September 19-23, 2011 Wildacres Retreat, Little Switzerland, NC USA

2011 COURSES AND INSTRUCTORS

Click on a name to read about our instructors
and the course each is offering this year -->


DAWN SHAMP
DARNELL ARNOULT
ABIGAIL DEWITT
JUDY GOLDMAN

DIVING IN: Find Your Niche
in Fiction
with Dawn Shamp

We all have to start somewhere. So we're going to start where YOU are. You love to write. You want to write. But maybe you can't quite wrap that short story or novel. The “haints” keep taunting: “I'm not worthy.” “I'm not able.” We’ll take it from the edge. Bring your ideas to the mountain. Let nurture take its course. We’ll play with possibilities, from defining success to divining your best as a writer. Novels are one thing. Short stories are another. Whatever the genre or form, fiction opens doors. We’ll dig in, share some writing, play with the basics -- characterization, point of view, description, dialogue, dramatic scene. The building blocks. I will provide handouts of works from published authors to propel discussion of craft. In-class exercises will help enlighten and inspire. Please send me up to 10 double-spaced pages of your work (flat, not folded, please) in time for me to have it by August 26 for my critique. I will return your work, along with my line edits and comments, on the first day of the workshop. Please send your work to: Dawn Shamp, 3928 Mt. Sinai Road, Durham, NC 27705.


 

Dawn Shamp is the author of the historical novel, On Account of Conspicuous Women (St. Martin's Press), cited by january magazine, the online literary publication, as one of the 25 best fiction books of 2008. The book also earned her the first “Making Democracy Work” Award from the League of Women Voters (Orange-Durham-Chatham counties chapter) and nomination for the Sir Walter Raleigh Award in Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in a variety of literary journals. She received an MFA in writing from Spalding University in Louisville, KY, attended the Sewanee Writers' Conference on a grant from the Durham Arts Council, and completed her novel on a fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center. She was recently nominated for the 2010 Alamance Community College Distinguished Alumni Award. A native of Roxboro, N.C., she now lives with her husband, Jim, in Durham, where she's working on her next novel. www.dawnshamp.com
 

 



CHAPTER ONE
Men with clout are all alike, but some are worse, Bertie thought, as she sat at the kitchen table tying freshly roasted peanuts inside squares of burlap sacking.

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Read an interview with
Dawn Shamp