FALL 2010 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS


Creative Nonfiction or Memoir
Fiction
Poetry
Business of Writing
  
About Our Instructors

 

CREATIVE NONFICTION OR MEMOIR

Saturday, September 4
12 PM – 3 PM (3 hours)
From Telescope to Microcosm with J.C. Hallman
Using James Agee's classic essay "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" as model and inspiration, this three-hour seminar will focus on the importance of description not only to creating a vivid sense of place -- what Orwell calls the "moral atmosphere of a particular moment in time" -- but also to understanding the basic purpose of literature and the many forms it can take. 

First we'll discuss James Agee's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," explaining how it works as a model for description specifically and for literature in general.  Next, participants can take a crack at their own descriptions, followed by time spent talking about participant writing and reading aloud to the group.  Click here to read the essay.
$45 /$30 members

Saturday, September 25
10 AM – 12 PM (2 hours)
Body and Soul with Gary Gildner
This workshop is devoted to the writing of fiction and nonfiction and how they can enrich each other.  Fiction writers and non-fiction writers have of course much to teach each other in the pursuit and practice of good narrative. 

For short story writers and novelists who want their inventions to sound and feel real, be entertaining, and matter, and for writers of memoirs and essays who wish to organize their work by borrowing story-telling technique, the workshop will look at the major elements of fiction—character, dialog, exposition, plot—and engage in useful exercises.  Bring your work in progress.
$30 / $20 members

 

Saturday, October 2
9 AM – 12 PM (3 hours)
The Story of Your Life: Turning Your Memories into Memoirs with Loring Leifer
Almost everyone has a story to tell – and a built-in circle of family and friends willing to read it. But, how do you entice a wider audience in your story? That’s the question answered by this seminar. You’ll explored what separates the family story that languishes in a desk drawer from the ones that make the best-seller lists—and how to avoid the common pitfalls of amateur memoirists. You’ll learn how to:

  • Organize the material to lure prospective readers
  • Steal techniques from best-selling memoirs
  • Get outside yourself to remember what it’s like not to know all about you
  • Apply a formula for figuring out what to include . . . or omit

$45 / $30 members

 

Saturday, October 23

9 – 12 (3 hours)

Narrative Nonfiction: Finding the Story in the Facts with Joe Miller

This workshop will provide an overview and practicum of techniques and strategies for writing compelling true stories. The course will cover the fact-gathering process, including interviewing, historical research and observation, as well as ways of crafting true information into narratives that read like fiction.

$45 /$30 members

 


FICTION


Saturday, September 25
10 AM – 12 PM (2 hours)
Body and Soul with Gary Gildner
This workshop is devoted to the writing of fiction and nonfiction and how they can enrich each other. Fiction writers and non-fiction writers have of course much to teach each other in the pursuit and practice of good narrative.  For short story writers and novelists who want their inventions to sound and feel real, be entertaining, and matter, and for writers of memoirs and essays who wish to organize their work by borrowing story-telling technique, the workshop will look at the major elements of fiction—character, dialog, exposition, plot—and engage in useful exercises. 
$30 / $20 members

 

Saturday, October 30
1 PM – 5 PM (4 hours)
“It’s All in the Details” with Catherine Browder

It's been said, 'There is probably no piece of writing that can't be improve with more detail." The key is finding the right detail: particular, sensual detail that is organic to your writing project. Chekhov advises restraint; Robert Olen Butler advises avoiding abstraction and using the senses as the route to your readers' emotions. Exercises will be provided in class for improving a piece of writing with appropriate detail, for avoiding "generalities, abstractions, and unneeded analysis." A handout will also be provided with additional exercises for getting started and suggested reading.
$60 / $40 members

Saturday, November 6
10 AM – 1 PM (3 hours)
Plotting:  Your Life, the Short Story and the Novel with Thomas Fox Averill
Join novelist and O. Henry Award-winning short story writer Thomas Fox Averill in an exploration of plot.  Through discussion and exercises, participants will become familiar with three distinct ways of thinking about plotting, and then the discussion will turn to plot twists, subplots and the extended metaphor.  But the ultimate plot twist comes in the intertwining of the plot of action becomes a plot of meaning.
$45 / $30 members

 

Saturday, November 6
2 PM – 4 PM (2 hours)
Great Expectations – Characters Edition with Joel Goldman
What makes a character great? If you can figure that out, how do you write them? There's more to it than making them tall, short, fat or thin, drunk or sober, gay or straight. You have to make the reader care about them. Learn how at our two-hour session Great Expectations - Characters Edition with award-winning mystery author Joel Goldman.
*This workshop takes place at I Love a Mystery Bookstore, 6114 Johnson Drive, Mission, KS  66202, (913) 432-2583
$30 / $20 members

 
POETRY

Saturday, September 18
10 – 11:30 (1 ½ hours)
Writing a Dramatic Monologue with William Trowbridge
In this class, we will distinguish "dramatic monologue" from "persona poem" and then, following a brief lecture, offer a number of poems as examples. Students will be allowed some time to at least get started on their own poems.  The workshop will conclude with students reading aloud what they wrote and the class offering commentary. 
$23/ $15 members

 


Saturday, October 16
10 - 12
Renku and its Moody Relations with Robin Behn
This will be a workshop exploring collaborative and associative writing, geared for both poets and prose writers.

