Click on session date for a brief description of each workshop in that session.
Then click on any title for a detailed description of that specific workshop.
2019 Iowa Summer Writing Festival Schedule of Workshops
Mary Allen |
Encounters with Our Lives: Spiritual Writing |
Kate Aspengren |
Playwrights Workshop |
Thomas K. Dean |
Shaping the Memoir and Personal Essay |
Hope Edelman |
The Story beneath Your Story: A Memoir-in-Progress Workshop |
Hugh Ferrer |
In Convincing Style: Prose Textures, Poetic Effects |
Vince Gotera |
Wilderness Map: Beginning Poetry Workshop |
Wayne Johnson |
Novel Solutions |
Derek Nnuro |
Fire Up: Novel Engines |
Lon Otto |
Flash Fictions, Prose Poems, Micro Memoirs |
Zach Savich |
Old Poems, New Poems: Revising and Moving Forward |
Ami Silber |
What Every Fiction Writer Can Learn from Romance Novels |
Thomas K. Dean |
Revising Sentences for Impact |
Hope Edelman |
Time and Place: What Happened, Where and When |
Mieke Eerkens |
Experimenting with Form: Using Creative Structures and Approaches in Our Writing |
Eric Goodman |
Write Funny to Me |
Vince Gotera |
Jazz June: Sound and Writing Poems |
Sands Hall |
Do I Really Know My Narrator? Strengthening Point of View |
Christine Hemp |
The Short-Short Nonfiction Triptych |
Jim Heynen |
Writing Emotions |
Zach Savich |
Enhancing the Essay: Making Memoir Do More |
Sandra Scofield |
All Those Pages: Talk about Your Novel |
Ami Silber |
Selling Your Book: Elevator Pitches, Back Cover Copy, and Query Letters |
Amy Butcher |
Essay Bootcamp: A Generously Generative Workshop |
Mieke Eerkens |
Picture This: Exploring and Incorporating Images into Our Writing |
Max Garland |
Familiarizing the Strange/Mystifying the Familiar: A Poetry Workshop |
Eric Goodman |
The Final Draft: On Finishing and Knowing When You’ve Finished Your Novel |
Sands Hall |
Fiction Strategies for the Memoirist |
Christine Hemp |
Belonging: The Geographies of Nonfiction |
Jim Heynen |
From Memory to Art: Poems, Prose Poems, Short-Short Fiction |
Wayne Johnson |
Telling the Tale: A Nonfiction Workshop |
Marc Nieson |
Writing the Short Story—Love Letters |
Lon Otto |
Deep Revision: Fiction & Narrative Nonfiction |
Sandra Scofield |
Empowering the Novelist: Tools and Techniques to Guide You in a First Draft |
Maxine Swann |
Pygmalion or Bringing Your Characters to Life |
Marilyn Abildskov |
Trespassing Encouraged: A Generative Workshop for All Genres |
Jonathan Blum |
Who Is I?: Experiments in Fictional Identity |
Amy Butcher |
The Literary Memoir |
Kelly Dwyer |
Writing the Popular Novel (In Any Genre) |
Mieke Eerkens |
Promptapalooza 2019 |
Hugh Ferrer |
Clock and Camera: Immersing the Reader |
Katie Ford |
Draft after Draft: Write a Dozen Poems |
Allen Gee |
The M.F.A. Application |
Michael Morse |
Revisionist Singing—Walking Your Poems through the Ages |
Marc Nieson |
The Art of Metaphor |
Lon Otto |
Writing a Child’s Perspective: Fiction, Memoir, & Poetry |
Maxine Swann |
Loosen Your Hand |
Marilyn Abildskov |
You Are the Subject: The Personal Essay |
Linda Bendorf |
Your Legacy as Memoir: The Essence of a Life |
Jonathan Blum |
Short Story Workshop |
Kelly Dwyer |
Five Elements of the Novel |
Hugh Ferrer |
Inventing Memory: A Workshop on Imagery |
Katie Ford |
Advanced Poetry Workshop: Heart, Guts, & Craft |
Allen Gee |
Writing America |
Cecile Goding |
Call and Response: A Workshop in Correspondence Writing |
James McKean |
Memoir: Pieces for the Whole |
June Melby |
A Hedonistic Week of Creative Indulgence (For Your Muse) |
Michael Morse |
Think Twice/Think Again—Making Poems from Inspiration & Calculation |
Sandra Scofield4 |
Agency, Struggle, and Transformation of Character in the Novel |
Susan Aizenberg |
Working with Imagery: A Generative Poetry Workshop |
Mary Allen |
Writing from the Heart: A Creative Jumpstart |
Thomas Fox Averill |
What’s Happening—Plot in Fiction |
Venise Berry |
Shades of Gray: Sensuality vs. Sex |
Jennifer Fawcett |
Writing around the Edges |
Diana Goetsch |
