Hello, everyone. We are pleased to report that there are still a few spaces left for you to join us on the mountain this August—but not many. Jill McCorkle’s class is full with a waiting list, as are classes with Phillip Shabazz and Darnell Arnoult. There are still openings in John Bemis’s class in “Speculative Fiction,” Abigail DeWitt’s class in “Freewriting,” two spots in Denton Loving’s “Beginning Poetry,” and one seat left in Annette Clapsaddle’s “Rein in Your Novel.” Register at tablerockwriters.com.
We will definitely fill all 59 rooms available to us at Wildacres, and there are folks who will be staying offsite and commuting to the mountain each day for meals, camaraderie, class meetings, and “Table Rock Jeopardy.”
Bonus Session in 2024
This year we are delighted to welcome Susie Pratt, author of More or Less: Essays from a Year of No Buying from EastOver Press. She’ll be presenting a one-hour afternoon craft session:
Writing in Conversation With Other Text
None of us create in a vacuum. All our work is in some way responding to the world around us. For writers, this often means engaging in a creative conversation with the writing that has inspired or shaped our work. Please join essayist Susannah Q. Pratt as she discusses how to carry this creative conversation into your writing. Whether responding to a body of literature, specific text, or discrete line, Pratt will share examples from a variety of writers and will discuss how this kind of generative conversation can find its way into your work and enhance your written voice. This session is open to all who are interested.
John Bemis explains his class in Speculative Fiction
Speculative fiction is a catch-all term for stories that involve elements primarily of fantasy or science fiction. Any sort of story where the rules of our ordinary world are bent in order to speculate about what could be or what might one day happen. A sort of “What if…” story that could involve magical characters, fantastical worlds, time travel, possibilities for the future of humanity either wondrous or terrifying.
As the writer Lloyd Alexander said, “Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” In our class, we’ll look at how our speculative fiction stories can speak to deep truths and metaphors about universal struggles, just as myths and legends of old did.
I’ve always loved this genre. From classics like J.R.R Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin to contemporary superstars like Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman. I adore how many writers who might otherwise be considered “literary”— like Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, and Kazuo Ishiguro—have explored speculative fiction to create what I consider some of my favorite novels by them.
There’s something so delicious about playing with that heightened sense of wonder and dread you get in a great speculative fiction novel.
Writers who join my class will find a community who delights in these sorts of stories as well. We’ll have rich discussions about our characters and their struggles. We’ll look at how to make our stories as riveting as possible for readers. We’ll support one another in becoming better, more imaginative writers. Simply put, we’ll have lots of fun.
BEMIS ME UP, SCOTTY: John Bemis will also be presenting/teaching this year at:
John C. Campbell Folk School from April 21-26, leading a course on “Writing for Young Readers and Young Adults.” For more information, visit FOLK SCHOOL.
At a chateau outside Bordeaux, France, October 6-12. Spend a week deepening your storytelling skills. See FOREWORD RETREATS.
A Solo Art Show, at Hillsborough Arts Council gallery from April 20 to June 23, with two receptions on April 26 and on May 31 from 6-8 pm. This event is John’s first art show and features the amazing masks he makes (shown above left).
Q&A with Abigail DeWitt on freewriting…
What exactly is “freewriting”?
To paraphrase Dorothea Brande’s classic text, Becoming a Writer, freewriting is a way to discover your own particular writing genius.
At its most basic, freewriting is simply writing as fast as you can, without worrying about spelling, grammar, punctuation, legibility, or logic. Someone says begin and you start writing whatever pops into your head. You can write a poem, a rant, a shopping list, nonsense, or even the same word over and over. Then someone says stop and you stop.
People often free-write for a few minutes to loosen up and relax before settling into a more traditional style of writing. I like doing that, but I also like writing in the traditional way for a few minutes before settling into serious freewriting.