We will begin by doing an exercise in collaborative renku writing, and then use some of the freedoms renku suggests to us to work individually, creating associative free verse poems or short prose pieces that derive from "mood" rather than "subject matter." We will look at ancient and contemporary examples of renku, and at examples of poems and prose that use some renku-esque techniques for very different purposes. Participants will be invited to continue their collaborate renku via a blog after the class.

$30 / $20 members


Saturday, November 13
1 PM – 4 PM (3 hours)
Finding the Poem in Your Poem: Some Nuts and Bolts ofWriting and Revising with Jo McDougall

In a congenial, helpful atmosphere, participants will share their poems via worksheets and informal discussions with the director and each other.  Criteria for successful poems will be discussed.  The object?  To look anew at what we write and why we write in order to write more publishable poems.  Participants will be invited to submit work to the instructor before class.  All levels of writing experience welcome. 
$45 / $30 members

THE BUSINESS OF WRITING
Thursday, September 16
6 – 8 PM (2 hours)
Business Taxation and Business Formation for Writers
Presented in cooperation with Kansas City Volunteer Lawyers & Accountants for the Arts
If you plan to make your art a business, tax issues surround everything you do.  In this seminar, you'll learn the basics for reporting the income from your writing business to taxing authorities. Also, learn the ins and outs of business formation.  You will learn what limited liability is, why you should want it and how you can get it.  There will be a discussion of different business entities and what types of entity may be right for you.
$10 /Free to KCVLAA members

 

 

Wednesday, September 22
6:30 – 8 PM (1 ½ hours)
Developing a Nonfiction Book Proposal with Krista Goering
Imagine how many submissions literary agents receive each week.  Most of these go straight to the trash because the writer failed to grasp the basics.  This presentation will go over the Dos and Don'ts of submitting to an agent, including choosing your topic, sketching a promotion plan, demonstrating your platform, and pitfalls to avoid.
$23 / $15 members

 

Wednesday, October 6
6 – 8 PM (2 hours)
The Art of the Contract for Writers
Presented in cooperation with Kansas City Volunteer Lawyers & Accountants for the Arts. Contracts are the cornerstone of any business, but for artists, much of the information comes in the form of anecdotes from other artists or from the internet (not the most reliable source!).  In this seminar you will learn the general principles of contract formation, drafting and negotiation, including:

  • Does it have to be in writing?
  • What's fair?
  • What language has to be in there to protect me?
  • What if the deal goes sour?
  • How do I negotiate a contract?
  • $10 /Free to KCVLAA members

 

Thursday, October 21
6 – 8 PM (2 hours)
What Writers Need to Know About Copyrights
Presented in cooperation with Kansas City Volunteer Lawyers & Accountants for the Arts
Learn the basics of copyright law: who owns what, how much you can use of someone else's work, what's really "fair" about "fair use," what happens when you sell a piece, and how to avoid disputes!  Myths will be debunked and famous artists' infringements analyzed.

$10 /Free to KCVLAA members

 

Thursday, November 18
6 – 8 PM (2 hours)
Pitch It, Sell It: How to Make Writing Your Day Job with Loring Leifer
If you think that it’s impossible to make a living as a writer, take this workshop. It will help you take the “free” out of free-lance. You’ll learn about what’s way more important to success than your writing ability, how to narrow your beat and expand your horizons, and make editors beg for your work or at least return your phone calls. This workshop will help you find the right markets to target and make your articles more sellable. You’ll also get a list of 164 publications that pay more than $1 / word. You’ll learn how to:
  • Avoid making the three mistakes that separate amateur writers from the pros.
  • Turn your hobby into a revenue stream
  • Argue your way to higher fees with a novel formula that will also impress editors with your editorial savvy.
  • $30 / $20 members

   

Our Instructors


Thomas Fox Averill is the author of novels Secrets of the Tsil Café and The Slow Air of Ewan MacPherson, as well as of the short story collections Ordinary Genius, Passes at the Moon, and Seeing Mona Naked. The 2006 recipient of the Kansas Arts Commission Fellowship in Fiction, he teaches at Washburn University in Topeka.

Robin Behn is the author of six books of poems, most recently Horizon Note, Naked Writing, and The Yellow House, just released from Spuyten Duyvil Books. Recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, she directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at The University of Alabama and also teaches for Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives with her son in Birmingham , Alabama , and plays whistle and flute in the traditional music band Waxwing (http://www.waxwingband.com), with whom she also performs her "fiddle tune poems."

