Check out the full lineup of afternoon workshop offerings happening as part of the 2012 Port Townsend Writers’ Conference.

Here is a sampling: this is what is happening on only one of the workshop days. One-day afternoon-workshop passes are available for $50; $695 gets you everything that goes on for a full week–a core morning class and all afternoon workshops.

For more information about the Conference–now in its 39th consecutive year–please contact Jordan at jhartt(at)centrum(dot)org or call him at 360-385-3102, x131. Between two and four spots are still available in most workshops, except for the workshops of Cheryl Strayed and Dana Levin (full) and the workshops of Kim Addonizio, Erin Belieu, and Pam Houston (one space in each.)

Monday, July 9
8-9—Breakfast
9-11:30—Morning workshop
• Jennine Capó Crucet Room D
• Erin Belieu Room F
• Judith Kitchen Room H
• Chris Crutcher Room J
• Gary Copeland Lilley Room K
• Ashley Capps Room L
• Benjamin Alire Sáenz Room M
• Diane Roberts Room N
12-1:00—Lunch
2-3:30—Workshops and lectures in special topics
• Midge Raymond Room N
“Setting the Scene”
Place plays an important role in any story, from offering insight into characters to creating a mood. This workshop will help you get a sense of the where in your writing, from researching places to incorporating details and dialogue. We’ll look at classic and contemporary examples of how writers use setting to flesh out stories—and a variety of writing prompts will teach you how to pay attention to place in your work.
• Wendy Call Room D
“Build Your Own Rainbow: Narrative Arc”
In this workshop we’ll talk about how to build (and rebuild) a sturdy structure for your story. How do you create a narrative arc? What might one look like? Why have one at all? With help from Eduardo Galeano and Sandra Cisneros, we’ll answer all these questions and more, then we’ll map our own color-filled arcs.
• Alex Kuo Room L
“The Poetry of Witness”
This session will begin with a short discussion about what is poetry as witness (as in Forché’s “The Colonel” and Auden’s “September 1, 1939”) before we explore various ways of writing poetry about the cultural and political implications of what we experience daily. The main focus of each session will involve directed writing assignments and provide the opportunity to read and discuss each other’s work.
• Janée Baugher Room K
“Science Poetry”
Albert Einstein says, “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle, you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Praise the atom, the aorta, the arachnid! This workshop celebrates the miracle of the Natural Sciences by demystifying writing influenced by the sciences. In this workshop you’ll be introduced to poets who use biology, chemistry, physics, and math as subject matter, and you’ll begin to flex your own science-writing muscles with the help of in-class writing prompts.
• Afternoon Freewrite Room H
4-5—Craft lecture by Ashley Capps
5:30—Dinner
7:30—Readings by Sam Ligon; Diane Roberts
9:00—The Nine O’Clock Open-Mike Readings (Building 262)