Arts Illiana initiated WordFest: Wabash Valley Creative Writing Symposium in December 2011  We are excited to convene creative writers to network, provide the opportunity for sharing works in progress, and offer professional guidance to emerging writers.   Our goal is 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. 

Save the Date!  WordFest 2012 will be held December 1, 2012 at the Vigo County Public Library.

Download Brochure & Registration Form

WordFest Schedule of Workshops & Presenters

Saturday, December 1, 2012

9:30—11:30 am Sessions

Micah Ling, Keynote Speaker and Workshop Presenter
Workshop: When to Break and When to Hold
The power of the line-break is immense--an additional tool of punctuation, only privy to poetry. But sometimes, there's just as much power in letting the line go on: not boxing it or breaking it. We'll discuss both the power of the line-break and the power of a block of prose. 

Award-winning Hoosier poet Micah Ling returns to Terre Haute having served as a judge for the 2012 Ehrmann Poetry Competition. Having taught English department of Franklin College and in the MFA program at Butler, Ling recently took a position in the English department at Fordham University in Manhattan. In 2011, she won the Indiana Emerging Author award.

Laura Mason
Workshop:  Speak For Yourself- timed writing exercises about our life experiences. Choose a time and get it done; just one page is better than none.  Use of prompts from which to choose and timed writings create a fresh, tight piece.  Pass-outs of themes provided.  Sharing encouraged.  Tools to use for writing on own.  Pen and notebook required. The workshop is recommended for all, but Laura especially encourages seniors to attend.

Laura is a published poet and writer.  She has served as a creative writing instructor for ISU non-credit classes and Westminster Village workshops.  She also assisted in leading two long-term writers’ groups and has been a finalist in various contests—Max Ehrmann Poetry Contest 2012. 

Roxane Gay
Workshop: The Brutal Languages of Love
This fiction workshop will focus on the (im)possibility of writing love stories in their infinite variations. While it could be said all stories are love stories, we will try to complicate that understanding and also look at how to write love and sex into fiction in ways that are compelling, original, and emotionally evocative.

Roxane Gay's writing appears or is forthcoming in Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, New Stories from the Midwest 2011 and 2012, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review, NOON, Brevity and others. She writes regularly for Salon, The Rumpus, and Wall Street Journal. She is the co-editor of PANK, and teaches writing at Eastern Illinois University.

Lunch:  11:30 am—12:30pm  (Buffet Lunch with Keynote by Micah Ling at Noon.)

Saturday, December 1, 2012 

12:45-2:45 pm Sessions:

Karen Kovacik
Workshop: Bottled Lightning and Origami Folds:  Poets Inventing Their Own Forms
Karen Kovacik is the current Indiana Poet Laureate. 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’s professor of English at IUPUI. 

Stacey Muncie
Workshop:  Everyone Has a Story: Interviewing and Writing for Human Interest Pieces
Learn the tips and tricks to effective human interest storytelling--interview preparation, interacting with subjects to get the best results for your written work, and techniques for organizing interview notes and discerning what makes compelling story. Participants will conduct a mini-interview during the session and compose brief piece on that person to exercise the skills they learned in class. Non-fiction writers should bring a brief biography which includes a hobby or interest they enjoy.  Fiction writers should bring a similar brief bio of a fictional character they've created, and be prepared to BE that character for the hands-on portion on the class.  The exercise will allow fiction writers to hone their character development skills from the inside, and also get feedback on how their character is perceived.

Stace Muncie is a freelance writer, humorist, and all-around word nerd who specializes in creative non-fiction and feature writing. Her column "The Riot Act" (Terre Haute Living) features light-hearted rants about topics ranging from peevish to "Daang!"

Aaron Michael Morales
Workshop:  No Pleading the Fifth: An Exercise in Unearthing Character MotivationAaron Michael Morales is an associate professor of English & Gender Studies at Indiana State University. His first       novel, Drowning Tucson (2010) was named a “Top Five Fiction Debut” by Poets & Writers. Morales was a finalist    for the 2011 Indiana Author’s Award. 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.

2:45-3:45 pm   Panel Discussion:  The Creative Process, Midwestern Style
 Four award-winning authors and contributors to New Stories from the Midwest, a yearly anthology published by       Indiana University Press, discuss the writing process and the when, where, how, and why the Midwest fits into that process, from the seed of an idea to the published product.  

Panel Members: 

  
Jason Lee Brown, Panel Moderator, is Series Editor of New Stories from The Midwest (Indiana University Press) and a contributing editor of River Styx. His writing has been nominated for six Pushcart Prizes and appeared in numerous national literary journals. He teaches writing at Eastern Illinois University.

Ian Stansel is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He is a fiction writer and playwright and former editor of Gulf Coast, the nationally- distributed journal housed within the University of Houston's English Department. He currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he works as a freelance writer and as an editor for Heuer Publishing.

Chad Simpson won the 2012 John Simmons Short Fiction Award from the University of Iowa Press for his collection of stories, Tell Everyone I Said Hi. He lives in Monmouth, Illinois, and teaches fiction writing and literature at Knox College.

Bonnie Nadzam's debut novel, Lamb (Other Press), won the Center for Fiction's 2011 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. Her work has appeared in Granta, Harper's, Epoch, Orion Magazine, The Iowa Review, and others.

Beth Mayer’s fiction has appeared in The Threepenny Review and The Sun. Her story “The Way to Mercy,” which was selected for the first New Stories from the Midwest, also made the “Other Distinguished Stories” list featured in Best American Mystery Stories 2010. She teaches English at Century College, where she coordinates a reading series and advises the student Writers’ Bloc.

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