Jumpstart! Classes: Hybrid Forms with Nance Van Winckel panels and evening event still open
The Orcas Island Writers Festival is fast approaching — it’s third annual festival will take place September 17-19, 2010. The Festival was born in 2008, the brainchild of writer Barbara Lewis, as “a way to enrich and connect readers and writers through classes, lectures, workshops, and the natural beauty of Orcas Island,” says Lewis, who continues as the Festival Director.
It is distinguished among writers festivals as one that focuses on the art and craft of writing, rather than the process and techniques of publishing. “Our festival creates an environment for focus and energy, designed to bring the writer – whether a novice writer or experienced author – to deeper, more effective, and more fulfilling expression,” says Lewis
Festival events will again take place in Eastsound venues. This year the Writers Festival faculty is from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, which Poets and Writers Magazine called the top low-residency writing program in the country. David Jauss and Sue Silverman teach the workshops (which had one opening as of this week) and Nance Van Winckel, will again teach the Jumpstart! classes, as she did last year.
David Jauss’s recent works include Black Maps and Crimes of Passion. The recipient of the AWP Award for Short Fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, among other awards, he teaches at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and in the low-residency MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Sue Silverman is the author of two memoirs and Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir. She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Nance Van Winckel teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at Eastern Washington University and the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program. This year’s Jumpstart! will focus on mixed-genre forms: flash fiction, prose poetry, and beyond-the-page visual/verbal art. Each day covers essential elements of the writing craft, leading writers to focus and enliven their poetry and prose.
The Jumpstart! writing classes teach writers how to focus and enliven their writing, whether poetry or prose. The Jumpstart! classes are taught by Nance Van Winckel. Nance is an accomplished writer of both prose and poetry; her works include After a Spell, which was awarded the Washington State Governor’s Award for Poetry, and Quake, which received the 1998 Paterson Fiction Prize.
This year, the Jumpstart! classes will give particular attention to mixed-genre forms, a particularly lively area of writing today, Lewis explains. ” In particular, we’ll discuss prose poems, flash fiction, and beyond-the-page visual/verbal genres. We will engage in writing exercises, as well, using the different forms, and sharing our work with the group.
“On day one, we’ll study and draft prose poems, primarily. On day two, we’ll examine flash fiction (very, very short stories) and get started on some of our own. On the last day, we will look at examples of off-the-page visual/verbal art and experiment with mixing text and objects or other art media.”
Nance’s recent works include No Starling, After a Spell, and Curtain Creek Farm. She has received two National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships and a Pushcart Prize, among others. (An interview with Nance Van Winckel follows the festival schedule below.)
Each day’s class pinpoints and exercises different essential elements of writing. One class can be taken as a stand-alone class, or you can come for all three, as a three-day series. If you purchase a Jumpstart! ticket, you have admission to the lectures and panels for that day, as well. The Jumpstart! classes can be taken instead of a workshop, but not in addition to the workshop.
Festival attendees are coming from all across the country, but islanders can attend the festival without leaving home. Panels are open Friday morning and Sunday afternoon, lectures will be held for the public on Saturday afternoon, and the Saturday night faculty reading at the Madrona Room is open to the public, from 7 to 9 pm. Gene Nery will open the evening with music and readings from Sue Silverman, Nance Van Winckel, and David Jauss will follow.
For more information or to register visit orcasislandwritersfestival.com, or contact Festival Director Barbara Lewis at 360-317-4383.
2010 Festival Schedule
Friday, September 17, 2010
| 8:00 – 8:30 | Check-in |
| 8:30 – 9:45 | Orientation (Barbara Lewis, Festival Director) |
| 10:00 – 12:00 | Faculty Panel: “Publishing and the Writing Life” (Faculty) |
| 12:00 – 2:00 | Lunch break |
| 2:00 – 4:00 | Jumpstart! class – Day 1, Prose Poems (Nance Van Winckel) |
| 2:00 – 5:00 | Fiction and Nonfiction Workshops (David Jauss, Sue Silverman) |
Saturday, September 18, 2010
| 8:00 – 8:30 | Check-in |
| 9:00 – 12:00 | Fiction and Nonfiction Workshops (David Jauss, Sue Silverman) |
| 10:00 – 12:00 | Jumpstart! class – Day 2, Flash Fiction (Nance Van Winckel) |
| 12:00 – 2:00 | Lunch break |
| 2:00 – 3:30 | Lecture: “Savory Metaphors” (Sue Silverman) |
| 3:30 – 5:00 | Lecture: “Go in Fear of Abstractions: Conveying Emotion in Writing” (David Jauss) |
| 7:00 – 9:00 | Faculty Evening Reading with opening music by Gene Nery |
Sunday, September 19, 2010
| 9:00 – 12:00 | Fiction and Nonfiction Workshops (David Jauss, Sue Silverman) |
| 10:00 – 12:00 | Jumpstart! class – Day 3, Writing Off the Page (Nance Van Winckel) |
| 12:00 – 2:00 | Lunch break |
| 2:00 – 3:30 | Lecture: “Poetry and Prose: Writing off the Page” (Nance Van Winckel) |
| 3:30 – 5:00 | Panel: The Road to Publication – Regional Authors Share Their Stories (Coordinated by Iris Graville, Lopez publisher) |
| 5:00 – 7:00 | Send-off Buffet |
