Mt. Chocorua Writing Workshop
Our non-competitive and nurturing workshops in poetry and fiction are designed for writers at all levels of experience. Small groups will meet twice daily, Monday through Thursday and on Friday morning. Workshops will include opportunities to generate new work, and to share and discuss stories and poems with other participants. Evening programs include readings, panel discussions, and informal social events.
Participants are invited to submit work in advance for group discussion and instructor feedback (three poems; up to 15 pages of fiction). Specific guidelines for manuscript submission will be sent after workshop registration.
There is an $85 fee for the writing workshop. Lodging and meal rates are listed here and include three healthy and delicious meals per day and use of the 455 acre facilities, including hiking trails, Whitton Pond, and family programs.
Schedule of Events
Sunday, July 12, 7:30pm
Intros/Overview
Monday, July 13 through Friday noon
Fiction and poetry workshops meet 10am-12pm & 1:30-3pm
Monday, July 13, 7:30pm
Poetry reading and conversation with Writer-in-residence Sapphire, author of two poetry collections and the award-winning novel Push.
Tuesday, July 14, 7:30pm
Progressive Politics and Creative Writing: Can they work together to create a literature of social justice? A discussion with fiction writer Ellen Meeropol, poet Sapphire and nonfiction author Bernice Mennis.
Wednesday, July 15, 7:30pm
Bernice Mennis will read from her book, Breaking Out of Prison, and talk about writing
as a path to consciousness and freedom, both for those in prison and for those who place them there.
Thursday, July 16, 4-6pm
Public reading: Workshop students and faculty share work with each other and with the World Fellowship community.
Poetry Workshop
TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL: Creation and Craft. An opportunity to work on creating new work and applying what we know about craft to poems already created and in need of revision. In an intellectually rigorous yet supportive and nurturing manner we will work on bringing forth what is best from within us individually and collectively.
Poet-in-residence Sapphire is the author of American Dreams, a collection of poetry which was cited by Publishers Weekly as, “One of the strongest debut collections of the nineties.” Her novel Push, won the Book-of-the-Month Club Stephen Crane award for First Fiction, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s First Novelist Award, and in Great Britain, the Mind Book of the Year Award. Push was named by the Village Voice as one of the top ten books of 1996 and by TIMEOUT New York as one of the top ten books of 1996. Push was nominated for an NAACP IMAGE AWARD in the category of Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction. About her last book of poetry, Poets and Writers Magazine wrote, “With her soul on the line in each verse, her latest collection, Black Wings & Blind Angels, retains Sapphire’s incendiary power to win hearts and singe minds.” Sapphire’s work has been translated in eleven languages and has been adapted for stage in the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands.
Most recently the film adaptation of her novel, which is called Push: based on the novel by Sapphire, won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for best U.S. drama at Sundance (2009).
Fiction Workshop
GROWING OUR STORIES: Whether you are writing your first short story or revising a novel, the fiction workshop offers an opportunity to generate and share new work and to get feedback and suggestions on revision in a non-competitive and nurturing environment. Through craft discussions, group feedback on participants’ manuscripts, and writing together using prompts and exercises, the fiction workshop is designed to both instruct and inspire writers at all levels of experience.
Workshop coordinator and fiction instructor Ellen Meeropol holds an MFA in fiction from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine. Her short fiction has appeared in Bridges, Portland Magazine, Pedestal Magazine, and Patchwork Journal. She is a founding Board member of the Rosenberg Fund for Children and wrote the script for their dramatic program, “Celebrate,” which has been produced in four cities, most recently in 2007 starring Eve Ensler, David Strathairn and Angela Davis. Her first novel, House Arrest, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press.
