Daily schedule, class descriptions, and other festival information for the 2009 Orcas Island Writers Festival are below. Information for the 2010 Orcas Island Writers Festival will be posted soon.

Thursday

10:00 am - 3:00 pm Deb Lund's Pre-Festival Children's Book Writing Class (Library Conference Room)
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm "High Tea with Hurston" (Outlook Inn)
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm Registration and Check-in (back porch of the Outlook Inn)
4:30 pm - 5:00 pm "Read-to-Me!" Deb Lund Reads to Kids (Outlook Inn)
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm "Welcome to Orcas!" Featuring The Olga Symphony, a short play, dramatic readings, monologues, and dance (Orcas Center)

Friday

9:00 am - 12:00 noon Morning Workshops
10:00 am - 12:00 noon "Jumpstart" with Nance Van Winckel: Day I (Senior Center)
12:00 noon - 1:45 pm Lunch with Chef Bill Patterson (Chimayo)
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm "Talking About Zora Neale Hurston" with Al Young (Emmanuel Church)
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm Ellen Lesser: "Writers' Workout" (Outlook Inn)
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm Jody Gladding: "The Physical Presence of Space in a Poem" (Outlook Inn)
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm The Fabulous Five Faculty Readings (Orcas Center)

Saturday

9:00 am - 12:00 noon Morning Workshops
10:00 am - 12:00 noon "Jumpstart" with Nance Van Winckel: Day II (Senior Center)
12:00 noon - 1:45 pm Lunch with Chef Bill Patterson (Chimayo)
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Special Presenter Al Young: "Poetry, Stories, and the End of the World" (Outlook Inn)
4:15 pm - 5:30 pm Diane Lefer: "A Brief Introduction to Theater of the Oppressed" (Outlook Inn)
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm "Al Young and Martin Lund: A Special Night of Poetry and Jazz" (Orcas Center)

Sunday

9:00 am - 12:00 noon Morning Workshops
10:00 am - 12:00 noon "Jumpstart" with Nance Van Winckel: Day III (Odd Fellows Hall)
12:00 noon - 2:00 pm Lunch (on your own or bring a bag lunch to the Odd Fellows Hall)
12:45 pm - 1:45 pm Journalism with Margie Doyle (Odd Fellows Hall)
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm Matthew Goodman: "Punctuation Review" (Outlook Inn)
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm Nance Van Winckel: "Staking the Claim of the Title" (Outlook Inn)
5:30 pm - 9:00 pm "The Big Send Off!" Community Dinner with entertainment by poet Dustin Fox and musician Carolyn Cruso (Orcas Center)

Festival Package participants begin the day with workshops, followed by afternoon classes or seminars. Evening events will be held at the Orcas Center.

Three-Day and One-Day Festival Admission participants may enroll in classes and attend seminars (but not critique workshops) and join us at evening events.

Individual tickets will also be sold for evening events at the Orcas Center; please contact the Orcas Center Box Office at 360-376-2281 to purchase tickets. www.orcascenter.org

Workshops tend to be different everywhere you go. At the Orcas Island Writers Festival, we don't want to take away what's working for you; we want to send you home with better tools. We value the process of writing.

After you register, you need to send us the material you would like to work on during your workshop. Submit three pages of poetry for the Poetry Workshop (a three-page translation, along with a copy of the original, may also be submitted); 10 pages for the Fiction Workshop; 10 pages for the Nonfiction Workshop; and up to 25 pages for the Playwriting Workshop. Picture book submissions should be less than 2000 words. If applicable, be sure to include a short paragraph explaining your larger project. Send your submission to festivalgurus@orcasislandwritersfestival.com.

We suggest that you paste your poetry or prose into the body of an email AND attach it as a document. Put your name in the subject heading of your email. Also be sure to include your name, email, phone, address and the name of your workshop at the beginning of your document. This will be for office use only. We will not make your personal information available to anyone else. Double-space everything and use Times New Roman 12-point typeface. No handwritten submissions will be accepted. All work must be received by August 25, 2009. Please contact us about a possible extension of the manuscript submission due date for some workshops.

After you've sent us your work, we'll collect the submissions from each group and email them to you. Be sure to read these selections prior to the festival. A hard copy of your group's collection will be available when you arrive.

Don't worry if your work is not "finished" before sending it to us. We are not agents or publishers. Take this opportunity to stretch and grow as a writer. You will be among friends in a supportive atmosphere. Join the process toward a deeper understanding of the writing craft.

Deb Lund

001 Kid Lit Critiques: A Pre-Festival Picture Book Writing Class Thursday 10:00am-3:00pm Bring munchies and a manuscript (or not) and participate (or observe) as celebrated author and teacher Deb Lund shares what works and doesn't work in picture books in general and submitted manuscripts in particular. We promise an abundance of ideas, opportunities to comment and ask questions, and a pile of suggestions to perk up your pages.

