Department of English

with the SUU English Department's annual Writing for Life Conference & Contest for High School Students

March 31 Workshop Descriptions

Each workshop will be available at 11:20 and again at 1:10; Master Classes are appropriate for junior and senior writers or for exceptionally advanced younger students.

Creative Nonfiction Letters as Literature
You can learn to write for a general audience by developing your ability to write a letter to a particular audience of one, a very special one. After reading and discussing samples of letters as literature, you will be given time to write your own letter and to revise your words for a larger audience without losing your voice. Presenter Alice Kane has written four creative nonfiction books based on the letter as personal essay. Additionally, her work has appeared in The Santa Clara Review, The Blue Benn Review,  Watershed and Spawn. Her piece, Blog, won runner-up in Western Humanities Review Spring Contest and will appear in their upcoming spring issue.

Fiction I Jumpstarting Your Writing
Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. This workshop will  help you develop ideas that are worth developing into short stories. A few short exercises led by accomplished SUU creative students are designed to jump start a writer into months of writing projects.

Fiction II Master Class for advanced writers/Graphic Novels (for junior and senior writers)
Scripting a graphic novel, memoir, or non-fiction piece is a specialized process. This hands-on workshop will focus on some general theories of visual narratives, concepts and use of the page and panel, overall story development, narrative visualization, storyboarding, and how to format a script for an artist's use in the creation of layouts and finished work. Presenter Dr. Todd Petersen teaches creative writing and visual studies courses in the Southern Utah University English Department. His collection of short stories, Long After Dark, recently received an Arty Award from Salt Lake City Weekly

Playwriting I Playing the Playwright!
Be the leader in creating a ten-minute play festival in your school. Led by experienced and produced playwrights, this session is jam-packed with all the elements of the ten-minute play you’ll need to know. In fact, you’ll even leave this workshop having started a play yourself. The presenters, senior creative writing majors Jillian Pagan and Mara Lefler, have recently had their own ten-minute plays produced in the Theatre and Dance  Department at SUU.

Playwriting II Master Class for advanced writers/Creating the One-Person Show  (for junior and senior writers)
From local theatres to Broadway, the one-person show is greatly popular. Expand your creativity by creating a number of characters to be performed by one person—you. This workshop will lead you through the process of gathering material for your show, transforming that material into a script, arranging the monologues that you create into a theatrical production. Helpful ideas about how to create different characters for yourself will get you started on your play. Presenter Dr. Kay K. Cook is a produced playwright; her most recent is Identity Crisis, produced by the SUU Directing I class, Theatre and Dance Department.

Poetry I Spelunking the Word Cave
Explore the meanings of words to discover your way into a poem. Presented by senior creative writing and English Honor Society students.

Poetry II Master Class for advanced writers/From the Writer's Block: The Poetic Sprint  (for junior and senior writers)
Get writing and go! Write a short, narrative poem in this workshop taught by Dr. Danielle Dubrasky, author of Persephone Awakened and winner of the 2006 Utah Arts Council poetry collection award.

Journalism
Local journalists will share their expertise as well as the highs and lows of writing for small publications.

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