Writing Center
with the SUU English Department's annual Creative Writing Contest for High School Students
March 30th Workshop Descriptions
Attend one of your three topic workshop choices in the morning and then a second of your top three workshops in the afternoon.
Creative Non-Fiction: Me, Myself, and I: Finding Yourself and Others by Alternating Your Point of View
by Julie Simon
Learning when to assert yourself as an "I" and when to put on the cloak of invisibility might give you a whole new way of looking not only at writing, but at the world. This workshop will give you the chance to experiment with word choice, sentence structure, and formats from blogging to news stories as you find your voice in the world of creative nonfiction.
Workshop presenter Dr. Julie Simon worked as an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor before joining Southern Utah University to teach writing. A past winner of prestigious Utah Arts Council Original Writing Contest awards in nonfiction and short fiction, she has published in a wide variety of formats.
Writing Close: Vocabulary and Character in Fiction Writing
by Dr. Todd Petersen
Once you have a plot and some characters, the next most important matter to decide upon is the perspective you'll be writing from. Standard first- and third-person point of view is a good start, but there is an important middle ground where a writer's language morphs into their narrator's and their characters' as well. In this workshop we'll be looking at the craft of "free indirect writing" in fiction--how to spot it and how to pull it off in your own work.
Dr. Todd Robert Petersen teaches creative writing in the English Department at Southern Utah University. He was an SUU Distinguished Educator in 2007 and the Outstanding Scholar in 2008. His second book, Rift, was published in 2009.
Writing Nature Poems
by Danielle Dubrasky
Learn to use concrete nouns and other techniques in language to describe the natural world. If weather permits, part of this workshop will take place outdoors.
Dr. Dubrasky is a recipient of a Virginia Center for Creative Arts Fellowship, and her manuscript Drift Migrations was a finalist in the 2010 White Pines Press Poetry Book Competition. She also received the 2006 Utah Arts Council First Place Award for a book-length collection of poems. She is the author of Persephone Awakened (2002), a chapbook of poems designed by book artist Sue Cotter of Woodhenge Press. Her poetry has been published in ECOllective, Tar River Poetry, Weber Studies, CityArts, Petroglyph, Irreantum, Dialogue and other places.
Scripting Comics and Graphic Novels
by C. Joe Willis
Whether it is four panels of a Sunday Peanuts comic strip, twenty eight pages about the zombie apocalypse, or a collection of caped crime fighting stories, comics and graphic novels start at a script before they are drawn into the brightly colored images and word bubbles we are familiar with. This workshop will show how comic and graphic novel scripts are formatted, the way writers communicate their story ideas and visions to their artists, and how the final product eventually comes together. Being able to draw is not a requirement for this workshop as the focus will be on the writing and scripting aspects of the comic and graphic novel creative process.
Joseph Willis teaches composition and rhetoric at Southern Utah University. As part of his master's degree course work, he finished his first collection of short stories, Help Wanted. He has recently written two plays for 24 Hour Theater at SUU, and his fiction has appeared at the Sigma Tau Delta honor society's international conference, and in Thin Air Magazine, and the Arts and Words Journal.
Creating Translations: Translating Creations
by Dr. Nozomi Irei
What kind of "creation" is a translated work? This workshop offers a venue for anyone with foreign language skills--of any level--to explore creativity through translating into English creative works from a foreign language. We will hopefully have a variety of languages represented, which will enrich our discussion of questions involving word choice, syntax, rhythm, rhyme, etc.,. Please bring 1) either a poem; or an excerpt from a novel, short story, or play--in any language; and 2) a bi-lingual dictionary.
Dr. Nozomi Irei's areas of interest include drama/theatre from different traditions; and literary and theatre theory.
Poetry/ Exploring Fascinating Forms
by Dr. Bryce Christensen
Meter, rhyme, stanzaic pattern—What can these traditional elements of prosody still offer in an age dominated by free verse? Find out in an exploratory session conducted by Dr. Bryce Christensen, whose own poetry has appeared in The Formalist, First Things, Snakeskin, and other publications.
Dr. Christensen, who teaches a variety of writing and literature classes at SUU, has published widely. In addition to the poems mentioned above, his most recent published works include a novel and scholarly essays.
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