 

Catherine Browder is a fiction writer and playwright, with new stories out in Green Mountains Review and New Letters. Her most recent collection is Secret Lives, (from SMU Press). She is the recipient of fiction fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Missouri Arts Council. She teaches fiction writing at UMKC, and her book reviews appear regularly in New Letters, where she serves as an advisory editor.

 

Gary Gildner is the author of 21 books, including The Second Bridge (a novel), Somewhere Geese Are Flying (new and selected stories), The Warsaw Sparks and My Grandfather’s Book (memoirs), and Cleaning a Rainbow (his latest collection of poems). He has received The National Magazine Award for Fiction, Pushcart Prizes in fiction and non-fiction, and the Iowa Poetry Prize. His stories and essays have appeared in New Letters, The Georgia Review, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Southern Review, Grand Street, Antaeus, The Paris Review, and in many anthologies and textbooks.

Krista Goering, attorney-at-law and literary agent, lived in New York prior to moving to America 's heartland when she married a Kansas City area businessman.  Earlier in her career Goering studied creative writing at Tufts, German in Vienna , and Danish in Copenhagen . She graduated from the Copenhagen Business School and worked in Europe as a Danish/English translator. She received her juris doctor from the University of Kansas School of Law. Over the years Goering has worked as a freelance writer, published a regional magazine, acted as Editor-in-Chief of a law journal, and practiced law. Visit her online at http://www.kristagoering.com


The main character in Joel Goldman’s three books in the Jack Davis series, No Way Out (2010), The Dead Man (2009), and Shakedown (2008) is an FBI Special Agent, forced to give up his career by a movement disorder that makes him shake when he should shoot.  In four earlier books, Deadlocked, The Cold Truth, The Last Witness, and Motion to Kill, Goldman, a former attorney, explored the world of Kansas City trial attorney Lou Mason. To learn more, visit his website : http://joelgoldman.com/


 

J.C. Hallman is the author of two books of nonfiction, The Chess Artist and The Devil is a Gentleman, as well as of a book of stories, The Hospital for Bad Poets.  In August 2010, St. Martin 's Press will publish In Utopia: Six Kinds of Eden and the Search for a Better Paradise, which was inspired by Hallman's having grown up on a street called Utopia Road.  Excerpts from In Utopia appeared in Tin House and The Believer, and one chapter will appear in the 2010 Best American Travel Writing.  He lives in St. Paul . His website is http://www.jchallman.com/.

 

Kansas City Volunteer Lawyer and Accountants for the Arts (KCVLAA) is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization that provides legal and accounting assistance to artists and arts organizations from all creative disciplines, including visual artists, writers, musicians, playwrights, actors, dancers, filmmakers, photographers, graphic artists, theater companies, orchestras, crafts groups, artists cooperatives and neighborhood arts councils.  Visit them online at http://www.kcvlaa.org/

 

Loring Leifer became a writer because she likes to find things—-whether it’s the latest information on technology trends or a lost contact lens. She's uncovered art forgeries, how many employees can name their company president, and what doctors don’t want you to know about the pills you take, all in magazine articles and books. Leifer’s book credits include: Information Anxiety and Information Anxiety 2; Follow the Yellow Brick Road ; Who’s Really Who? The 1000 most creative individuals in the USA ; Younger Voices, Stronger Choices; Drugs: Prescription, Non-Prescription, and Herbal; and a ParisACCESS city guide. She also conducts workshops and consults with companies on communication issues. Visit her online at http://www.loringleifer.com/

Joe Miller’s first book, Cross-X, was published in 2006 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It was named one of the best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune, Kansas City Star and Amazon.com, and won the William Rockhill Nelson Award and the Harry Chapin Media Award for nonfiction. He has twice been a finalist for the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism and the Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards.

 

Jo McDougall is the author of five books of poetry: The Woman in the Next Booth, BkMk Press/University of Missouri-Kansas City; Towns Facing Railroads and From Darkening Porches, University of Arkansas Press ; and, most recently, Dirt and Satisfied with Havoc, Autumn House Press, Pittsburgh . Her memoir in progress, Daddy’s Money, focuses on growing up on a rice farm in the Arkansas delta. Visit her website http://www.jomcdougall.net/

William Trowbridge's books are Flickers, O Paradise, Enter Dark Stranger (University of Arkansas Press 2000, 1995, 1989), The Four Seasons (chapbook, Red Dragonfly Press 2001),and The Book of Kong (chapbook, Iowa State University Press 1986).  His poems have also appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Poetry, Crazyhorse, The Georgia Review, Boulevard, The Iowa Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Epoch, and elsewhere.  An associate editor of The Laurel Review, he lives in Lee's Summit , Missouri .