Commonplace
About Us
  • Home
  • News About Us
  • Thesis Resources
  • On Writing
  • Photo Albums
    • Flashback 2017
    • Flashbacks 2016
    • Flashbacks 2015
    • Flashbacks 2014
    • Flashbacks 2013
    • Flashbacks 2012
    • Flashbacks 2011
    • Flashbacks 2010
    • Flashbacks 2009
    • Flashbacks 2008
  • Archived
    • Archived Blog

Nonfictionistas Create Their Own Winter Residency

1/29/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
L-R: Ginger Hudson, Monica Stein-Olson, Jennifer Stone, Jessica Shepherd, Pam Hays, Pam Simmons
Creative nonfiction students were so revved up at the summer residency that they vowed to gather sometime this winter--and they did. The First Annual Creative Nonfiction Winter Residency took place last weekend in Homer and was declared a great success by participants.
Picture
The residency included Pam Hays, Jessica Shepherd, Monica Stein-Olson, Ginger Hudson, Pam Simmons, and Jennifer Stone. Alumni Barb Williams joined the group for presentations by recent graduate Annie Van Dinther and mentors Nancy Lord and Erin Hollowell. Mentor Rich Chiappone prepared one of his first-class dinners for the group, who enjoyed the chance to talk with local writer Tom Kizzia. Rich gave his own presentation afterward. In a display of extraordinary dedication, the writers also sent each other manuscripts before the residency and workshopped them throughout the weekend. 

Picture
Rich Chiappone's Literary Salon. (Also pictured are Nancy Lord and Barb Williams.)
The Nonfictionistas are already planning another winter residency for January 2020 in Talkeetna that will be open to creative nonfiction alumni. Sorry, poets and fiction writers--you'll have to organize your own residencies. ​​
0 Comments

Deadline approaches for Tent: Creative Writing

1/29/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Writers in their 20s and 30s who are interested in connections between Jewishness and contemporary culture are invited to apply for a week of workshops, literary seminars, and conversations at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, from June 2-7. Participants provide their own transportation but receive a scholarship that covers the cost of the workshop, room, and board.

Only 20 writers are accepted to the workshop. The application deadline is Feb. 4. Applicants can be current or graduated MFA students.

The workshops include fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Literary discussions center on classics of modern Jewish literature by such writers as Adrienne Rich and Sholem Aleichem. Past workshop faculty have included Eileen Pollack, Sam Lipsyte, Don Share, Lisa Olstein, and Rivka Galchen. Editors also have participated as visiting speakers.

See the Yiddish Book Center's website for more information and the application. 
0 Comments

How to Wrestle Life into Stories

1/21/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

​One of Alaska's very best nonfiction writers and teachers, Frank Soos, will teach a 49 Writers class in February on how to focus material and turn situations into stories. The class is based on a concept described by Vivian Gornick in The Situation and the Story.
The short course will be offered in Anchorage on Feb. 8, 9, and 10 for writers of all experience levels. Members pay $185, and non-members $205. The sessions are scheduled in four three-hour blocks. In preparation, participants are asked to read Gornick's short book and a couple of essays they'll receive beforehand. 
 
​Frank is a professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a former State Writer Laureate, and the author of several books,  including two collections of short stories (one of which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction) and two essay collections, Bamboo Fly Rod Suite and Unpleasantries. He also also edited an anthology of northern writers and artists with Kes Woodward and collaborated with his wife, artist Margo Klass,  on a book featuring his mini-essays and her box constructions. 
​ 
See 49 Writers for more details. Registration is capped at 12, so jump online here to claim your spot.
0 Comments

Applications open for Mineral School residencies

1/21/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Mineral School, an artists' residency held in an old elementary school near Mt. Rainier, Washington, seeks writers and visual artists from Alaska and the Northwest for five residency periods open in 2019. Three of their two-week residencies are open to writers of all genres, but screenwriters only are invited to apply for a May residency, and parents of children under 18 can apply for a one-week session in September. The organization also offers several sponsored fellowships open to writers with specific backgrounds and interests. Other residency positions cost between $425 and $550 for the two-week sessions.

Mineral School residencies are a writer's dream come true: a private room outfitted as a writing studio, meals served to them daily, full access to a snack fridge and coffee station (!), and a lovely setting 25 minutes from Mt. Rainier National Park. 

