Pima Writers' Workshop

Pima Writers' Workshop 2013 encouraged me, inspired me, and increased my writing skills and understanding.

 

I hope my few notes have given you a hint of how great a learning experience this wonderful workshop can be. Often what I gained can't be crystallized into a few words. And what you gain would be different from what I gain; we each bring different experiences and skills with us and respond uniquely.

You'll just have to experience it yourself.

 

Sometimes my words simply can not capture the insights given by the emotional impact of the presenter's life. Time with Nancy Mairs will change your life. www.nancymairs.com

 

Robert Gover, Tanya Chernov (www.tanyachernov.com), and Debra Gwartney (www.debragwartney.com) also enriched the this year's workshop with their experiences.

 

A lot of writers like to talk to good agents because they are about as hard to find as a deer on the third day of deer season. This year Gordon Warnock, a founding partner of Foreword Literary, stood in the light. (forewordliterary.com)

 

Mark it on your calendar. It is always the Memorial Day weekend in May. Thursday night is the reception; Friday through Sunday, the lectures, readings, and exercises. It is a remarkable opportunity to have a short one-on-one with an author about up to twenty pages of your work. Be advised to have that work done and ready to send by the start of May.

 

As May approaches keep looking for information at www.pima.edu; if you do not find it, email Pima Writers' Workshop Director, Meg Files.  (mfiles@pima.edu)

 

 

Live Through This

DEBRA GWARTNEY   www.debragwartney.com

 

Live Through This is her memoir.

 

I attended her presentation (The Pitfalls of Memoir Writing) on the Friday of Pima Writers' Workshop 2013 and her writing exercise (Using Relevant Detail) on the Sunday morning. Both were excellent.

 

Let me only jot down a couple of things that stand out to me in my notes of these two sessions.

 

Memory changes with time. Its job is to keep us rooted to who we are. We need to ask of each memory: How is this memory taking care of me?

 

In writing keep irresolution and doubt in the air as long as possible.

 

Each scene has to have its own arc --- something has to happen. What did that scene gain for me and what did it lose?

 

Details need to take you somewhere. It is not enough just to have details. When using them involve as many senses as possible.

 

She used a writing exercise demonstrating narrowed perception. She put us in different situations and had us write what we saw. Coming home to someone to tell them good news. Telling them about a car accident. Coming home and finding them doing something you told them not to do. Vague, general details come first and then progress to the specific.

Scratching the Ghost

Scratching the Ghost by Dexter Booth will be coming out in November from Graywolf Press.  (www.amazon.com)

 

On Saturday of Pima Writers' Workshop 2013, his writing exercise, 'From Image to Poem', was great for writers as well as poets.

 

Describe one member of set. Why does that member stand out?

 

Write down any five words in one column. Then write down next to it the images that it brings to your mind. Then write using all the images.

 

Make a list with a body part, an animal, a fruit, an object, plus an image and an action. Write something using them all. Try to work in the size, shape, color, texture of each.

 

Now write something using one shape, color, and absence.

 

These are three methods of making images: set differentiaiton, abstraction, and parameter building.

 

Writing exercises are very dynamic with the participants writing, sometimes reading their work, and always questions are flying. My poor notes don't capture any them adequately.

 

His Sunday morning presentation was: 'From Slam to Crush: An Argument for 21st Century Poetics'. My intent was to attend it, but ended up in the wrong room at another good presentation. Can't see everything, but there are no wrong choices as all the presentations are valuable.

 

Also enjoyed his Saturday night reading. At lunch on Saturday, we  shared a courtyard picnic table. Wonderful experience!

Orlando White

Orlando White  www.orlandowhite.com

 

I only talked with Orlando White for a few moments outside of a classroom before class, but this meeting will stay with me. He is a man of presence.

 

He is the author of Bone Light , a teacher at Dine` College, and a recognized poet. He holds a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Brown University.

 

I missed both of his presentations:  'Functional White' and 'Poetics of Misspelling'.  If there were a prize for humor in presentation naming, I think he would win it.

 

I enjoyed his poetry reading on Friday night of the Pima Writers Workshop 2013.

 

The poet W. H. Auden is quoted to the effect that to understand your country, live in a foreign country, better still, live in two. Perhaps because I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay, my wish for Orlando is that he visits Paraguay. Not only Paraguay, but I hope he travels widely in Central and South America especially in Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia. Perhaps even living in one of those countries for awhile. Then I would suggest extended stays in Japan and Indonesia.

Ilie Ruby

Pima Writers' Workshop 2013

 

Saturday afternoon after a heavy lunch and when my eyes wanted sleep, I struggled with Ilie Ruby's writing exercise. She instructed us to go from distant to closer finishing the phrase: "If I loved you, I would tell you this...."

 

After a few minutes she told us to stop. A few students read theirs. Something in that prompt had touched something vital in them. They had written in a few minutes, powerful, emotion filled scenes.

 

Ilie Ruby (www.ilieruby.com) wrote The Salt God's Daughter and The Language of Trees.

