Full Residency Synchronous Full-length Manuscript Workshop & Half-Residency Mini-Workshops
During our VIRTUAL Summer Residency, June 21–28, the Naslund-Mann School presents a SpaldingCon menu of mini-workshops for alumni providing opportunities for alums to continue their professional development with regular Naslund-Mann faculty as workshop facilitators. Alumni may sign up to take Kathleen Driskell’s poetry manuscript mini-workshop—or alumni may wish to sign up for traditional genre mini-workshops that call for submission of a worksheet for discussion and meet for 3 and half days at the beginning of residency or generative mini-workshops that don’t require a worksheet and meet for 3 and a half days at the end of residency; or alumni might wish to take both mini-workshops.
All SpaldingCon participants will receive the complete residency schedule and are welcome to attend residency lectures, plenary sessions, readings, and more. Our virtual residency offerings are synchronous and offered in real time.
Poetry Mini-Workshop: Collecting the Unified Poetry Manuscript with Kathleen Driskell
Alumni wanting to collect a full-length or chapbook-length book of poetry meet with Kathleen Driskell, author of six poetry collections, for this 3 and a half day mini-workshop. Before workshop, participants present the poems they wish to include (48-68 pages for a full-length or 35 pages for a chapbook manuscript) to the workshop leader and all participants. After familiarizing ourselves with the possible poems, throughout workshop we will discuss ordering strategies after uncovering motifs, considering amplification of thematic details and subjects as well as settings, and identifying “holes” in the narrative arc of the manuscripts, which may call for poets to write new poems to unify the collections. We’ll also discuss how to bring variety to the book, titling strategies for collections and individual poems, and why it’s a good or bad thing to break a manuscript into separate sections. We’ll identify what’s needed for the front and backmatter that editors expect to see upon submission, and we’ll talk about overall publishing strategies for books. Students should be prepared to share and talk about a published collection by another poet that appeals to them for its unifying qualities.
Schedule:
3:15–5:30 p.m. EDT. Wednesday–Friday, June 25–27
10:30–11:30 a.m. EDT. Saturday, June 28. Revision Workshop.
Cost: $350, with a minimum of 5 students. Registration deadline April 15. Payment due June 1. A payment link will be emailed to participants by April 25. Limited scholarships may be available. Register here: https://bit.ly/VirtualSU25.
Half-Residency Traditional Mini-Workshops: June 22–25
Traditional workshops are led by Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing faculty members. Each traditional workshop will have a maximum of 6 students, current students and alums and must have a minimum of 5 students to make. Workshops will be offered in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, writing for children and young adults, and writing for TV, screen, and stage. The schedule for the traditional workshop is as follows:
Schedule:
Wednesday, May 7. Worksheets due to schoolofwriting@spalding.edu (12–18 pages for prose, 3–5 poems or picture books or maximum of 10 pages, 12–25 scripted pages for writing for TV, screen & stage).
2–3 p.m. EDT. Sunday, June 1. Required pre-residency workshop meeting
10:30–11:30 a.m. EDT. Sunday, June 22. First workshop meeting to discuss front matter.
3:15–5:30 p.m. EDT. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, June 22–24
10:30–11:30 a.m. EDT. Wednesday, June 25. Revision Workshop.
Cost: $350, with a minimum of 5 students. Registration deadline April 15. Payment due June 1. A payment link will be emailed to participants by April 25. Limited scholarships may be available. Register here: https://bit.ly/VirtualSU25.
Half-Residency Generative Mini-Workshops: June 25–28
The School of Writing’s faculty, along with returning faculty guest Molly Peacock, offer a panoply of workshops to boost alumni writing practices. These generative mini-workshops don’t require worksheets. All are welcome, but space is limited and participants are included first come first served.
Schedule:
3:15–5:30 p.m. EDT. Wednesday–Friday, June 25–27
10:30–11:30 a.m. EDT. Saturday, June 28. Revision Workshop.
Cost: $350, with a minimum of 5 students. Registration deadline April 15. Payment due June 1. A payment link will be emailed to participants by April 25. Limited scholarships may be available. Register here: https://bit.ly/VirtualSU25.
Generative Special Topics Mini-Workshops and Faculty:
Who Do You Love? Writing Personal Stories Grounded in Pop Culture with Erin Keane.
