The Writing University Podcast

Episode 43: Stephen Lovely—Marathon Training for the Fiction Writer: Conditioning Your Mind and Body to Go the Distance

Episode 42: Jim Heynen—Write What You Don’t Know About

One of the biggest challenges, and imperatives, of writing is finding time—making time—to sit down and do it. It’s something like that moment in the movie Field of Dreams, where a mysterious voice says to Kevin Costner, If you build it they will come. Except that in the case of writing, ‘building it’ means not creating a ballpark to attract ghostly baseball giants, but creating a little window of time in which to write. We can’t make the writing come to us, but if we make a space for it in our day, it will inevitably show up. And if we don’t make space for it, writing definitely won’t come. Mary Allen will share her own experiences and struggles with finding time to write, and will pass along the workable solutions she’s arrived at over the years.

In this Eleventh Hour, Susan Taylor Chehak will use Powerpoint to take a graphic look at comic book storytelling conventions and how they can be applied to your own written narratives. Through examples and discussion, she will explore the magic of words summoning pictures and pictures inspiring words.

One of the key elements in successful fiction is imagery—the word-pictures that directly transmit what the writer sees. But while writing students get a lot of help with things like plot and structure, imagery often goes unmentioned, in part because it is so hard to talk about how to make better images. Therein lies the value of haiku for prose writers. The short, imagistic form of poetry imported from Japan offers a clear (and very fun) way to practice making images. Over the course of the hour, Robert will lead a workshop in reading and writing haiku. This workshop aims to deepen your understanding of the role of imagery in your own writing, and to enrich your visual imaginations.

As part of the free, weeklong 2012 MusicIC Festival (featuring art music inspired by literature), poet Robert Fernandez and MusicIC chamber musicians will discuss the musical works that inspired Marcel Proust and the creative connections between music and literature. The series of discussions—with musical illustration—begins during Wednesday’s Eleventh Hour, setting the stage for the Friday night concert.

Robert Fernandez -- The Language of Music, the Music of Poetry

In addition to being omnipresent on the planet (every culture has a conception of lyric) poetry appears to have been written and composed in every ancient and historical cultural we’ve been able to investigate. And yet, many people (including writers) never read poetry. Why? Or perhaps more importantly: why not? In this two-panelist conversation fiction and creative non-fiction writer B.K. Loren and poet Juliet Patterson discuss poetry and the personal lyric, as both a source of inspiration and a tool of the writing craft. What’s special about poetry? And how does poetry enlist imagination in the art of story? What can poems teach us about metaphor and language? And beyond matters of craft, how does poetry specifically speak to the heart of the creator as well as find a solace in the reader who finds transcendence in the work?

In this Eleventh hour, Timothy Bascom will discuss the personal essay in order to demonstrate the ways in which this form, typically focused on autobiographical events, can be driven by research instead. Genre-shaping essayists such as Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, David Foster Wallace, and Eula Biss have demonstrated that what we call “personal” is not limited to what we remember internally. Timothy will show us how sometimes we have to go outside the self and explore our way toward unexpected discoveries, arriving at even-more-rich realities that would have eluded us if we turned inward. He will provide examples of the ways that research can be conducted and integrated into a personal essay, lifting it to a vivid and universally engaging level.

In the simplest of fairy tales or the grandest of myths—“Snow White,” say, or the Odyssey—both Snow White and Odysseus must spend time in the woods, or the underworld. Those of us writing fiction understand that our protagonists must grapple with darkness in order to rise to light; similarly, a descent into difficulty is a necessary element of memoir. Why is going “into the woods” so important to the weaving of a compelling tale? And what other lessons can be drawn from story elements found not only in a mythic “hero’s journey,” but in Snow White’s plunge into the forest, or Jack’s up the beanstalk? Sands Hall addresses these fascinating ideas, and offers ways to fold these strategies into your own, or your protagonist’s, journey.

Kathryn Rhett, author of Survival Stories: Memoirs of Crisis, and Jessica Handler, author of the forthcoming Writing Through Grief, talk about how writing the tough stuff well can be good for you, and for a community of like-minded readers. Everyone will experience difficulty at some point in their lives, and, being writers, we may want to write about the tough stuff, either because we need to, or with the notion that getting it down on paper will be cathartic. The strategies we use for strong literary writing dovetail neatly with the strategies for writing therapeutically. This talk introduces cross-disciplinary research and suggests a variety of compelling writing exercises.

This talk explores the beauty of limitation, whether it be something as simple as a deadline or a self-imposed structure for a scene, a poem, or an essay. Even the constraints of our lives (time! job! space! family!) can serve the muse. Many Writing Festival participants say, “I write more here in Iowa than I do all year—how can I do this at home?” or “In doing the assignments for this class, I actually found my real story. Why doesn’t this happen more often at my own desk?” Sometimes we forget that pragmatic practices lead to surprising creative leaps. Come discover how perceived obstacles can become tools to help our writing flourish.

In this panel discussion Dermont, Morningsnow, Twemlow, and Wilhelm will discuss poetry and fiction in conjunction with specific and intimate outside influences, inspirations, imitations, and inquiries. They will present examples of the ideas, authors, forms, and practices which have helped them generate their own most recent work, as well as discuss how writers might discover creative motivation in the world around them. Participants will leave with a list of recommended art, literature, music, film, and other imagination-sparking influences. Amber Dermont is the author of the novel The Starboard Sea, and teaches creative writing at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. Blueberry Morningsnow is the author of a book of poetry, Whale in the Woods, and has published poems in Thermos and notnostrums. Nick Twemlow is a poet and filmmaker; his first book of poems, Palm Trees, will be published in 2012 and he co-edits Canarium Books. Vinnie Wilhelm was a recent Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA and is the author of a collection of short stories, In the Absence of Predators.

Enrich poetry, fiction, nonfiction and blog posts by unleashing people’s innate desire to share what they know. Don’t be afraid to ask questions! This presentation will help you identify potential interviewees, pose questions that elicit intriguing responses, assess technological pros and cons, and evaluate the material your interview produces. We’ll also discuss how to recognize and weave the juiciest kernels of information into your writing project, whatever it is. Cheryl Fusco Johnson honed her interviewing skills in courts of law while serving as a public defender in Washington State. Currently, she interviews newsmakers for The Iowa Source and authors—including Natalie Goldberg, Larry Brooks, and Anne Lamott—for the radio show, Writers Voices.

Do you need to have a background in theatre to write plays? What’s the difference between a playwright and a screenwriter? How is it possible to develop characters and tell a story without passages of description and exposition? Is it up to the playwright to determine who does what and when they do it? How do you decide if the story you want to tell can best be told on stage? Once you write the play, how do you get it produced? Published? Kate Aspengren answers these questions (and more!) in this discussion of the craft of playwriting.