Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop 2012
Posted Friday, Jul 27th, 2012 at 8:02pmI had the great experience of attending the Tin House conference this summer. It was my third time there. I followed the inimitable Ann Hood there after having such a productive workshop with her last summer in Maine. Here is Ann Hood reading in the beautiful outdoor amphitheater at Reed College where the conference was held.
Here I am in the same spot with just a slightly smaller audience(not that you can tell from the photo)!
In this next photo you can see some of my workshop mates who came for dinner:
Here are some of the notes I took in various classes. I am sure they are not verbatim quotes but are just taken from my quick scribblings.
From a panel discussion called, "How We Write About Ourselves," with Steve Almond, Ann Hood, Stephan Elliot and Elissa Schappell.
Having a fiction writer at the table is like having an assassin.
If people wanted you to write well about them, they would have behaved better.
Is it fiction or nonfiction? Welcome to the bi-curious genre!
From a talk on Performance by Dorothy Allison:
Performance is the perfection of text.
I live my life in front of an audience on fear. It won’t actually kill you – you will gain knowledge, power, authority and grace with the text that you didn’t know before.
Performance will help you find the boring parts.
From our workshop classes with Ann Hood...she shared the following gems (Again, these are not exact quotes).
The Author does not equal the narrator – even in non-fiction
It has to be seamless – can’t see the man behind the curtain
The person telling the story – their wisdom has to be in charge of the essay. I don’t trust the girl you were, but I want to trust the woman you are.
Every Story starts when things change, or are about to change.
Every story is two stories – the one we see on the page and the one just below it. And the conclusion is when they collide.
Your reader should not be puzzling over things that don’t matter.
Fact does not necessarily ruin suspense and tension
Backstory is a crutch
Good endings – you don’t see it coming but you are not surprised
“It†is one of the most dangerous words we have in writing
My biggest takeaway from the conference was the importance of a sure-footed narrator to tell the story. And now I'm rewriting the beginning of my memoir!
Christina Wrote on Saturday, Jul 28th, 2012 at 5:22am
Backstory is a crutch--I love it!!
Deborah Dombrowski Wrote on Sunday, Jul 29th, 2012 at 12:39am
I love these two points:
Every Story starts when things change, or are about to change.
Every story is two stories – the one we see on the page and the one just below it. And the conclusion is when they collide.
thanks for sharing, Sara!
Teri~ Wrote on Sunday, Jul 29th, 2012 at 7:08pm
Thank you for sharing this, Sara!
My favorite is "Having a fiction writer at the table is like having an assassin."
Love that~
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