Are you mourning David Lynch? Obsessed with Megan Thee Stallion? Know way too much about The Legend of Zelda? Feeling some kind of way about Wicked? Have very strong memories tied to McRib season? Writing personal stories through the lens of pop culture—from chart-topping hits to mass-produced toys to Oscar winners to chain restaurants—is both invitational and invocational, for fans and haters alike. In this class we will take a layered approach to writing about our pop culture obsessions, combining critical observations, research, and memoir to draft the obsession essay that only you could write. (We’ll talk about possible publishing outlets, too.) While our workshop will be oriented toward the essay, we’ll talk about how this approach works in poetry and fiction as well, and participants are welcome to write in any form they like. There will be some pre-reading assigned to be emailed a few weeks before the workshop.
From All-Over-the-Place to Someplace: Taking Scattered Ideas to Form Poems and Essays with Molly Peacock.
This workshop/studio will allow participants to map the evolution of jottings into poems or essays. As online visual art teachers demonstrate by drawing, Molly Peacock will show, in real (and replicated) time, how all-over-the-place notes can coalesce into poems or personal essays. How can intuition merge with technique? Our simple start will be domestic and personal objects: a bowl, a fork, a purse, a cane, a shoe, a screwdriver, a Band-aid, a phone, a pillowcase etc. We will briefly reference the work of Deborah Lutz: The Bronte Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects as Molly drafts a poem or essay demonstration-style, allowing participants intimate observation of a process that they can adapt to their own use. The only thing you need to bring are scraps of ideas, thoughts, words, and an actual personal or domestic object. Let’s start all over the place and arrive at Someplace.
The Furniture of the World: Writing from the Details with Lee Martin.
The poet Miller Williams always talked about what he called “the furniture of the world.” By that he meant all the particulars: the objects, the places, the sensory details. We often find our ways to the complex, the difficult, and/or the uncomfortable through the things we can describe. This generative workshop will focus on the use of details to give our writing more texture, more depth, more resonance, and more significance. Writers of all genres are welcome. Our objective will be to generate new material via writing activities and to deepen that writing by paying attention to the particulars of our worlds. Our pre-reading will consist of brief stories, essays, and poems. We’ll discuss the pre-reading at our first workshop session and use it to inform our discussions throughout the week. Pre-reading includes “Cheers” by Jayne Anne Phillips; “Fans” by Sue William Silverman; “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams; “Let Me Tell You” by Miller Williams; and “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden. Links to be shared later.
Mixing it Up: A Generative Workshop with Neela Vaswani.
Open to students of any genre(s) with an interest in blurry borders and resisting categorization. We will explore a sampling of mixed-genre excerpts (varied combinations of poetry, fiction, CNF, picture books, photography, biography, translation, etc.) and briefly discuss the history/purpose/possibilities of mixed-genre work. Paired with our discussions, we will create mixed-genre work through exercises, prompts, and collage. For part of our activities, please bring between a paragraph and a page from three different pieces of your own writing (of the same genre or different genres)—preferably work on which you want a different angle, or that feels stuck or challenging to you. The goal of this workshop is exploration, fun, and creating new material. Prose and poetry.
Constructing Story: From the First to Final Draft with Leah Henderson.
Whether starting with a brand new idea or coming back to strengthen what is already on the page, some of the same tools, skills and considerations should be made. Over the course of this generative workshop, in-class writing prompts, exercises and text examples will help us craft strong openings lines, paragraphs, and scenes, strengthen often murky middles, and establish the frame needed to create satisfying and compelling endings. By examining the role and purpose of the beginning, middle and end of a story, we will have a better understanding of what is needed in constructing our own. Through exploring how character, setting, dialogue, pacing, emotion and other key elements come together at each stage of the writing process, we will learn to construct engaging stories that fulfill promises and endear readers from the very first page to the last. Regardless of where you are in your writing process—still forming a new story idea or deep in the trenches of revision—this workshop is intended to meet you where you are, giving you useful questions to consider and lasting tools you can come back to again and again to strengthen your work.
Writing the Scene with Sam Zalutsky.
All writers need to know how to write a good scene, no matter what genre you write. This workshop will examine the basic building blocks of the dramatic scene, including visual description, structure, dialogue, conflict, character, obstacle and objective through screenplay scene to explore what works in a scene and what doesn't. Then you will do multiple screenwriting exercises as well as a revision exercise to strengthen your scene writing skills. There will be several short screenplays to read. Open and beneficial to all genres.
Write from the Heart: A Generative Writing Workshop with Lesléa Newman.
