Writing at Centrum

Memory's Vault

With nine days to go until the thirty-sixth annual Port Townsend Writers' Conference, we're creating a special post today to talk about Memory's Vault, one of the Conference's most venerated sites.

Located up on the wooded hill above the Fort campus, the site displays multiple pillars inscribed with poems by Sam Hamill--the founder of Copper Canyon Press and the third director of the Port Townsend Writers' Conference.

The poems are also collected in Hamill's book "Destination Zero" and center around Fort Worden State Park itself, and on its transformation from a military base to a place of peace and recreation. The poems praise the natural area, and focus deeply on the human presence in the Pacific Northwest, and no trip to the Port Townsend Writers' Conference is complete without a pilgrimage to the site.

T Minus Ten Days and Counting Down: The 2009 Port Townsend Writers' Conference

Imagine: a verdant park setting with classroom space, long stretches of beach, and only two short miles to such outdoor decks and restaurants such as the one pictured right. Now add nearly two-hundred of the most passionate and dedicated writers in the Pacific Northwest and you have something approaching the 2009 Port Townsend Writers' Conference.

It all starts Sunday, July 12, and features a full bevy of morning workshops, afternoon workshops, freewrites, craft lectures, and evening readings. Daily schedule is enclosed. We'll see you at the Fort!

THE 2009 PORT TOWNSEND WRITERS’ CONFERENCE

 

All faculty readings and lectures take place in the Wheeler Theater; all meals take place in the Fort Worden Commons.

 

Sunday July 12

3:30-5:30—Check-in outside the Centrum office building; cocktails on the bluff

5:30—Dinner

7:15—Welcome at the Joseph F. Wheeler Theater

7:30—Readings by Mark Doty; Kim Barnes

 

Monday July 13

7-8—Morning Freewrite Room D

8-9—Breakfast

9-11:30—Morning workshop

·        Chris Abani Room D

·        Kim Barnes Room M

·        Adrian Castro Room F

·        Denise Chávez Room K

·        Tony Cohan Room L

·        Mark Doty Room J     

·        Peter Orner Room O

·        Robert Wrigley Room N

12-1:00—Lunch

2-3:30—Workshops and lectures in special topics

·        Lana Ayers Room N

“The List Poem as Expression of Obsession and Ecstasy” Anthropologists have discovered that cultures which developed written language in short order began cataloging or making lists. It is human nature to want to keep the names of all the birds we see or tell our beloved all ways we love them. In this session we’ll explore various poets’ approaches to list poems—including the work of Christopher Smart, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Pablo Neruda, Joy Harjo, Lucille Clifton and Wallace Stevens—and delve in to generating one of our own.

·        Wendy Call Room D

“Twelve Ways to Improve Your Nonfiction Prose”

We’ll discuss a dozen suggestions for improving the literary and narrative quality of your nonfiction prose, with examples from some of our best-loved nonfiction word-workers.

·        Deborah Poe Room F

“Writing with Scientific Thought”

As prose and poetry writers, we will reflect on how one can use science to inspire creative writing. By looking at writing samples from such writers as Arthur Sze, Czeslaw Milosz, Primo Levi, Italo Calvino, Andrea Barrett, and Rikki Ducornet, we’ll consider how established writers use scientific ideas in their own work.  Though our focus is not an introduction of scientific terms per se, we will use scientific thought as launching pads for creative writing, generating work during the workshop. The workshop is designed to provide new channels to access new work.

• Sam Ligon—Room O

“The Short-Short Story”

In Remembrance of Things Past, Proust talks about the tyranny of rhyme forcing poets into some of their greatest lines. But prose writers have less experience with formal constraints, like rhyme, to put pressure on lines, and as a means to consider form in general. In this class we’ll examine the form of the short-short story, how it often works (and doesn’t), as well as how formal constraint can change the way we approach line and story. Because there’s so little space in a short-short, evocative outlines, shadows, implication, and suggestion hover at the edges. Short-shorts tend to rely on surprise, a hard, tight turn at the end. They can feel elliptical or fragmented, and are not always concerned with depth and complexity of character as much as with emotional gravity within a moment. Lydia Davis calls the short-short “a nervous form of story.” Charles Baxter says the short-short needs “surprise, a quick turning of the wrist toward texture, something suddenly broken or quickly repaired.” Mark Strand says, “Its end is erasure.”

