Compose Conference 2019

Tami Harper

<P>Clackamas Community College’s annual creative writing conference – Compose – features a full day of workshops from local authors and publishers.  This year, we are offering workshops in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, publishing, and more!!</P>
<P>Schedule for the Day:</P>
<P><SPAN>8:45am-9:15am / Registration</SPAN><BR><SPAN>9:30am-10:30am / Welcome Address</SPAN><BR><SPAN>10:45am-12:15pm / Workshops</SPAN><BR><SPAN>12:30pm-1:30pm / Lunch</SPAN><BR><SPAN>1:45pm-3:15pm / Workshops</SPAN><BR><SPAN>3:30pm-5:00pm / Workshops</SPAN><BR></P>
<P> Our Creatives confirmed so far (with more to be added soon):</P>
<UL>
<LI><SPAN>Kate Gray</SPAN></LI>
<LI>Kate Ristau</LI>
<LI><SPAN>Tabitha Blankenbiller</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Stephanie Lenox</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Dennis Stovall</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Brett Warnock</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Trista Cornelius &amp; Robin Vada</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Melissa Duclos</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Apricot Irving</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Courtenay Hameister</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Jessica Wadleigh</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Wendy Willis</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>Stevan Allred</SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN>John Sibley Williams</SPAN></LI>
</UL>
<HR>
<H2>Workshops 10:45am-12:15pm</H2>
<H3>FICTION (RR209) </H3>
<H4>Finding Your Character's Voice</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">What do we mean when we talk about “voice” in literature? How can writers give their characters distinct voices? Author Stevan Allred developed many character voices for his fantasy novel, <I>The Alehouse at the End of the </I>World, and he created 15 distinct voices for the linked short stories in his collection <I>A Simplified Map of the Real World.</I> Writers who take this workshop will be best served if they have a character they want to work on in mind when they arrive. Please bring digital or analog (pencil and paper) writing platforms for doing the exercises.</P>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal"><STRONG>Stevan Allred</STRONG> lives in Portland, halfway between Hav and the Isle of the Dead, which is to say he spends as much time burrowed into his imagination as he possibly can. His books are the fantasy novel <I>The Alehouse at the End of the World, </I>and <I>A Simplified Map of the Real World</I>.</P>
<H3>POETRY (RR205) </H3>
<H4>What Makes You You: The Poet’s Voice<BR></H4>
<P>Tell it like nobody else. Leap into it, on it. Splash. Learn your own sound. Participants should bring 3 of their characteristic poems that they have revised beforehand. This workshop will include examples, investigating your own work, writing, and feedback.</P>
<P><STRONG>Kate Gray's</STRONG> passion stems from teaching, coaching writers, and volunteering as a writing facilitator with women inmates. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, two full-length poetry collections, and one novel. Kate and her partner live in a purple house in Portland, Oregon with their impetuous dog. </P>
<H3>CNF (RR206)</H3>
<H4>Humorous Memoir: From "Oh F*ck" to Funny</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">This class focuses on re-framing one’s personal experiences in order to present the frustrating, sad, earth-shattering and humiliating moments in our lives in a humorous way. We’ll cover topics like emotional stakes, heightening, relatability, and story structure. Writers will learn how to subvert expectations, find the hook, and, most importantly, find the universal truth of their story. This class is perfect for bloggers, columnists, or folks who are interested in writing their own version of Lindy West’s <I>Shrill, </I>Tina Fey’s <I>Bossypants </I>or the “realish” stories of David Sedaris.</P>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal"><STRONG>Courtenay Hameister</STRONG> is an author, teacher, columnist and the former host and head writer for public radio's Live Wire. Her first book, <I>Okay Fine Whatever: The Year I Went From Being Afraid of Everything to Only Being Afraid of Most Things</I> is available now.</P>
<H3 CLASS="MsoNormal">PUBLISHING (RR207) </H3>
<H4>Guide Map to Publishing and Storytelling</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">What does it mean to be a "publisher?” From a single person with an Instagram account, to a self-published zine, to small press publishing and beyond, what avenues exist for someone interesting in creative storytelling? Social media, blogs, zines, freelance writing, short stories, long-form. What are the commonalities that bind these?</P>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">In this workshop, you will explore the themes, topics, and ideas that interest you, learn how to edit and polish your work, then choose a platform for getting it out into the world for public consumption. </P>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal"><STRONG>Brett Warnock</STRONG> is the founder and co-publisher of comics and graphic novel imprint, Top Shelf Productions, and is currently the publisher and editor-in-chief of Kitchen Table Magazine.</P>
