LBF WordShopsThe WordShop component of the Louisiana Book Festival offers writing WordShops emphasizing craft. Faculty, local and national, are highly credentialed and have a commitment to teaching. WordShops are serious educational experiences, presented in a supportive, informal environment, appropriate for both novice and advanced writers, as well as anyone who enjoys books and good conversation. Equally important is the development of the Louisiana community of students and teachers who support art in literature as well as one another’s pursuits. The Louisiana Book Festival WordShops function under the assumption that everyone is creative and anyone can write. We offer the tools to craft your work. We respect you and your writing, and whatever your writing background, we treat you like a professional and strive to boost your confidence to create. The varied backgrounds that students can bring to the classroom enrich the creative process for everyone; we welcome a diverse mix of participants. |
Schedule
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Building a Story
Singleton would like for participants attending “Building a Story,” if at all possible, “to go to the library or bookstore and look at the first paragraphs of a hundred or so contemporary short stories published in New Stories from the South (any year), The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Virginia Quarterly Review and so on.” His further assignment: “Keep on reading if the story grabs you, but—for now—I need for you only to understand how quickly conflict emerges in contemporary stories. If you’re able to undertake this little assignment, pick one or two of your favorite openings, photocopy them and bring them to the workshop.” Singleton’s work includes The Half-Mammals of Dixie, Why Dogs Chase Cars, Drowning in Gruel, Novel: A Novel and Work Shirts for Madmen. More than one hundred of his stories have been published nationally in magazines including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Playboy, Zoetrope, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Oxford American and even one on a paper napkin for Esquire’s napkin project, among others, and in many anthologies, including They Write Among Us, Best Food Writing 2005, Surreal South, Who Can Save Us Now? and several New Stories from the South annual collections. Singleton lives in Pickens County, South Carolina, with ceramicist Glenda Guion and their mixture of strays. |
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Writing the Short Memoir Everyone has a pressing personal story to tell, whether a hurricane saga or a tale about the drunk uncle who ruined a wedding. Creative nonfiction uses the dramatic techniques of fiction to vividly recreate autobiographical stories. In “Writing the Short Memoir” presented by writer James Nolan, participants will focus on using the elements of scene setting, significant details, dialogue and plotting to structure experience into short publishable memoirs, much like the "Lives" page in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Participants will also learn where they can and can't fudge on the facts, how to create an arresting lead, and how to center their personal narratives around family, food, travel and other categories for the publishing markets. No manuscript sample or prior experience is required of participants, although fiction-writing experience is helpful. Participants should come armed with a good story to tell, and with multiple, double-spaced copies of (a) one brief paragraph of setting, using sensual details that evoke the scene they wish to conjure, and (b) no more than half a page of dialogue between two characters in that setting. Photocopied readings will be distributed before the workshop. Nolan's latest book is the award-winning short story collection, Perpetual Care. He teaches workshops in fiction/creative nonfiction at the Loyola Writing Institute of Loyola University. Recently he has published personal narratives in The Washington Post, St. Petersburg Times, The Times-Picayune, Utne Reader, Gastronomica, Boulevard and North American Review. |
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Verse vs. Chorus
McCormick was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is currently a staff songwriter for Warner Chappell Music in Nashville; and recently he enjoyed his first top 40 hit single, “We Rode in Trucks,” with Luke Bryan. His songs also have been recorded by Tim McGraw, Trisha Yearwood, Randy Travis, Trace Adkins, Ronnie Milsap, Amanda Shaw and many others. |
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Writing the Poems that Live Inside You
“Writing the Poems that Live Inside You” presented by poet Darrell Bourque is a hands-on workshop designed for beginning as well as experienced writers. Participants will work with artifact, memory, and response strategies for shaping poems into articulations and conversations with what lies as near to us as experience and as distant as history and ancestry. The workshop will begin with a few short, guided exercises called “Seeking the language of the poem.” Then Bourque will move the attendees into a set of prompts followed by impromptu writings which are designed to render the first drafts of poems. Bourque will attempt to leave the writers with four or five well-started drafts which they can then develop and shape into finished poems. While the workshop may allow for several writers to read from drafts they produce in the impromptu sessions, this is not a critique or a technique workshop. Bourque will make suggestions about where to go for those more formal concerns but will not address them directly in this workshop. The reference materials include illustrative suggestions from Sei Shōnagon and Lady Murasaki to Sandy Lyne, Li Young Lee, Mary Oliver and Mark Doty. Bourque is Professor Emeritus in English and Interdisciplinary Humanities at The University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He has published four books of poems: Plainsongs, The Doors Between Us, Burnt Water Suite and The Blue Boat. Fourteen of his poems are included in Elemore Morgan Jr.’s retrospective catalog, Where Land Meets Sky. He has recently completed a manuscript, Call and Response: A Conversation in Verse, with Louisiana poet Jack Bedell and is finishing a new collection, In Ordinary Light. Bourque is the 2007-08 State of Louisiana Poet Laureate. |
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How to Write A Successful Children's Book Join children's book author and Louisiana native Elizabeth Singer Hunt for a fast-paced workshop on how to write and publish a successful children's book. The second half will guide participants through various publishing options, including self-publishing and the more traditional route of working with a large publisher. Hunt will also discuss finding a literary agent, negotiating contracts and selling TV/ Film rights. Hunt is the author of the popular Secret Agent Jack Stalwart series for children. Since publication in England more than two years ago, nearly 250,000 copies have been sold worldwide. The twelve book series has been published in seven languages and has been listed by the British Education Secretary as a 'must read' for boys and is currently being issued in its Americanized version. Hunt was raised in River Ridge, Louisiana, and graduated from St. Mary's Dominican High School in New Orleans in 1988. |
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“In this workshop, I will stress the importance of a good driveway leading up to your story,” says George Singleton. “The writers will work on foundations, flooring, mirrored entranceways, reliable plumbing and a leak-proof roof. Through a series of prompts and exercises, I’ll try to show the writers the importance of walls, and the best place to have windows. Without all of this construction metaphor, I will focus on how to write strong openings, realistic dialogue and the final paragraph.”
Participants in this songwriting workshop, “Verse vs. Chorus: Popular Song Lyric Writing,” presented by successful songwriter Jim McCormick, are offered the opportunity to immerse themselves in the art of song lyric writing at any level and for any genre. Topics will include Lyric Writing, Song Structures, and the Business of Songwriting. Examples of successful contemporary songs will be examined closely. McCormick will focus on what makes a song commercially successful in today's marketplace and the strategies that a writer can use to help sharpen one’s lyric writing.
We all live in the world of poems, and the poet is the person who knows how to respond to the poem that is already there in its nascent form, and then does so.