• Ellie Mathews—Room L

“Introduction to Writing for Young Readers”

This workshop will touch on picture books on up through full-length YA novels, emphasizing story arc and structure, whether in fiction or narrative nonfiction. We will cover myths and assumptions about the field, talk about audience age categories, and discuss resources available to those interested in writing literature for children. Discussions will focus on story idea generation, story openings and endings, and examples from well-known children’s literature. In-class exercises, time permitting.

4-5—Lecture by Chris Abani: “Separating ‘Ritual’ from ‘Process’ in Fiction”

5:30—Dinner

7:30—Readings by Paul Lisicky, Sam Ligon

 

 

The Countdown Continues....Eleven Days to Go

The thirty-sixth annual Port Townsend Writers' Conference begins in eleven days. We're marking down the time each day with a new photo by Centrum alumna Elizabeth Thorpe, who will also be in-residence during the 2009 gathering.

This is a view of Point Hudson as seen from Fort Worden State Park, which has hosted the summer gathering each year since 1974.

Just a reminder: check-in is Sunday, July 12, between 3:30 and 5 pm. And registration for afternoon workshops are available here, as well as by calling us at 360.385.3102, x114.

The Countdown: Twelve Days Remaining!

As we celebrate the last day of June, we also look ahead to next month! Only twelve days remain until the beginning of the Port Townsend Writers' Conference, an intense week-long celebration of literature and the writing life. Enclosed is a picture taken by Centrum alumna Elizabeth Thorpe during the 2008 Conference.

We'll be keeping our Readings and Lectures series free and open to the public this year, thanks to a generous grant from Humanities Washington. Every evening at 7:30, two writers will read from new work. It all starts the evening of July 12, with readings by National Book Award-winning poet Mark Doty and famed western novelist and nonfiction writers Kim Barnes, whose new manuscript-in-progress is set in Saudi Arabia.  

The Countdown Continues...Thirteen Days To Go!

We're now thirteen days--fewer than two weeks!--away from the thirty-sixth annual Port Townsend Writers' Conference. To celebrate, here's a picture taken during last year's Conference. Very Northwest: the water, the rocks, the wet sand, the empty blue sky.

For those of you who are not registered for the Conference, there are still ways to enjoy everything that the Conference has to offer. The public Readings and Lectures series will present such writers as Chris Abani, Kim Barnes, Mark Doty, Peter Orner, and Robert Wrigley giving free public readings and craft lectures every afternoon at 4 pm and every evening at 7:30 pm. (The week of July 12-18)

The only other way to still get involved is through the afternoon workshops. These go from 2 to 3:30 pm every afternoon, featuring a full spectrum of topics in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. For more information, please call 360.385.3102, x131, or browse our afternoon workshop page.

Continuing the Countdown to the Port Townsend Writers' Conference

As we mark down the time to the thirty-sixth annual Port Townsend Writers' Conference, we're showing a series of photos taken during the 2008 gathering. The building to the right might look familiar to you! Since 1974, it's hosted such writers as Conference founder Bill Ransom, Kenneth Rexroth, Ken Kesey, Alice Walker, James Welch, and many, many others. This year, it'll be the site of workshops by such writers as Chris Abani, Kim Barnes, Mark Doty, Robert Wrigley, Peter Orner, and many others, as well as the site of the Conference bookstore, computer lab, and all of the morning freewrites.

We'll see you here soon! If you aren't registered, and would like to be a part of the gathering, please call 360.385.3102, x131.

Countdown to the Port Townsend Writers' Conference!

We're at twenty days, now, until the thirty-sixth annual Port Townsend Writers' Conference! As we mark the time down, we're showing a series of photos taken by PTWC alum Elizabeth Thorpe. I love the one on the left, here. A palette of gray and light blue, the hidden light's reflection on the water, the dark sand like a bass note on the bottom layer.

Right now, PTWC writers are making their flight plans--remember to register for the shuttle!--sending in manuscripts, and getting ready for what will be a fabulous week.