 

On Friday morning her excellent presentation was: 'The Voice of Your Book: How to Create a Compelling Narrative Voice in Fiction'.

 

This presentation covered a lot from what voice is and how to distinguish it to how to choose it and use it. She gave solid examples. She had us writing first and other person for the prompt, "On the day everything changed ...."

 

She went from the basic to the advanced, from the theoretical to the practical -- a great presentation with something for all

Malin Alegria Ramirez

Malin Alegria Ramirez  ( www.malinalegria.com )

 

At the Thursday night reception for the Pima Writers' Workshop, Malin Alegria Ramirez read some of her work. She writes for the YA (Young Adult) market.

Writing aimed at teenage girls is not my interest. I had not planned on attending any of her presentations. Her reading was so full of energy and humor that Thursday night I changed my plans.

On Friday she gave a writing exercise: First Kiss -- Cultivating Your Young Adult Voice.
 
Some of my notes on that are:
 

Why do you write? Be clear to yourself why.

 

What drew you into your favorite books?

 

Readers look for strong characters that speak to them. Writers need just to speak to their own truth.

 

Get to know your characters. At first superficially like what they look like. Then take a walk in the park with them until you learn more, like their astrological sign, birth order, fears, schooling, friends, and favorite foods, colors, music, and activities.

 

To starting writers she advises us: to tell everyone you're a writer, reviews (good or bad) aren't too important, enjoy the ride (it's about the journey not the destination),  and turn off the ego.

 

On Saturday afternoon she gave a presentation called: Voz -My Journey as a YA Author.

This was aimed mainly at YA writers and like everything else she did was full of energy, encouragement, and inspiration. She found helpful the Society of YA & Children's Authors. She advised us: to know what we want and to own it; to remember authors are normal people; to remember life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Gabrielle Burton

GABRIELLE BURTON

 

 

Another big plus of the Pima Writers' Workshop is the availability of the presenters. Usually after their talk they go to the bookstore where they sign books and talk to the attendees. Often they are around at breaks and lunch time.

 

This year one of my highlights was a brief conversation with Gabrielle Burton in the lunch line. She is so positive, enthusiastic, and encouraging.

 

Her talk, "The Long and Winding Road", started the day on Friday. She warned us that it may be a long difficult road, but not to become discouraged. She encouraged us to take everything positively and to enjoy every success along the way.

 

Perhaps the most quoted line of the conference was hers: "Cream doesn't always rise to the top."  

 

Some of her advice that I took away was:

     1.  Don't settle for nearly the right word.

     2.  Write as if your reader is dying or in prison.

     3.  Put your time in writing. Even if difficult, get something down.

     4.  Read.

     5.  Develop a tough skin, but be gentle to others.

     6.  Try not to be competitive.

     7.  In the long haul, we want to help each other be all we can be.

 

 

Gabrielle Burton's latest book is Impatient with Desire: The Lost Journal of Tamsen Donner.

 

For more on her see:  www.gabrielleburton.com

Extreme Talent

 

 

Have you ever known someone so talented that they did not know that what they did was special? I mean someone that did something so easily that they didn't know it was difficult.

 

Every now and then I meet someone that is so good at something that they do not know it is difficult. It could be any talent from tying knots, carving, drawing, speaking, writing, cooking, foreign languages, swimming, singing, hiking, shooting, tracking, gymnastics, .....

 

Sometimes they have been born with the talent and do not know that what they do is difficult because it never has been for them. Other times it is experience that makes them good at it, but they have been doing it so long they seem to have forgotten the struggles to get it right.

 

As writers we are always learning our craft. Students are often urged to extend their envelope, expand their horizons, try something new, different, difficult.  Good advice.

 

In school, teachers, perhaps with some justification, were always telling me to try harder. But the army taught me that sometimes you can try too hard and the effort becomes counterproductive. In advance training we were allowed off to go into town on Friday nights as long as we passed Saturday morning inspection. Our floor gathered together, decided what needed to be done and what needed to be doubled checked before inspection. We did it and went out Friday night. The sergeant on the floor below decided his men didn't deserve Friday night off until they earned it by passing inspection. Each inspection they failed, he had them clean later into the evening and roused them earlier and earlier in the morning to clean. They didn't pass very many inspections, if any. We passed all of ours.

 

Abraham Lincoln advised folks to always grab problems by the smooth handle. Why make things more difficult for yourself than need be?

 

Max Brand was probably the most well known of the twenty some names that Frederick Faust wrote under. He wanted to be a classical poet and worked very hard at that. For an extended period of time he published the equivalent of a book a month and a short story per week. His westerns and many of his characters like Dr. Kildare, Dr. Gillespie, and Horseman Destry have entered the fabric of American literature and culture.

 

Kate Braverman is an incredible talent. Fiction, non-fiction, you name it as long as it is experimental, she writes it. Her list of books and inclusions in anthologies is long (see www.katebraverman.com ).

 

I kept thinking what wonderful things she could write if she would relax.  Instead of writing for the ten most intelligent people she knows, write for the rest of us. Who did Shakespeare write for? Write what is easy for her and know that there is value in that too.