Creative nonfiction writer and teacher Liliana Valenzuela will be leading a workshop in exploring not just the work that you produce, but the very language that you use–often unconsciously–on the page. This is one of the core workshop offerings at the 2009 Port Townsend Writers' Conference, and one of the only ones that will focus on revising existing work, as well as generating new work.  

"This workshop in creative nonfiction will explore, at the sentence level, how you use language on the page," Valenzuela says. "We will also focus on enhancing your writing voice and repertoire with colloquialisms, regionalisms, eavesdropping, and sayings in order to deepen descriptions and characterization–both that of the narrator and the other characters. In private conferences I will review and comment on work submitted by students prior to the workshop in the genre of your choice (2-3 poems, or a 1,500-word-max essay or excerpt). While discussing your work, I will especially focus my comments on the way you use register, formal speech, colloquialisms, regional dialects, slang, and, if it applies to your work, multiple languages."

Registration for this workshop is available here, as well as by calling the Centrum Registrar at 360.385.3102, x114. Registrants in a core morning workshop receive free admission to all afternoon workshops.