This post refers to a completed workshop. Please visit www.centrum.org/writing for the information on current writing experiences at Centrum.

with Brenda Miller
June 4-5, 2010

Designed for nascent, emerging, and established writers of creative nonfiction, this three-session techniques workshop will focus on generating new work. We’ll look at some of the properties of “shorts,” whether in short personal essays or in the segments that sometimes add up to memoir. The accompanying discussion will center on structural issues and strategies to strengthen a piece’s natural tendencies. The goal is at least one new piece through this workshop, as well as to gain a deeper understanding of the craft of nonfiction.

You can register online for this workshop or call us at 360.385.3102, x131.

FACULTY

Brenda Miller spends the academic year as associate professor of English at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Her collection of essays, Season of the Body was a finalist for the PEN American Center Book Award. Her newest collection of essays is Blessing of the Animals. Miller has received a number of Pushcart Prizes for her work. Her essays have appeared in such periodicals as the Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, and the Sun, among many others.

Miller is also widely acclaimed as a popular teacher of writing. The textbook that she co-authored with fellow WWU writing professor Suzanne Paola, Tell it Slant, is used in classrooms all over the world.

Tuition for this workshop is $395. Scholarship and financial aid funds are available. Housing is available for only $195 total for the full three nights! (Thursday, June 3; Friday, June 4, and Saturday, June 5.) Housing consists of private rooms in a large Victorian house overlooking the open fields and beaches of the state park, Admiralty Inlet and, across the water, Whidbey Island.

Thursday, June 3

• Check-In from 3:30 pm until evening
• 7-9 pm: Welcome Gathering, wine and hors d’oeuvres

Friday, June 4 

• 9 am-12 pm: Morning Workshop
• 1-5: Personal writing time
• 7 pm-9 pm: Evening Workshop

Saturday, June 5

• 9 am-12 pm: Morning Workshop
• 1-5: Personal writing time
• 7-9: Informal participant reading

Sunday, June 6 

• Departure