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“Creating Compelling Characters”
A Unique Writing Workshop experience by immersion
with award winning author and teacher,
Susan Hubbard.
Attendees will receive personalized instruction
and feedback in a small-group setting
(workshop is limited to 10 participants)
Come spend five nights at the lovely
Lily Creek Lodge Bed & Breakfast
in the gold and wine region of the
North Georgia Mountains
in Dahlonega, Georgia
April 29, 2012 to May 4, 2012
ALL INCLUSIVE RETREAT
Workshop
Consultations
Lodging (5 nights)
Three Meals Per Day
To reserve your participation please
Call or e-mail
lilycreeklodge@windstream.net
706-864-6848
Susan Hubbard is an award-winning teacher and writer who has led workshops at universities and artists' colonies around the world. National Public Radio's Margot Adler called Susan's writing "elusive, complex, poetic and sophisticated." Susan is the author of seven internationally published books, including The Society of S (2007) and The Year of Disappearances (2008). Her seventh, The Season of Risks (Simon & Schuster), was published in July 2010. Her short story collection, Blue Money, won the Janet Heidinger Kakfa Prize for best book of prose by an American woman published in 1999. Her first book, Walking on Ice, received the AWP Short Fiction Prize. Susan Hubbard co-edited 100% Pure Florida Fiction, an anthology. Her short fiction has appeared in TriQuarterly, The Mississippi Review, Ploughshares, and other journals. (Margot Adler, NPR, Feb. 2010). Her fiction has been translated and published in more than fifteen countries.Currently Susan is Professor of English at the University of Central Florida, where she won the College of Arts & Humanities' Distinguished Researcher Award in 2008. She has received teaching awards from Syracuse University, Cornell University, the University of Central Florida, and the South Atlantic Administrators of Departments of English. She has held writers' residencies at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Djerassi Resident Artists' Project, and Cill Rialaig. For more information, please visit www.susanhubbard.com
Creating Compelling Characters
Workshop Guide: Susan Hubbard
Building characters out of words is an essential part of a writer's craft. Creating complex characters who are plausible, yet not stereotypical, is central to writing poetry, fiction, essays, plays, and memoirs alike. We aspire to create not merely realistic characters, but fascinating ones who will go on to haunt our readers long after they've read our work.
This intensive workshop invites you to construct a three-dimensional character who will inhabit your next poem, novel, story, or nonfiction piece. We'll spend a week getting to know our characters, describing their personalities in great detail, and exploring their potential to inform our writing.
Mornings are devoted to discussions, writing exercises, and workshops. Afternoons allow time to write, complete assignments, explore the area, or schedule one-on-one conferences with the instructor. Evenings are for dining, socializing, dreaming, or writing on your own. Whether you are an aspiring or an experienced writer, this week offers you unprecedented insights into your character and guidance in finishing your next creative project. We also discuss a range of topics important to the creative writer, including how to get published, find an agent, build a writing discipline, secure a creative support system, and, perhaps most difficult of all, think of good titles!
Dahlonega is an ideal place for writers to come together, work hard, savor some excellent cooking, and find sustained inspiration. By the week's end, you should be refreshed and renewed, and you'll return home in the company of a character ready to propel your next work to completion.
Please note: Each class runs from 9:30 to noon, with a break around 10:30, and features discussion, writing exercises, and critiques of student work.
SCHEDULE
Sunday
Introductions. Dinner.
Discussion Led by Susan
Arrive by 1 PM for Introductions
Check in at 3 PM
Dinner at 6:30 PM
Monday
Personal Histories
or Birth, Death, and Anxiety
Every character has a past, and you need to know it, even if that past doesn’t directly appear in your work. Writing characters’ personal histories will give your writing greater perception and depth.
Tuesday
Dreams and Ambitions
Some characters remember their dreams and know their personal ambitions; others rarely, if ever, confront these aspects. We’ll chart both kinds of characters and learn techniques for embodying their dreams in our work.
Wednesday
Controlling Images
Enhancing our senses' perceptions is the first step toward creating fresh, vivid imagery. We’ll complete three exercises designed to wake up our senses and our imaginations, and provide our character sensory hallmarks.
Thursday
Internal Conflicts
Dramatic tension grows out of a character’s desire for something he or she can’t have. We’ll examine some classic kinds of conflict and brainstorm new ways to depict them.
Friday
Constructing the Whole/ Planning the Next Steps
Farewells. Check out by 10
Depart by 12 Noon.
Here we’ll develop summaries, strategies, and schedules that will help transform the ideas we’ve honed all week into works of art.
April 29 to May 4, 2012
$1200 per attendee
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