<H3 CLASS="MsoNormal">CREATIVE MINDS (RR208) </H3>
<H4>Opening the Creative Mind: Breathing and Bending Your Way to Clarity and Confidence</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">Practice simple meditation techniques and gentle stretching to calm your creative mind, clear mental clutter, and silence self-doubt. Writer and illustrator Trista Cornelius and filmmaker and meditation teacher Robin Vada will help you rejuvenate the joy of the creative process and uncover a few new writing ideas.  </P>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal"><STRONG>Trista Cornelius</STRONG> is a writer and illustrator cultivating cheer through her warm and whimsical cards, coloring books, and snail mail. Previously, Trista taught college English and loves helping students of all ages and abilities find their writing voice. Her essays have been published online and in print, and you can see her creative work at <A HREF="http://carrotcondo.com/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">carrotcondo.com</A> or visit her shop at <A HREF="http://www.etsy.com/shop/CarrotCondo" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">www.etsy.com/shop/CarrotCondo</A>.  <BR> <BR> <STRONG>Robin Vada</STRONG> brings a grounded, warm, and practical approach to meditation. She has practiced meditation for most of her life and began teaching in 2010. As a filmmaker, musician, and poet, she has personally used these techniques to find her way through creative blocks more times than she can count! You can see her creative work at RobinVada.com</P>
<HR>
<H2>Workshops 1:45pm-3:15pm</H2>
<H3>FICTION (RR207) </H3>
<P><STRONG>Kate Ristau</STRONG> is a folklorist, an author, and the Executive Director of Willamette Writers. Her essays have appeared in <I>The New York Times</I> and <I>The Washington Post</I>. She is the author of the middle-grade series, <I>Clockbreakers</I>, and the young adult series, <I>Shadow Girl</I>. Find her online at <A HREF="http://kateristau.com/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Kateristau.com</A>.</P>
<H3>POETRY (RR206)</H3>
<H4>TBA</H4>
<H3>CNF (RR208) </H3>
<H4>Recipes for Fantastic Food Writing</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">In this workshop, we’ll be examining forms and themes to infuse your writing with the best that the food writing genre has to offer. Going beyond simple food blogging, we’ll look at masterful examples from Ann Hood, Samantha Irby, Geraldine DeRuiter, and others for inspiration on how recipes, dining, memories, and heritage can inform our writing in fresh, unexpected ways. We’ll then experiment with prompts to evoke culinary-centric essays that combine personal experience with those most universal concepts of hunger and desire.</P>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal"><STRONG>Tabitha Blankenbiller</STRONG> has published essays in a number of journals including Tin House, Salon, Serious Eats, Narratively, and Bustle. Her debut collection EATS OF EDEN was released in 2018. She teaches classes with Catapult, and maintains that her fried chicken is way better than Screen Door’s.</P>
<H3 CLASS="MsoNormal">PUBLISHING (RR205) </H3>
<H4>Telling Lives - A Ghost in the Attics of Others</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">Have you considered being a ghost? Perhaps you should. Ghostwriting can be a fascinating and profitable trade, but it can also be an exceptional opportunity to learn craft while being paid. Dennis has used ghosting in just those ways and will share the lessons he has learned about mirroring the minds of others while sharpening one’s own. By extension, organizations and businesses frequently use writers-for-hire to write their stories and open related possibilities. The session will discuss finding opportunities and clients; appreciating the differences between biographies and memoir; ghostly etiquette, organization and politics of projects, and getting properly paid. </P>
<P><STRONG>Dennis Stovall</STRONG> founded Ooligan Press and PSU's publishing program after he and Linny Stovall sold Blue Heron Publishing, which published writers such as Robin Cody, Lydia Yuknavitch, Ken Kesey, Chuck Palaniuk, and Ursula Le Guin. A native of The Dalles, he has been writing for his life since he was a kid. He’s now retired, but not from writing.</P>
<H3 CLASS="MsoNormal">WRITING ACTIVIST (RR209) </H3>