“Cut These Words and They Bleed”: A Nonfiction Writing Intensive |
Tricia Park |
The Art of Unbalance: Using Disequilibrium and Vulnerability to Deepen Your Writing |
Martin Pousson |
Freeze Frame: Writing the Very Short Story |
Kathleen Rooney |
The Fantastic Mongrel: Getting Started on Prose Poetry |
Mary Kay Shanley |
Perspective in Your Memoir |
Carol Spindel |
The Overstuffed Closet: A Weekend of Mini-Memoirs |
Sarah Strickley |
Starting Your Novel |
Dorothy Barresi |
Identity Poetics: Writing the Self in Politically Charged Times |
Timothy Bascom |
Formed By Family: Writing about Those Who Shape Us |
Tameka Cage Conley |
Time on My Side?: Managing Time and Tension in Fiction |
Kelly Dwyer |
Plotting the Novel |
Jennifer Fawcett |
A Play in a Week: The Building Blocks of Playwriting |
Diana Goetsch |
Free-Writing Intensive: A Workshop for All Genres |
Jeremy Jones |
More than Memoir |
Jude Nutter |
Poetic Alchemy: From First Draft to Final Draft |
Rachel Pastan |
Experiment, Embellish, Enlarge: Revising Your Way into Story |
Martin Pousson |
Link Letters: Writing the Novel-in-Stories |
Suzanne Scanlon |
Make It Strange—A Generative Workshop |
Carol Spindel |
Finding Your Threads: Shaping and Structuring Nonfiction |
Ian Stansel |
Starting (And Finishing) Your Novel |
Steven Wright |
Beyond Genre: The Art of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, and Horror |
Timothy Bascom |
Writing Inventive (Not Just Creative) Nonfiction |
Venise Berry |
Writing a Successful Book Proposal |
Sarah Sadie Busse/ Jacqueline Briggs Martin |
Setting the Stage for Wonder: Magic and Mystery in Children’s Picture Books |
Kelly Dwyer |
Flash Fiction in a Flash: Writing (And Submitting) Publishable Flash Fiction |
Jennifer Fawcett |
Solo Performance 101 |
Diana Goetsch |
Five New Poems: A Generative Workshop for All Levels |
Jeremy Jones |
Writing about Nowhere |
Margaret LeMay |
Writing Health: A Multi-Genre Generative Weekend |
BK Loren |
Author as Architect: Radical Revision of Fiction and Nonfiction |
Jude Nutter |
Walking in the Field of Words: Using the Natural Landscape in Poems |
Beau O’Reilly |
Finish the Thing! |
Rachel Pastan |
Fear and Loathing, and Sometimes Even Joy: Getting Emotion on the Page |
Sarah Strickley |
Nurturing a Daily Writing Practice |
Susan Aizenberg |
Writing Alone Together: A Week-Long Retreat for Generating New Poems |
Nancy K. Barry |
Revising How You Revise: A Workshop for Nonfiction Writers |
Robin Hemley |
The Frangible Memoir |
Charles Holdefer |
The Balancing Act: Narration, Character and Dialogue in Fiction |
Naomi Jackson |
This Summer, You Write Your Novel |
BK Loren |
Word Yoga: Exercises to Invite Your Words to Stretch, Focus, Breathe |
Sabrina Orah Mark |
Writing the Chimera: A Workshop on Hybrid Forms |
Malinda McCollum |
Five Day MFA: A Fiction Workshop |
Beau O’Reilly |
Writing the Two-Character Play: A Workshop on Making the One-Act |
Juliet Patterson |
The Art of Description |
Sarah Saffian |
Advanced Memoir: The Art and Craft of the Personal Essay |
Suzanne Scanlon |
Writing as Resistance |
Laurel Snyder |
The Wild Rumpus: A Picture Book Workshop |
Anthony Varallo |
Get In, Get Out, Go On: A Short Story and Novel Workshop |
Two-Week Intensive Workshops July 14-26
Amber Dermont |
Novel Manuscript Workshop |
Sandra Scofield |
Memoir Manuscript Workshop |
Nancy K. Barry |
Whose Voice Is This?: A Primer on Style |
Venise Berry |
Muddy Water: Controlling Plot, Subplots, and Plot Points in Your Novel |
Jennifer Colville |
Imagery for Prose Writers |
Tameka Cage Conley |
Poet-ing the Self: Memoir and the Lyric |
Cecile Goding |
After the Bell: A Workshop for Schoolteachers |
Margaret LeMay |
Short Forms in Flight: A Multi-Genre Generative Weekend |
Juliet Patterson |
A Broken Thing: The Poetic Line |
Sarah Saffian |
So What’s Your (Life) Story? Memoir in a Nutshell |
Suzanne Scanlon |
Polishing and Publishing Your Short Prose |
Mary Kay Shanley |
Smaller Pictures Deliver Bigger, Better Stories |