Mendocino Writers Blog

Fun time of the year--The conference brochure is here

The conference brochure is now available for download at the conference web site. This announcement starts a fun time of the year when we get to make our choices for the schedule. To see how well the faculty members fit our writing interests, the web site is the place to start.

Dig into the descriptions of the three day workshops to find offerings for all levels, emerging writers to advanced.

For intermediate to advanced writers, a Master Class has been added this year. It is titled "Revision for Fiction and Creative Nonfiction." A ten-page manuscript for review prior to admittance to this class is required, plus an additional fee of $100, to be refunded if not admitted. Like the other three day workshops, this class will go from 9:00 A.M. to 11:30 A.M. March 15th is opening date for registration. Class sizes are limited and applications are processed in the order of their postmarked date

Another class for intermediate to advanced memoir writers is Kat Meads' "What's Interesting about Me (to more than me)? Memoir Writing." Sometimes, writing fiction is a spin-off of our experiences, and may benefit from Kat's excellent direction. Participants of her 2007 session "Strategies for Revising, Re-imagining and Improving Your Prose" were treated to her high energy and valuable insights.

Best of all about researching our picks for the schedule, Tony Eppstein's work on the conference site has links to the faculty's bios, their own web sites, and detailed descriptions of the workshops and lectures.

Once we've decided how we'll fill our 'activities card' we can send it all off then start the next project for the writers conference--the writing contests. Entries must be postmarked on or before May 31, 2010 to be considered. Categories are:

• Poetry: 3-5 poems
• Short Fiction: one short story up to 2500 words
• Novel: an excerpt of up to 2500 words
• Creative Non-Fiction: essay, article or book excerpt up to 2500 words

...has anyone entered in all categories? We'll get back to you on FaceBook.

Stefanie Freele's book reviewed in The Short Review

Stefanie Freele is part of the 2010 writers conference faculty, and her book, Feeding Strays,  just received a nice review in The Short Review.

Finding My Way through Creative Nonfiction by Pilar Graham - Creative Nonfiction Presenter - 2009

     I’m lost. I have to surrender because I don’t always know where I am going. I have no map as to how I must address memory or story. What I do know is that in order to tell a good story I need to think small. The larger pieces have a better chance to find their place in the story. In order to think small I have to slow down long enough to evaluate the whole truth. What creative nonfiction form should I use: memoir, personal essay, prose, literary journalism, nature essay etc.? With poetry as my first language, I know I must rely on what feels like a metaphoric journey, with the gift of being more fluid than water itself. It’s this watery past—often referred to as a “moving image” that must be slowed down long enough to catch a glimpse of what it wants me to see—even if they arrive fragmented and bias. Regardless of which creative nonfiction form I choose (or surrender to) I still must decide what it to focus on, and what to leave out. It’s a matter of remembering and forgetting. I am, in turn, celebrating something that would have otherwise been forgotten, and in the act of writing, I am no less, confirming, perhaps even celebrating the experience. This much I know to be true. Before I take on any creative nonfiction task, I remind myself that it’s the incidents or the situations that create story and this is point I go small and weave myself into my translation of the story. These situations presents the context or circumstances, often times the hidden plot. As I became seduced into the world of creative nonfiction writing, it was nature writing that found my true calling; here in this solace place of pace, I found an array of writers who posed bigger questions in their writing, like Walt Whitman—not just his foundational poetry, but the records of eloquent and insightful prose; Annie Dillard, Lisa Knopp, Robert Root, Scott Russell Sanders, and Kim Barnes—to name of few, and all of whom have impacted not only the way I see the world, but how I respond to it. The attempt of the nature essay is to pose bigger questions about the world around the writer. The goal of the essay is not to describe in detail about what the writer is observing, but to open up the channels on larger subjects, make connections, and make note between the worlds within the world they are observing. One must be excellent observer. “No one ever gets tired of the moon. Goddess that she is by dower of her eternal beauty, she is a true woman by tact—knows the charm of being seldom seen, of coming by surprise and staying but a little while; never wears the same dress two nights running, nor all night the same way; commends herself to the matter-of-fact people by her usefulness, and makes her uselessness adored by poets, artists, and all lovers in all lands; lends herself to every symbolism and to every emblem; is Diana’s bow and Venus’s mirror and Mary’s throne; is a sickle, a scarf, an eyebrow, his face or her face, as look’d at by her or him; is the madman’s hell, the poets heaven, the baby’s toy, the philosopher’s study; and while her admires follow her footsteps, and hang on her lovely looks, she knows how to keep her woman’s secret—her other side—unguess’d and unguessable,” (Whitman, Walt. “Whitman: Poetry and Prose.” Specimen Days. Library of America College Editions, 1996. 851-852). Perhaps Whitman’s keen account of the world around him (displayed through his poetry, prose, and essays) set the pace and influenced some of the world’s highly recognized essays not only on nature, but in the courageous act of finding one’s way through creative nonfiction.

Benjamin Percy article in Poets & Writers

Rising star fiction writer Benjamin Percy, a presenter at this summer's Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, has an article in the latest (July/August) issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. It's titled "The Geometry of Dialogue: How to Maintain Momentum in Fiction." In it he describes an approach to writing dialogue that adds dimension to characters and moves the story forward.

Bonnie Hearn Hill: Fiction Presenter at 2009 conference

Bonnie Hearn Hill

In 2004, Bonnie Hearn Hill left her day job after signing two back-to-back three-book contracts with MIRA Books. In 2006, her short story, Part Light, Part Memory, appeared in Death Do Us Part, a Mystery Writers of America anthology edited by Harlan Coben. After publishing six thrillers with MIRA, she signed with Running Press/Perseus Books for three young adult astrology novels, which are due any day now (and will be published in 2010).

A newspaper editor for 22 years, as well as a national conference speaker and columnist/freelancer for a number of magazines, including Publishers Weekly, she has been mentoring writers since 1990. She is especially proud that The Tuesdays, the Fresno, California writing class she began at that time, is now 100 percent published. Her first speaking engagement was at the third Mendocino Coast Writers Conference.

ELLEN BASS: POETRY PRESENTER 2009 CONFERENCE

Ellen Bass's most recent book of poetry, The Human Line (Copper Canyon, 2007), was named a Notable Book of 2007 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Mules of Love (BOA, 2002) won the Lambda Literary Award. Journal publication credits include The Atlantic Monthly, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Field, and The Kenyon Review. Among her awards for poetry are a Pushcart Prize, the Elliston Book Award, The Pablo Neruda Prize from Nimrod/Hardman, the Larry Levis Prize from Missouri Review, the New Letters Prize, the Greensboro Award, the Chautaqua Poetry Prize, a Fellowship from the California Arts Council and a Fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

She has also written nonfiction books for gay, lesbian and bisexual youth and women survivors of child sexual abuse She teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University.

Visit Her Website