How do we, as writers, gain access to the stories that lie deep inside our hearts, the stories that matter to us, the stories that only we can tell? In this workshop we will use observation, memory, and imagination to crack open the treasure chest of stories that lies within us just waiting to be discovered and developed. We will focus on character, action, and setting, using tried and true writing exercises that enable us to discover the stories we need to tell and the ways in which to tell them. A myriad of prompts will guide you to generate many starts to new projects and/or discover new aspects of projects on which you have already begun. Appropriate for writers of all genres and students can generate work in any area.
Using The Three-Act Screenplay Structure to Clarify the Story of Your Novel, Short Story, W4YA or CNF Book-in-Progress or Play or Screenplay with Charlie Schulman.
You've written a draft or a portion of your novel, short story, CNF book, screenplay, or play, and while you like a lot of it, you also know you have “story problems.” This workshop will focus on the classic three-act structure that tells a compelling story with an active protagonist and that has a beginning, middle, and end that creates, builds, and pays off dramatic tension. By following the mantra "Simplify, Clarify, and Heighten," students will be asked to write and revise one-page scenarios. The goal is for participants to return after the workshop to their works-in-progress with a renewed sense of clarity, urgency, and purpose.
Into the Woods: Fairy Tale Retellings with Beth Bauman.
Fairy tale lovers, join me in the enchanted wood where we’ll play with these foundational tales to create new stories, prose poems, and assorted narratives. Fairy tales offer a treasure trove of opportunity for writers with their ingrained structures and motifs, archetypal characters, and primal emotion. All kinds of stories can be dreamed up and interpreted through their lens. As we play, we might subvert or modernize the original. We might discover minor characters begging for a starring role or buried detail awaiting illumination. The elements we pull from beloved fairy tales can be melded with themes we find ourselves returning to again and again. Bring one or two tales you’d like to work with. Pre-reading includes Charles Perrault's "Donkey Skin" and Aimee Bender's retelling "The Color Master," which will be emailed a few weeks before the workshop.
Elegant Opinion: Writing the Short Personal Opinion Essay with Roy Hoffman.
What’s your opinion on A.I., learning poetry by heart, thank you notes, body image, guns, the sorrows or beauty of aging? How can you bring a personal story to a topic that’s succinct and widely accessible? In “Elegant Opinion” we’ll turn our workshop into a thoughtful newsroom, writers taking their ideas from inception to first draft, then polishing them up, ideally, ready to submit. We’ll progress in this way each session: You’ll tell us what’s on your mind, focus it with group conversation, sketch out a draft of 750 to 800 words—a standard length in viewpoint sections of newspapers and magazines—share it with the group, and get input. We’ll encourage not only clarity of opinion—with a personal connection—but also vividness of language. We want to understand your opinion through your eyes, experience it as we walk in your shoes. Literature, art, food, fashion, politics, societal norms, sports, you name it—we’ll be interactive, conversational, generative, and productive. You don’t have to chase headlines—hard to do if you’re not a news columnist—but what’s going on in the world can be a catalyst for your personal take on issues big and small, including in your own community. For pre-reading, I’ll distribute links to published personal opinion pieces as models of the form. Our goal? For you to have an elegant opinion, even two, to submit on your own for publication, with a list provided of general contact information for a wide range of viewpoint sections. Each session, participants will spend a brief period of time discussing published work to be distributed ahead of time.
The Art of the Love Poem: Romance with No Cringe with Doug Manuel
Have you ever written a cringe-worthy love poem? Or do you want to make sure that you never write a cringe-worthy love poem? Have you ever read a love poem and wondered how the poet reached such ecstatic and rhapsodic heights without being cringey or weird? If you can answer yes to any of the questions above, then this workshop is for you. Welcoming to poets who are just getting started, poets who are just trying to get into the swing of things, as well as more established and seasoned poets, this workshop will help you generate new material and craft points for conjuring effective, emotive, and not cringey or corny love poems. In this workshop, we will closely read and imitate the style and content of poems by Rachel McKibbens, Kevin Young, Sharon Olds, Robert Hass, Sonia Sanchez, Federico García Lorca, and others in order ground and orient our writing so that love poems will speak full volume of our feeling and not fall victim to cliche and easy constructions.
Registration Deadline and Registration Link
All mini-workshops deadline: April 15.
Register here: https://bit.ly/VirtualSU25.
Payment Information and Due Date
All mini-workshops: June 1.
Payment link will be emailed by April 25 (for the FLMW: April 8).