PLACE-BASED WRITING: Writing as if the World Matters
October 13-15, 2006
The Inn at Lucky Mud
Skamokawa, WA 98647
1-800-806-7131
Workshop registration $200.00
Includes:
Friday light dinner
Saturday lunch
Saturday dinner
Sunday lunch
Prices for
two-night
accommodations, including breakfast [Please add to the $200 registration] :
Inn single room $220.00
(queen)
Inn double room, each 110.00
(queen/twin)
Cottage master (queen) 200.00
Cottage single (4) 70.00
NOTE: Five spots will be open to those who wish to make their own overnight arrangements.
Friday 7-9 p.m.
Saturday 9-12, 1-5, 7-9
Sunday 9-12, 1-3
WASHINGTON STATE TEACHERS: This is State In-service weekend; the workshop will offer clock hours, number as yet to be assigned. Forms will be available on site.
PROGRAM AGENDA
Program Objectives:
Students will understand and be able to apply:
1. The ideas, unique approach, and aspirations of place-based writing.
2. Tools and techniques that will enliven all creative forms of text.
3. The importance and methods of experiencing the natural world.
4. Means of direct sensory engagement with particular details of place.
5. How to translate place-based experience into effective language, and how to supportively
critique and revise place-centered manuscripts.
Program Outline & Schedule:
7:00-7:15pm Welcome, introductions, and overview of workshop.
7:15-7:30 Opening quick writing exercise: "The River of Words."
7:30-9:00 The origins, history, and evolution of place-based writing, Gilbert White to T.T. Williams; natural history vs.
October 14:
9:00-9:15am Wake-up River of Words, based on K.D. Moore's River Walking.
9:15-10:15 Getting the words right: Setting, Action, Cadence, Precision, and Narrative, from Abbey to Zwinger vis Kesey
and Stafford.
10:15-10:30 Break
10:30-12:00 Guided exercise out-of-doors: describing event-in-place.
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Context, connection, and Nabokov's "individuating detail."
2:00-2:15 River of Words, based on David James Duncan's Riverteeth.
2:15-2:30 Break
2:30-3:30 Guided writing out-of-doors: confronting the nature of place.
4:00-5:00 Sharing, reading, and critique of place-based texts.
5:00-7:00 Dinner/break
7:00-8:00 Thoreau, Carson, Hay, Sanders, Ray, Moore: selected readings
8:00-9:00 Guided discussion: How did they do it?
October 15:
9:00-9:15am Wake-up River of Words, based on a poem by Pattiann Rogers.
9:15-10:15 Methods of engaging all five senses to inform and enliven writing.
10:15-10:30 Break
10:30-12:00 Walking the High Ridge: the writer as scientist and artist.
12:00-1:00pm Lunch
1:00-2:00 Guided writing out-of-doors, drawing upon both sides of the brain
2:00-3:00 Sharing and guided discussion of writing generated by this place.