Creative Writing Master Classes: Fall 2021

251 West Iowa Avenue,Iowa City IA 52242

30 October, 2021

Description

CREATIVE WRITING MASTER CLASSES Free, One-Shot, 2-Hour Classes Open to Everyone! Presented by: The Nonfiction Writing Program CREATIVE WRITING MASTER CLASSESFree, One-Shot, 2-Hour Classes Open to Everyone! Presented by: The Nonfiction Writing Program Reserve your spot! Register for classes at https://nwpmasterclassesfall2021.eventbrite.com *** MORNING SESSIONSFinding Tension in Common PlacesSaturday, Oct 30, 10:00am-12:00pm, EPB 403 Have a great story, but your delivery feels boring? Want to make that time you were rejected to prom or your car broke down the most nail-biting narrative? In this workshop, we’ll practice crafting tight narratives and exciting sentences, so that your story, no matter how seemingly tame, keeps a reader hooked sentence by sentence. Instructors: Taught by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne and Jonathan Gleason. Tatiana writes darkly funny memoir, and her novel-in-progress won the 2020 Diverse Worlds grant from the Speculative Literature Foundation. Jonathan’s essays on medicine and illness have appeared in MQR, Kenyon Review, and others. *** Beyond the Frame: Writing About Art and CultureSaturday, Oct 30, 10:00am-12:00pm, EPB 442 Art and culture writing is all about observation and interpretation, crucial skills that every seasoned writer needs to craft compelling prose. And it’s not always just about the art itself—as we contextualize a work within broader social and political conversations, we often discover more about both ourselves and the world around us. In this class, we’ll look at writers who have written artfully about art and learn how to craft our own art-savvy essays along the way. We’ll discuss how to avoid the type of overwrought art-speaky gibberish that might come to mind when we think about “art writing,” opting instead for clear, elegant prose that draws meaning out of even the most inscrutable works. We’ll pay particular attention to the ways that we translate images and emotions into words—a valuable skill both on and off the page. Instructors: Carey Dunne is a third-year MFA Candidate in the Nonfiction Writing Program and former editor at Hyperallergic, an arts and culture magazine. Gabriela Tully Claymore is a third-year MFA Candidate in the Nonfiction Writing Program and former managing editor at Stereogum, a music publication. ***  AFTERNOON SESSIONSYour Move: Gameplay As Personal Essay Saturday, Oct 30, 1:00pm-3:00pm, EPB 403 In this masterclass, we’ll be exploring the nature of games and competition and how it relates to the construction of personal narratives, and how better understanding gameplay mechanics can be invaluable to reflecting on our own lives. Whether it’s playing tag in elementary school, running a few races in Mario Kart with your friends, or watching professional athletes perform transcendent physical feats, the stories behind games and the people we experience them with can help us better articulate our own emotional realities and understand our deepest connections with one another. Instructors: Andy Tan-Delli Cicchi and Gyasi Hall are essayists in the Nonfiction Writing Program. They are currently in the middle of an extended game of HORSE, stretching over the past five months; the score is 12-10 or 10-12, depending on how you look at it, and their final showdown will occur on the first snowfall of the season. *** Devil in the Details: The Art of the SceneSaturday, Oct 30, 1:00pm-3:00pm, EPB 442 What makes narrative prose feel like a place you’ve been or could visit? It is not only rich descriptions or colorful dialogue, but the specific details that enchant, endear, and excite the reader. We might start with “We went to the movies on our first date,” and more detail might give us “We saw Return of the Jedi on our first date,” but how do we make a reader feel what it was like to be there? How do we go from “Our first date was a movie” to “It was raining the night we saw Return of the Jedi, our first date, the cold air burnt my lungs, you wrapped your arm around me when you noticed the goosebumps on my bare shoulders and though we were so new, the warm smell of your skin gave me no desire to pull away.” This course will highlight basic elements of scene building, with emphasis on using specific details to enhance a scene. Writers who take this course will leave with at least one page of writing and a handful of tools for more powerful scene writing. Instructor: Asha Galindo received the nickname Miss Details from her mother for being insufferably observant, nonetheless, she has formed this into an identity and career. She is a 2nd year MFA student in the Nonfiction Writing Program and has been published in Toyon Literary Magazine. *** Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa–sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Corey Campbell in advance at [email protected].