The 14th Annual Fall Writer's Conference

The Writer's Palette

Join us as we explore the ways in which visual and performing arts influence and enhance the writer’s craft — and vice versa. Workshops will draw inspiration from photographs and paintings, explore the relationship of poetry to music, experiment with narrative form through pottery, and delve into the world of comics and graphic novels.

Sunday, October 23
10:00 pm to 5:00 pm | 56 Brattle Street
$56

Schedule

To register, visit the CCAE website HERE

Park in the Charles Square garage at the Charles Hotel all day (8 hours) for $15. Parking stickers available for purchase at the conference.

Workshop Details and Leader Biographies

KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MARILÈNE PHIPPS-KETTLEWELL

Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell is a poet, painter and short story writer who was born and grew up in Haiti. She has held fellowships at the Guggenheim Foundation, and at Harvard’s Bunting Institute, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, and the Center for the Study of World Religions. She won the 1993 Grolier poetry prize. Her collection Crossroads and Unholy Water won the Crab Orchard Poetry Prize, then was published by Southern Illinois University Press. Her poetry is also published by England’s Carcanet Press, and is found in numerous anthologies. Her collection The Company of Heaven won the 2010 Iowa Short Fiction Award. Her website is at www.marilenephipps.com.

WORKSHOPS

Tapping into the Elusive Secret of Character

Jane Katims

Many writers and artists consider the element of character central to their work. The great portrait photographer, Yousuf Karsh, was fascinated by the “inward power” of the people he photographed — “the elusive secret that hides in everyone.” Karsh often wrote word portraits to accompany his photographs; these were lively written accounts of his photo sessions, with dialogue and word imagery. These texts provide background and story to enhance the visual portraits. In this workshop, we’ll use photos and prints of paintings as prompts for our writing. In our written exercises, we’ll experiment with techniques for expressing character. Writers of all genres (poetry, fiction, memoir), as well as visual artists, are welcome to join.

Jane Katims is the author of the poetry collection Dancing on a Slippery Floor (2007). She teaches contemporary literature and creative writing at Tufts University and The Cambridge Center for Adult Education, as well as leading private workshops. Jane earned her BA at the University of Wisconsin and her M.Ed at Lesley University. She has received a Peabody Award and a John Woods Scholarship in Fiction Writing. Her short story, “Until Now,” appeared in the Spring 2009 all-fiction issue of Pearl Magazine. Jane is presently working on a novel. She lives with her family near Boston.


From Canvas to Page: Finding Inspiration in Visual Art

Charlotte Silver

The great paintings are full of deep emotion. Great writing is too. But emotion is one of the hardest things to write about originally and well. How can looking at paintings help stimulate and inspire the emotion we want to capture in our own writing? How can the visual specificity in them help to sharpen our own verbal details, so that our own words might be as rich and plaintive as beautiful paintings? In this workshop we’ll do close appreciations of paintings and passages and, should the group desire, some writing exercises. Writers in all genes are welcome.

Charlotte Silver's first book, Charlotte au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood, will be published by Riverhead in February 2012. Charlotte grew up in Harvard Square before attending Bennington College. She studied writing at The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and has been published in The New York Times. She lives in New York.


From Word to Image: Writing for Comics and Graphic Novels

Dan Mazur

In this workshop we will explore effective methods of writing narratives intended for the medium of comics and graphic novels. How does a writer communicate a story in words for an artist to translate into sequential pictures? We will discuss the basic requirements of an effective comics script; we will discuss the difference between writing prose, writing for the screen, and writing for comics; we will examine various approaches to comics scripting, reading examples and looking at finished products. Emphasis will be on technique, rather than content, and we will focus on storytelling at the level of a single page or very short episode. Drawing ability or experience is not required, but we will be experimenting with “thumbnailing,” for which stick-figure drawing will be required. Artists or illustrators who wish to improve their writing skills are welcome. Participants should bring either a work-in-progress comic script, a piece of original writing in another format (play, screenplay, prose) that they would like to adapt as a comic or graphic novel, or a short passage from an existing work in another medium, which, as an exercise, they would like to adapt.

Dan Mazur grew up and lives in Cambridge. He is a founding member of the Boston Comics Roundtable, and has co-edited five issues of the group’s anthology Inbound: Comics From Boston. He has also contributed comics to Inbound as well as to BCR’s other anthologies, Outbound and Hellbound, in addition to appearing in non-BCR anthologies, including I Saw You... His comic strip "Canyon Comix,” ran for five years in the Topanga Canyon Messenger newspaper, and he created the webcomic “Palindramas.” Previously, he worked in Hollywood as a story analyst, development executive, and screenwriter.


Poetry and Music

January Gill O'Neil

There is no poetry without music. And it is the job of the poet to recreate the experience of hearing music in poetic form. January Gill O’Neil will lead us in a session designed to focus our attention on the music in poetry. This session is part conversation, part workshop. Bring a favorite poem to discuss. We’ll also have a freewrite session so you will leave with at least one new draft.

January Gill O’Neil is the author of Underlife (CavanKerry Press). Underlife was a finalist for ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award, and the 2010 Paterson Poetry Prize. She was featured in Poets & Writers magazine’s January/February 2010 “Inspiration” issue as one of its 12 debut poets. She is on the planning committee for the 2011 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. A Cave Canem fellow, January is a senior writer/editor at Babson College and runs a popular blog called “Poet Mom” (poetmom.blogspot.com).


Pottery and Writing: Exploring Narrative Sculpture

Stephanie Schorow

Join us for an investigation of form — both physical and literary — and be prepared to get your hands dirty! We will explore narrative structure through the medium of clay, giving literal shape to our stories. We will combine poetry with pottery and experiment with mixed media to give richness and texture to our work. We’ll get inspired by examples of sculptures that straddle the boundaries between visual and literary arts, and we’ll test our own boundaries by using both sides of our brain — the linguistic left hemisphere and the spacial right hemisphere — to create artwork. Wear or bring clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty.

Stephanie Schorow is the author of Boston on Fire: A History of Fire and Firefighting in Boston, The Cocoanut Grove Fire, The Crime of the Century: How the Brink’s Robbers Stole Millions and the Hearts of Boston, and East of Boston: Notes from the Harbor Islands. She has also contributed research and editing to three regional books published by the Boston Globe. She is a former features editor for the Boston Herald, and has worked for the Associated Press and the TAB newspaper chain. She is currently working on her next book. As a clay artist, Stephanie has been working on perfecting her pottery since her first class at the CCAE in the early 1990s. She now concentrates on bowl and plate decorations and sells her work through bi-annual sales at Mudflat Studio.

To register, visit the CCAE website HERE