By “serious freewriting,” I mean a combination of absolute lawlessness and absolute discipline. There are no rules about what to write, but the rules about how to write are very strict: You have to write for a predetermined amount of time. You can’t stop moving your pen/pencil for any reason. It doesn’t matter if you can’t think of anything to say or someone’s knocking on the door or you suddenly realize you don’t want to be a writer after all. You have to keep putting words on the page. You can’t cross anything out or pause to read anything over. You have to begin the instant someone says begin and stop the instant they say stop, even if you’re in the middle of a word or have just remembered why you do want to be a writer.
The reason for this combination of rigidity and formlessness is to give your secret, wildest writing self—your own particular genius—a safe, contained space to come into. If someone tells you to write your deepest truth, you may stare at the page for a long time, trying to present that truth in a way that will be palatable to others. But if someone tells you to write without thinking, without concern for logic, eloquence, grammar, punctuation, etc., the deep truth is likely to pop out unexpectedly.
At the start of every freewriting exercise, I offer a sensory-based prompt, which participants are free to ignore; I think of these prompts not as assignments (that wouldn’t be freewriting) but as phrases writers can return to when they’re stuck. I also use sensory prompts because the mention of a smell, taste, sound, or color right before the word begin often stirs a writer’s unconscious in profound ways.
Besides the freewriting prompts, what is your role in helping writers in your workshops see what they have on the page once the exercise is done?
In a 3-hour class, we usually do two 15-minute free writing exercises. The rest of the time, we discuss how to identify and make use of the images and ideas that have surfaced in an exercise. We talk about how to read what seems like nonsense the way an ultrasound technician reads a pattern of shadows and how some “nonsense” just needs a little dusting off to reveal itself as gold.
We also discuss the relationship between the prompts and the freewriting. We consider the way sensory detail awakens memory and perception and the often surprising ways a smell, sound, taste, color, or texture can be used to solve a multitude of plot and character questions.
How has this practice helped writers across genres move to a new place in a project?
Free writing is all about discovery. Memoirists recall scenes they thought they’d forgotten or discover new perspectives on familiar stories; they may realize that what they thought was uninteresting about their lives is what’s most interesting or that their long-settled opinion about a family member has suddenly shifted. Fiction writers may realize that the villain of their story is the heroine or that what seemed like a throw away scene is the story’s climax. Because I always teach freewriting in fifteen-minute segments, many writers also discover a love of flash fiction. Best of all, writers re-discover the sense of play and wonder that their imaginations need to keep going.
Honoring Judy Goldman through the TR Scholarship Fund
By Laurel Ferejohn
Hey Rockers and rollers, writers and songwriters! The scholarship named for our beloved memoir teacher Judy Goldman is officially rolled out and ready for contributions! All you have to do to earmark your contribution is to type "For the Judy Goldman Scholarship" in the comment field when you donate to Table Rock/Solatido on RCWMS. Start at https://tablerockwriters.com/scholarships.html , where you'll find complete donation instructions.
Also, with 2024 registrations in full swing, it's scholarship application time again. There are still a few available, and any writer or songwriter who'd like to attend is welcome to apply—including you or someone you know. It's a simple, noncompetitive, one-page process, and a scholarship significantly defrays the cost of joining us on the mountain for an extraordinary learning and community-building experience. Please spread the word!
ONE MORE NOTE:
Robin Hemley invites us to join him in Vietnam!
Join co-founders of Authors at Large Robin Hemley and Xu Xi for a literary retreat in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Submit a manuscript of fiction or nonfiction two weeks in advance of the retreat. Robin and Xu will read your work and each meet with you separately during the retreat to offer private editorial feedback. We also lead daily generative writing workshops every morning and afternoon. There are daily salons and readings as well as optional excursions in this historic city. Maximum group size is 24 to allow for an intimate, meaningful week of literary engagement.
June 2 to 9, 2024 at the Caravelle Hotel
Retreat fee US$1,500 includes two private editorial sessions (your manuscript will be returned with written comments), ten 90-minute generative workshops, salons, opportunity to present readings of your work, welcome and farewell dinners with wine included, private writing time + a week of literary conversations.
Robin Hemley robinhemley.com Xu Xi xuxiwriter.com
For more information and to see our itinerary, visit https://authorsatlarge.com/vietnam-2024