Arts Illiana is pleased to invite you to attend WordFest: Wabash Valley Creative Writing Symposium.  With this premiere event, we are excited to convene creative writers to network, provide the opportunity for sharing works in progress, and offer professional guidance to emerging writers.  We have worked to establish a well-rounded schedule of presentations and workshops led by a group of talented professionals who have expertise across a wide variety of literary genres.  Join us on December 2 & 3, 2011 at the Vigo County Public Library in downtown Terre Haute.  The reception and keynote address are free and open to the public.  Link to the brochure with registration form here. The registration deadline is November 18, 2011.  Call Arts Illiana at 812-235-5007 or email sherri@artsilliana.org if you have questions.

Friday, December 2, 2011

7:00pm-8:45 pm

Welcome Reception
Main Library Lobby

Karen Kovacik (2012 Indiana Poet Laureate)

Keynote address:  “Creative Reading”

Karen Kovacik was born in East Chicago, Indiana, and grew up in Highland, in Lake County. She’s the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Metropolis Burning, and her work has received numerous honors, including the Charity Randall Citation from the International Poetry Forum, the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Prize, and a Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis. She has received a fellowship in literary translation from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Fulbright Research Grant to Poland, and her translations of contemporary Polish poetry have appeared in many anthologies and journals, such as American Poetry Review, Crazyhorse and Southern Review. She’s professor of English at IUPUI, where she directs the creative writing program. In 2010, her poem “Invisible Movements” won the Moving Forward contest and will be installed along the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. In January 2012, she will become Indiana’s next Poet Laureate.

Following her keynote speech, Dr. Kovacik will be reading a selection of her poems.

Saturday, December 3, 2011
Morning Sessions will run from 9:30-11:30 am

Matthew Brennan
“The Creative Process:  Five Essential Steps to Writing a Good Poem”
A concrete look at the process of writing a poem from inspiration to publication.

Matt Brennan has taught poetry writing in the Department of English at ISU since 1985.  He has published four collections of poetry, most recently The House with the Mansard Roof (Backwaters Press, 2009) and The Light of Common Day, a chapbook (Finishing Line Press, 2011).  His poems have appeared in the Sewanee Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Notre Dame Review, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere.  In 1999 he won the Thomas Merton Center Prize for Poetry of the Sacred.

Aaron Michael Morales
“Digging in the Dirt—A Discussion of Setting” as Character Workshop
Whether interested in depicting the hardscrabble lives of city dwellers, the serenity of the countryside, or somewhere in between, join author and professor Aaron Michael Morales for a discussion on how writers use language to uniquely capture the character of a place.

Aaron Michael Morales is an associate professor of English & Gender Studies at Indiana State University. His first novel, Drowning Tucson (2010)—cited by Esquire as “the bleakly human debut of the new Bukowski”—was named a “Top Five Fiction Debut” by Poets & Writers. Morales is currently a finalist for the 2011 Indiana Author’s Award. Other books include a chapbook of short fiction, titled From Here You Can Almost See the End of the Desert (2008), and a textbook, American Mashup: A Popular Culture Reader (2011). He edits fiction for Grasslands Review and reviews books for BULL: Men’s Fiction, Latino Poetry Review, and Multicultural Review. He is completing his second novel, Eat Your Children.

Arthur Feinsod
Playwriting Workshop

Dr. Arthur Feinsod, professor of theater, is currently Artistic Director of the Crossroads Repertory Theatre and served as Theater Department Chair from 2001-2009.  After receiving his B.A. from Harvard (magna cum laude, phi beta kappa), his M.A. from UC Berkeley’s “scholar/director” program, and his Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University, he taught for sixteen years at Trinity College in Connecticut, where he was the recipient of the Arthur Hughes Award for Accomplishment in Teaching. At ISU, he teaches an introduction to theater for majors as well as courses in playwriting, directing, theater history, history of theatrical style, and mask acting.  For the last six years he has been a member of the ISU University Honors Advisory Board, where he developed a “great works” requirement for all ISU honors students. His most recent productions for Crossroads Rep (formerly ISU SummerStage) were A Doll House (2006); A Raisin in the Sun (2007); The Fantasticks (2009); The Sunshine Boys (2010); and Godspell (2011).  In 2010, Feinsod was a recipient of the Caleb Mills Distinguished Teaching Award and, in 2011, was voted by ISU honors students as Faculty Member of the Year.

