A Day in the Life at Indiana University Writers’ Conference 2021

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The Indiana University Writers’ Conference will begin in just three short days. For many participants – as well as faculty and interns – nerves and excitement mix as we prepare for this year’s four-day virtual conference. What will it be like? How will it go? Who will I meet? How should I prepare?

In the coming days, we encourage you to create your online Whova profile so that you can familiarize yourself with the platform, check out workshop/class materials, receive updates and information, and meet others.

Here is a peek into a day in a life at IUWC. Please note: all events take place in Eastern Standard Time.

Workshops

Each day begins with a three-hour workshop from 9 AM to 12 PM (EST) led by Maggie Smith (poetry), ZZ Packer, (fiction), and Jaquira Díaz (memoir). All manuscripts have already been shared with your workshop group, so everyone can read each manuscript and prepare feedback. If workshop leaders have not reached out to your already, you should expect to hear from them in the coming days about how individual workshops will run.

During workshop, each manuscript will go through a round of critique during which peers and faculty share their feedback. While “critique” is common creative workshop terminology, harsh criticism is not the goal. This will be a safe learning environment in which you can share your work with the goal of connection, improvement, and learning.

There will be a fifteen-minute break during all workshop sessions for you to stretch out, grab a quick snack, and reset before completing the workshop. Afterwards, there will be a thirty-minute break from 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM before the next conference activities begin. Feel free to unwind, eat lunch, and get ready for the rest of the dat.

For those not participating in workshop, this is free time to prepare for other classes and readings as well as connect with others. Please note: As many classes are interactive and may feature sharing from writing prompts, we will not be recording classes. Do consider this in crafting your schedule, so you do not miss the sessions that you want to attend!

Special Lyric Archiving Class

On Thursday, join us for our 81st anniversary celebration with poet Ross Gay from 12:30 PM to 2:20 PM. The event, “Lyric Archiving Class with Ross Gay,” will feature a series of writing experiments, including mapping, dreamwork, drawing, and collage work. All attendees have access to this class (and all classes), and writers of all genres are highly encouraged to attend.

Panel Discussions and Q&As

On all conference days besides Thursday, there will be a panel discussion and Q&A featuring two faculty members from 12:30 PM to 1:20 PM. Participants are welcome to eat lunch, and encouraged to come with questions. Friday will feature poets Tiana Clark and Maggie Smith, Saturday will feature fiction writers Joseph Cassara and ZZ Packer, and Sunday will feature nonfiction writers Hannah Bae and Jaquira Díaz.

Classes

After the panel discussions and Q&As, faculty will teach specialized classes on different topics and genres for about fifty minutes daily. Participate in as few or as many classes as you should like.

On Thursday following Ross Gay’s special lyric archiving class, Tiana Clark will lead her first class, “Breaching the Boundary: Explicating and Writing Ekphratric Poetry,” from 2:30 PM to 3:20 PM. Given that this class will look at connecting poetry with visual art forms, be sure to arrive with a visual art piece chosen from a painting, photograph, play, movie, or other forms.

Throughout the remainder of the conference, her poetry classes will go from 1:30 PM to 2:20 PM following the panel discussions.

On Friday, Tiana Clark will be teaching her second poetry class, “Breaking the 4th Wall in Poetry.” During the class, you will join Clark in discussing several types of breaking techniques with examples from Ross Gay, Jericho Brown, Dennis Johnson, Jennifer Chang, and others.

Clark’s Saturday class, “Making and Breaking Forms: The Ghazal,” will delve into finding freedom in form rather than fearing form. Those of you attending will join Clark in making and breaking form with the Ghazal, a style of Arabic verse with intricate rhyme schemes and couplets.

On the final day of the conference, Clark will be teaching “Singing in the Dark: Writing about Trauma and Healing.” Those attending will discuss, write, and share one another’s work in hopes of “reaching for a dazzling poetic hum in the darkness together.”

Joseph Cassara will teach a class called “Narrative Voice in Short Fiction.” His class will go from 3:30 PM to 4:20 PM on Thursday and 2:30 PM to 3:20 PM on all other days. Cassara’s class will focus on surveying the fundamentals of sustaining narrational control in short fiction by studying narration and questioning our own narrators.

On Friday after Cassara’s class, Shawna Ayoub will teach her “Writing Through Trauma” nonfiction class at 3:30 PM to 4:20 PM. This class strives to the reduce the stress of trauma through writing while also making art that “resonates and connects with readers to encourage empathy, compassion, and respect.”

From 3:30 PM to 4:20 PM on Saturday, join Brando Skyhorse for his class, “Top Three Reasons Why Agents/Editors Reject a Book.” This class will provide great insight for all those that have faced rejection from agents or editors as well as those that have never sent any material to an agent or editor. This class will cover issues that may lead to rejection, how to those fix issues in your work, and how to write a query letter that will effectively pitch your work.

Hannah Bae will lead one class, “From the Past to the Page: The Role of Research in Writing Creative Nonfiction,” on Sunday from 3:30 PM to 4:20 PM. In this course, you will discuss how any writer can include research in their writing process as well as incorporate facts and history into your personal narratives.

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, there will be a break between 4:20 PM – 7:00 PM. Along with decompressing and eating a meal, this can also be time to link with others. Whova and Facebook Groups are just a few of the ways you can connect with other participants.

Following this break, there will be faculty readings and Q&As from 7 PM to 8:15 PM. These faculty readings will be the closing event of each conference day.

On Thursday, as part of our IUWC 81st anniversary celebration, our feature reader will be Indiana University’s own Ross Gay. His reading will be followed by a Q&A.

On Friday, Maggie Smith and Tiana Clark will be our feature readers. On Saturday, ZZ Packer and Joseph Cassara. On Sunday, Jaquira Díaz and Hannah Bae.

The reading schedule will be a little different on Sunday – the last day of the conference. There will be a break from 4:20 PM to 5 PM. Beginning at 5 PM, we’ll host an hour-long IUWC Participant Reading. Each participant will have 3 minutes to read an excerpt of their work. In order for everyone signed up to have time to read before our next event, it will be very important to read within your allotted time! We will make an announcement on Whova regarding the sign-up process for this reading.

The participant reading will be followed by another break from 6 PM to 7 PM, and the conference will end with Jaquira Díaz’s and Hannah Bae’s Sunday reading and Q&A.

Workshops are full, but there’s still time to register for unlimited access to classes, panels, and readings. If you are registered for a workshop, make sure to send in your manuscript to writecon@indiana.edu as soon as possible. We’re so excited to see you all at the 81st Indiana University Writers’ Conference, and we hope you’re excited, too!