<H4>Writer as Activist, Activist as Writer</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">Every day, we wake up to turmoil in Washington, D.C. and right here in our own community. We ask ourselves: “What can we do?” Since we’re writers, I guess the first answer is: “Write.” Fortunately, we are in good company and can take inspiration from writers around the world. In this workshop, we will look at the writing of poets and fiction-writers and essayists who have risen to the occasion. We’ll follow their lead and do our own writing in response to the times we live in. All genres and writing experience welcome.</P>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal"><STRONG>Wendy Willis</STRONG> a poet, essayist, lawyer, and the executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium. Her most recent book of essays, <I>These are Strange Times, My Dear</I>, was released in February. Her last book of poems, <I>A Long Late Pledge</I>, was a finalist for the 2019 Oregon Book Award.</P>
<HR>
<H2 CLASS="MsoNormal">Workshops 3:30pm-5:00pm</H2>
<H3>FICTION (RR208)</H3>
<H4>Setting As Character: How to Take Place Out of the Background</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">Setting, when fully rendered, can be more than just a backdrop to your story. Using techniques commonly associated with character development, novelist Melissa Duclos will guide attendees through the process of creating a setting that comes off the page. This hands-on session will include writing exercises and time for small group workshops, during which participants will practice techniques that can bring setting into the foreground of any story.  </P>
<P><STRONG>Melissa Duclos</STRONG> is the author of <I>Besotted</I>, a novel set in a Shanghai that <I>Kirkus Reviews</I> described as "the true star" of the book. Her work has appeared in <I>The Washington Post</I>, <I>Salon</I>, <I>The Offing</I>, and <I>Bustle</I>, among other venues. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and is at work on her second novel, set in Portland.</P>
<H3>POETRY (RR207)</H3>
<H4 CLASS="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">Poetry of Place: Letting Location Tell Your Story</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">In this workshop, we will discuss how natural and constructed landscapes affect our identities and shape our writing. We will focus on the places we know, have traveled to, or simply imagine, including both the mundane and the sublime of our surroundings, in search of ways to craft authentic, universal poems that speak directly to readers. This workshop will include studying diverse poems that successfully employ place as metaphors, investigating your own work, writing, and providing feedback.</P>
<P CLASS="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><STRONG>John Sibley Williams</STRONG> is the author of four books, including <I>As One Fire Consumes Another</I> (Orison Poetry Prize) and <I>Skin Memory</I> (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press). A nineteen-time Pushcart nominee, John serves as editor of <I>The Inflectionist Review</I>. Publications include: <I>Yale Review, Atlanta Review, Prairie Schooner, Massachusetts Review</I>, and <I>Third Coast</I>.</P>
<H3>CNF (RR205)</H3>
<H4 CLASS="MsoNormal">Point of View in Memoir: Playing with Perspective</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">In this workshop, we’ll expand the possibilities of the narrative voice by holding a scene up to the light and examining it from as many angles as possible. Memoirs are often written from the first-person point of view, but what happens when we expand those boundaries and tell the story from a different vantage point? What new truths can be discovered about a scene we thought we understood? </P>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal"><STRONG>Apricot Irving</STRONG> is the author of <I>The Gospel of Trees, </I>the 2019 Oregon Book Award winner in Creative Nonfiction. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and her reporting/writing has appeared on <I>This American Life, Granta </I>and<I> On Being</I>. She lives in the Columbia River Gorge.</P>
<H3 CLASS="MsoNormal">PUBLISHING (RR209)</H3>
<H4>Finding the Funny</H4>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal">You don’t need to be a stand-up comic to reap the benefits of life’s absurdities. Humor can be honed through careful observation—it’s not all about jokes, roasts, and dirty limericks. In fact, research into the psychology of laughter shows that we are more likely to laugh at ordinary exchanges than purposeful punchlines. Effective humor writing requires the writer to be specific, get to the point quickly, and tell a good story from a unique perspective. In this workshop, we’ll look at examples of funny flash writing and talk about how you can have more fun with short-form writing.</P>
<P CLASS="MsoNormal"><STRONG>Stephanie Lenox</STRONG> is the author of three poetry collections, <I>The Business</I>, <I>Congress of Strange People</I>, and <I>The Heart That Lies Outside the Body</I>. She is the co-writer with her longtime writing partner H.K. Hummel of <I>Short-Form Creative Writing: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology</I>.</P>
<H3 CLASS="MsoNormal">ZINES (RR206)</H3>
<H4 CLASS="MsoNormal">TBA</H4>

Clackamas Community College

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