Zann Carter
Word Play/Fun and Games/Serious Inspiration
Consider this workshop a playdate with words. It offers a variety of creative writing ideas to jumpstart the work of beginning writers and provide fresh images and new perspectives for the more experienced.  The focus is on poetry, but the activities and prompts will give inspiration for prose as well.

Zann Carter is a poet and fiber artist living In Terre Haute, IN. She has facilitated writing workshops for local non-profits and co-hosts Poetry at the Grounds, a monthly open reading at the Coffee Grounds Coffee House in Terre Haute, now in its 4th year.  She is a founder of subTerreanean, a collaborative publication arising from the Grounds reading community. In 2011, she was the Grand Prize winner of Art Spaces' Max Ehrmann Poetry Competition. Always looking to integrate her love of words and fiber, she has knitted the letters "B", "N" and "Z" for two UK poetry festivals' giant knitted poems.  Her webpage is at www.zanncarter.com.

11:30-12:45
Lunch on your own
(Map of downtown eateries will be provided.)

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Afternoon Sessions will run from 12:45-2:45 pm

Mark Minster
Poetry Workshop
"Renga: Japanese Linked Verse"

Mark Minster is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.  His areas of specialization are multifaceted, including literature and the environment, religion and literature, creative writing, and 19^th century literature.  Minster’s research activities include literature and the environment, sustainability, horizontal transcendence, religion and ecology.

Chris Hudson
Creative Non-Fiction Workshop

"From Memoir to Gonzo Journalism." 
Working to add more detail, sensory allusions, content/form issues.  Workshop includes discussion of difference between noncreative fiction and creative fiction, the line between literary license and fiction.

 (Participants are asked to bring in a nonfiction piece on which they are currently working on.  Participants will focus on a certain section of their work, adding the “creative” part.)

Chris Hudson is Associate Professor of English/Writing Director and Chair of the Department of Languages and Literature at Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods College.  He earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Austin.  His research activities include contemporary American writers, Waldo Frank and Latin America; and literary theory.  Hudson serves on the education committee for Art Spaces, Inc. and has volunteered for Art Reach and the United Way funding committee.

Joe Hiland
"People Made of Words: Crafting Character in Fiction”
This workshop will focus on the topic of characters in fiction, with an emphasis on the techniques writers use to reveal and establish character traits in the early pages of a short story or novel.  

Joe Hiland was born and raised in Cincinnati.  He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Ohio University and is currently an MFA candidate in Indiana University's creative writing program, where he serves as Associate Fiction Editor of the Indiana Review.  Joe is the recipient of the Ernest Hemingway Fellowship in Fiction and the Lois Davidson Ellis Fellowship in Creative Writing.  His short story "When the Green Went Away" received a 2011 AWP Intro Journals Award and was published in Colorado Review.

Dan Gallagher
“600 Words or Less:  A Flash Fiction Workshop.”
Flash fiction (or micro-fiction, or the short-short story) is a condensed form of fiction writing intended to cut down the word count without losing the emotional or visceral impact of the piece.  In this workshop, we'll look at examples of successful flash fiction, discuss places online and in print where the form is celebrated, and create our own pieces to share.  Please be prepared to actively write in this workshop.

Dan Gallagher joined the Effective Writing Center  at the University of Maryland Universiy College in Fall of 2010.  He also worked as an administrator in the Temple University Writing Center for many years. His major interests lie in discovering how students learn to write, how instructors teach writing, and how writing centers play a role in both.  When he's not doing writing center work, Dan writes fiction (long, short, and in-between), which he has also previously taught. He is a founder of the wordbrew writing group and the online journal sharing the same name.

2:45-3:15
Writing Session for Participants wishing to spend time on work they plan to share at the “Coffeehouse” Readings

2:45-3:45
Panel Discussion:  Publishing and Promoting your Work

(Panelists:  Aaron Morales; Jan Tilley (Rockville, IN author); Zann Carter; Peggy Tierney (owner, Tanglewood Press Publishing); facilitated by Corey Taylor (Assistant Professor of English, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)

3:45-4:30
The Coffeehouse:  Open Readings

(Participants are encouraged to bring a piece to share or share workshop pieces from the day.)

Event Sponsors:

and the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Department of Humanities and Social Sciences