Writers’ Festival: Register for Jumpstart! Classes Now

By Barbara Lewis
Orcas Island Writers Festival Director

Nance Van Winckel will return to the September 17-19 Orcas Island Writers Festival to teach her popular Jumpstart! class.

Nance is from eastern Washington. (But she loves Orcas!) The folks who attended her class last year raved about her helpful and fun approach to teaching the craft of writing. Participants are welcome to bring some short pieces to class, but this is not a formal critique class. You don’t have to submit anything. Whether you’ve been writing for years, thinking of trying another genre, or just getting going as a writer, Nance’s job will be to jumpstart the writing process for you. Nance writes prose and poetry and welcomes hybrid forms.

The Jumpstart! writing classes teach how to focus and enliven your writing, whether poetry or prose. 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.

• 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.

About Nance Van Winckel

Nance Van Winckel is the author of five books of poetry, including her most recent, No Starling (University of Washington, 2007), and After a Spell (Miami University, 1998), which received the Washington State Governor’s Award for Poetry. She has also published three books of short stories.

Nance has received two National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships, a Pu shcart Prize, Poetry’s Friends of Literature Award, Prairie Schooner’s 2007 Edward Stanley Award, two Washington State Artist Trust Awards, The Midland Authors Award, and awards from the Poetry Society of America.

Nance has taught in the MFA in Writing Program at Eastern Washington University since 1990 and served as editor of the literary journal Willow Springs from 1990 until 1996. She has also taught in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program since 1999. In addition, she does some private manuscript consulting work. Her website is www.nancevanwinckel.com. Nance lives in Spokane, Washington, with her husband, visual artist Rik Nelson.

Jumpstart! Class Fees

The Jumpstart! tickets are available for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Each day costs $75 and includes the Jumpstart! class for that day, as well as the lectures, panels, or other events available on that day. (For example, if you buy Saturday’s Jumpstart! ticket, you can also attend all Saturday lectures and the Faculty Evening Reading.) All Jumpstart! participants are also welcome to our Sunday Send-off Buffet.

Jumpstart tickets will be available for purchase online or by mail-in registration form until September 10, 2010. If room is available, Jumpstart! tickets will also be available at the door for $85/ticket.

Go to www.orcasislandwritersfestival.com for more information and to register. Call 360-317-4383 for further information.