prepared to change.
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Related Links: Meet the Stonecoast faculty:
To find out more about specific genres at Stonecoast: Creative Nonfiction Genre Page
To find out more about the six Areas of Emphasis Craft, Creative Collaboration, Publishing, Social /Community Action, Teaching, and Literary Theory |
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