Novel Writing Workshop

I heard yesterday that the Zafris-Kothari Novel Workshop has some openings for the week-long workshop in July. If you are struggling at all with your novel, I highly recommend this workshop. It was previously held at Kenyon College, but has moved this year to The Ohio State University campus. The dates are July 19 to 25.

This workshop is unlike any other that I've attended or seen advertised. Usually, workshops have about ten writers and one facilitator who go around the circle and give their opinion about twenty pages of each writer's novel. This is all good and fine and useful in its own way, but getting feedback from other writers who are struggling isn't always helpful (especially in those workshops where egos and personalities muck things up) because new writers aren't experts. People attend workshops because they aren't experienced writers and they want to learn. The other downside to typical workshops is that each participant is tasked with critiquing nine other manuscripts - and the majority of the effort is in giving thoughtful and useful critiques to others.

The difference with the Zafris-Kothari Novel Workshop and the thing that made it so worth the money for me was the fact that 100 pages of my novel was critiqued by professionals. Now there's an option to submit 200 pages. Craft lessons are also a huge part of the workshop. When I was there, Karin Lin-Greenberg gave an excellent lecture on how to balance the internal and external, which I have found to be incredibly helpful in both my novel and my short fiction.

Because a huge chunk of my novel was critiqued, I was able to get solid feedback on what was working and what wasn't working across my entire novel. The fact I didn't need to critique other peoples' pages made the workshop feel like it was focused on me and my writing and not on my ability to give feedback.

For me, this workshop was life-changing as a writer. I really hope some of you can attend. If you have any questions about my experience at the workshop, please post in the comments.

Tonja

UPDATE: The workshop was cancelled for this year.

At Antioch Writer's Workshop for the Week

I'm at my first writer's workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Before I tell you about it, let me preface it by saying I am an introvert. I make no apologies for it; there's nothing wrong with me. I get my energy from quiet. I literally require short spans of quiet to function normally. It keeps the skin on my neck from blotching out.

One problem with this workshop is there's no acknowledgment that some people (quite likely half, actually) need a few minutes of quiet here and there. I survived something like 12 hours of pretty much non-stop human interaction yesterday, but it wasn't easy, and I'm wiped out today because of it.

I'm not just an introvert - I'm also claustrophobic and so short that being in a room full of people makes me feel like I'm suffocating in their armpits.

So I'm hanging out in the lobby wishing the other people in the lobby would get the *$%k out. Can't they see I'm breathing here?

The great things about the workshop are:

1. I've already collected a new cast of characters for future stories.
2. The keynote speech by Andre Dubus III was very entertaining.
3. My hotel does not have bedbugs (that I know of).
4. I only got lost once but felt completely comfortable walking up to a man in his backyard who was hanging out with his chickens and his children - he got me back on my way. I seriously need GPS - not that it would have worked here. I am in farm country.

Next post: It's time to acknowledge there's more than one way to write a book. (Or whatever rant is on my mind at the moment I write it.)