More information about application requirements, fellowship details, and residency dates are available here. Applications close midnight on Feb. 15.
0 Comments

A Brief Note about Brevity

1/11/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Look for Matt Komatsu's moving essay "When We Played" to be included in the upcoming anthology Best of Brevity, drawn from 20 years of the nonfiction journal's relationship with Rose Metal Press. OK, fine, go ahead and read it now.
0 Comments

Story Plotting and Planning

1/2/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Fiction writer and playwright Katrina Byrd recently read three guides on how to plot and structure a story and summarizes each book's approach in a post for literary agent Jane Friedman's site. She also addresses the question "But Do Formulas Work for Literary Writers?" by suggesting that it's best to first recognize whether your work is more aligned with the literary or commercial culture of book writing and publishing. Before you leave the post, be sure to check out Friedman's extensive collection of writing resources. 
0 Comments

DJ C.A. Murray Is In the House

12/31/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
For his practicum, Cameron Murray is hosting a show, "The Tumid River," on KRUA Radio every Monday from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. at 88.1 FM. His next show airs on January 7, but you can hear his first four shows on-demand here. His interviewees include our own Tiffany Rosamund Creed and Barry Donaldson, as well as writer Don Rearden, a graduate from CWLA and current UAA professor, and English Professor Toby Widdicombe. Email Cameron with ideas, guest inquiries, requests, or other comments at camurray4@alaska.edu.

Be sure to read Cameron's recent publications, which include two poems in the October issue of Foliate Oak Literary Magazine and a flash fiction piece in West Texas Literary Review's December issue. And one of his short stories appears in the "Last Call" issue, Vol. 26, of The Raven Chronicles. Congratulations!
0 Comments

Let's Get Small

12/15/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
If you're stuck while writing or revising that novel, story, or essay, here's novelist Jane Delury has a simple suggestion: Write a perfect sentence instead. 

And if you like receiving the occasional tip, word of advice, or pointer from other writers, sign up for Glimmer Train's regular bulletins here.
0 Comments

CNF writer publishes in The New York Times

11/27/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Third-year nonfiction writer Sarah Mouracade recently published a flash nonfiction piece in "Tiny Love Stories," an edition of the regular Modern Love column in The New York Times. This photograph depicts an important element in the story, but we'll let you enjoy the revelation. Scroll down the page to find Sarah's story, "An Unexpected Sign."

0 Comments

First poetry, now fiction!

11/12/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
A multitude of congratulations to Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, class of 2018, whose young adult novel, Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything, is forthcoming in summer 2020. The publisher is Simon Pulse, an imprint of a little ol' book company named Simon & Schuster. And did we mention that her 2018 book, Tales from the House of Vasquez, won the Rattle Chapbook Prize? 
0 Comments
<<Previous

    RSS Feed

    Welcome!

    This unofficial site is part of the Low-Residency MFA program at the University of Alaska Anchorage. It is not officially sanctioned by any officials at the official UAA campus.


    About Faculty

    David Stevenson, Director

    Anne Caston
    Poetry

    Rich Chiappone
    ​
     ​Fiction & Nonfiction

    Jan DeBlieu
    ​
    Nonfiction

    Daryl Farmer
    Fiction & Nonfiction

    ​Erin Coughlin Hollowell
    ​Poetry

    Ishmael Hope
     Poetry

    Nancy Lord
     Fiction & Nonfiction

    Valerie Miner
     Fiction & Nonfiction

    Sherry Simpson
    Nonfiction

    Useful Links 

    Department of Creative Writing and Literary Arts
    University of Alaska Anchorage
    UAA Graduate School
    49 Writers
    Alaskan Writers Directory
    Cirque
    Advice for Writers
    Ten Words You Need 
    to Stop Misspelling
    The American Scholar
    The Rumpus
    Brain Pickings

    Contact Web Diva

    With your jokes, links, 
    blog posts, advice for the lovelorn, stockmarket tips, corrections, complaints, 
    and compliments.


    Archives

    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    July 2017
    September 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from Steven | Alan, daz smith, kkimpel, mikecogh, Cecily Michelle, ralph and jenny, dennis, kate*, Kim-Leng, mrstg, rearl, fr4dd