Date: September 17, 2008
Contact:
Brian Cottam, Associate Director
Southern Utah University Office of Regional Services
435-865-8023
cottamb@suu.edu
Paul Husselbee
Media Relations
435-865-8556
husselbee@suu.edu
Visiting scholars and playwrights will share tips for creative writing and teaching at “The Mirror of Words: A Mosaic of Self-Portraits,” this year’s installment of the annual Creative Writing Conference for Teachers sponsored by the Southern Utah University Department of Englishand the Utah Arts Council.
The conference begins Wednesday, Sept. 24, and continues through Friday, Sept. 26, on the SUU campus.
Corrine Clegg Hales of Fresno State University will teach a workshop about writing and teaching poetry as self-reflection. Another prominent author and teacher, Todd Petersen of Southern Utah University, will lead a workshop on writing and teaching fiction as a mosaic.
Kay Cook of the University of Colorado-Boulder and Mike Dorrell, dramaturge of the Salt Lake Acting Company, will team up to teach a workshop titled, “Self-Portraits and Stolen Identity: The Origin of Characters.” SUU’s College of Performing and Visual Arts is a co-sponsor of the workshop, which will include a discussion with Dorrell and Cook about staged readings of their plays.
Scott Sorensen, a licensed clinical social worker who heads the University of Utah’s Master’s of Rural Social Work program on the SUU campus, will lead a roundtable discussion, “Sharing Writing Strategies for At-Risk Youth.” The session is sponsored by SUU Regional Services.
Michael Bahr, education director for the Utah Shakespearean Festival, will also participate, and conference attendees will have the opportunity to attend USF’s production of Moonlight and Magnolias.
A highlight of the conference will be a reading by guest writer Corrinne Clegg Hales. She will be joined by SUU alumni Joe Willis and J.D. Olenslager on Wednesday, Sept. 24, at 7 p.m. in the Whiting Room of the Hunter Conference Center. The reading is free and open to the public.
The conference will include a graduate-level course for educators that will include on-campus instruction by the writers of assigned texts, as well as follow-up online discussions and implementation of ideas.
For more information, contact Danielle Dubrasky at 435-865-8138 or dubrasky@suu.edu. There is also the schedule at the Creative Writing Workshop web site.