Ellen Lesser	002 FICTION WORKSHOP Friday, Saturday & Sunday 9:00am-12:00 noon For many writers, the search for honest, rigorous and practically applicable feedback is one of the ongoing challenges and frustrations of pursuing our craft. This intensive workshop will help fill the gap so often left by casual readings from family and friends or well-meaning but sometimes confusing suggestions from our local writing groups. We will discuss each member's submission of a short story or excerpt from a longer work in a spirit of mutual sensitivity and support, even as we fearlessly and deeply explore the vital questions it raises about technique, structure, intention and impact. Beyond the constructive, detailed input participants can expect to receive on their own developing manuscripts, we'll all learn and grow together—as writers, readers, thinkers and teachers—through the larger, collaborative process of talking about the workings and making of fiction in a safe yet richly stimulating environment.
Matthew Goodman	003 CREATIVE NONFICTION WORKSHOP Friday, Saturday & Sunday 9:00am-12:00 noon Great nonfiction writing can include everything from Jane Jacobs analyzing the life of a city to Annie Dillard glorying in the life of a beach; from Tobias Wolff recalling a difficult childhood to Virginia Woolf advocating a room of one's own; from Robert Caro's biographies of Lyndon Johnson to Laura Hillenbrand's biography of a racehorse. Yet all of the genres of nonfiction writing—memoir, personal essay, history, biography, journalism—incorporate certain essential techniques that, when used effectively, help them to fully come alive for the reader. Some of these techniques include the use of characterization, authorial voice and sensory detail. In this workshop we'll explore the full range of nonfiction techniques. We'll read together some classic examples of nonfiction that beautifully illustrate these techniques. We'll try an exercise or two to help inspire great nonfiction writing. And we'll also read each other's manuscripts with an eye toward recognizing and improving the use of nonfiction techniques in our own work.
Jody Gladding	004 POETRY WORKSHOP Friday, Saturday & Sunday 9:00am-12:00 noon Where else but in a poetry workshop does a single poem get the sustained, undivided attention of a dozen careful readers at once, while the poet gets to absorb their responses? It's a privileged space—no telling what will arise there! Participants may submit up to three pages of poetry, which will be read and considered in advance by the whole group, so that our conversation begins well before the festival. Please feel free to include a translation as part of your submission, along with a copy of that piece in the original language.
Diane Lefer	005 PLAYWRITING WORKSHOP Friday, Saturday & Sunday 9:00am-12:00 noon Putting the Play Back in Playwriting: Send in your short play—a ten-minute production, monologue, or one-act, anything up to 25 pages—and let's play with it. We'll read work aloud. We'll ask questions and make suggestions, but we'll also fool around with different theoretical approaches and writing exercises aimed at reminding us that the stage is a place where anything can happen. Along with sending us your work, please let us know about any background you have in theater—as a playwright, actor, director, designer, producer, critic, you name it.

Nance Van Winckel	007 Faculty Class: Jumpstart with Nance Van Winckel (Day I: "Integrating Worlds: Who Are You, Where Are You and What's Going On?") Friday 10:00am-12:00 noon Strong poetry and prose usually involve readers on several levels almost simultaneously. Readers engage with the writer's voice or personality. Readers also appreciate being grounded in time and space. And of course, the scenic re-creation of events/actions is fundamental to most literary undertakings. In our first session, we will look at examples (in both prose and poetry) of these three elements of craft working "in concert." There will be short writing exercises as well.
Nance Van Winckel	008 Faculty Class: Jumpstart with Nance Van Winckel (Day II: "Finding, Trusting and Positioning the Narrative") Saturday 10:00am-12:00 noon Earning readers' "trust" in the voice that serves as their guide is crucial for the writer. On our second day, we will put a sharper focus on what constitutes "voice" and ways to enliven it in both prose and poetry. Specifically, we will discuss how gestures of language convey the personality of the speaker and how certain gestures may keep the voice quiet and subtle, while others may create a more commanding and assertive narrative presence. We will look at examples from established writers as well as from participants, and we'll complete some short writing exercises.
Nance Van Winckel	009 Faculty Class: Jumpstart with Nance Van Winckel (Day III: "All of the Above: Polishing and Tightening") Sunday 10:00am-12:00 noon This day will include more discussion among participants about the issues covered on the previous two days. We will also talk about strategies for revising poems and stories so as to better integrate self, place and event(s), as we've been exploring. As touchstones for our discussion, we will give more attention to participant writing.
Ellen Lesser	010 Faculty Class: "Writers' Workout" Friday 2:00pm-3:15pm This is not a talk. Wear loose clothing, imaginatively speaking, and bring writing gear. Participants in all genres will perform a series of cross-training exercises designed to stretch and tone our writing muscles and get our artistic and emotional heart rates up.
Jody Gladding	011 Faculty Class: "Leading and Spacers: The Physical Presence of Space in a Poem" Friday 3:30pm-5:00pm When letterpress bookmakers prepare a text for printing, they set strips of lead between the lines of type to create the spaces. Taking this as our model, we will consider some poems in which space is as forcefully present as words and how space may become a generative force in our own work. Handouts will include poems by Lorine Niedecker and Jean Valentine.
Al Young	012 Special Presenter Al Young: Poetry, Stories, and the End of the World Saturday 2:00pm-4:00pm
Diane Lefer	013 Faculty Class: "A Brief Introduction to Theater of the Oppressed: Not for Playwrights Only!" Saturday 4:15pm-5:30pm For decades, the Brazilian theater artist and activist Augusto Boal has been developing techniques to help people articulate (and even achieve) their political and personal desires through improvised dialogue and action. What scripts are stuck in your head? How can you rewrite them? Can you put yourself in the shoes of your antagonist? In a single hour, I can only give you a taste of TO, but we'll build an instant ensemble, and we'll all become Boalians on a quest to free the imagination.
Matthew Goodman	014 Faculty Class: "Comma One, Comma All, to the Orcas Island All-Star Punctuation Review" Sunday 2:00pm-3:15pm Oscar Wilde once wrote, "All morning I worked on the proof of one of my poems, and took out a comma; in the afternoon I put it back." Now, we don't necessarily need to be as obsessed with punctuation as all that, but there's no denying the fact that punctuation is an immensely important useful tool for writers, both for clarity and for style. In this class we'll take a look at all the major marks—single and double quotation marks, colon, semicolon, dash and hyphen, period, and even the elusive comma—trying to figure out exactly how they work and how we can best use them to our advantage. You might well think that this would be the most boring presentation of all time, but I guarantee that it won't be. It's actually an expanded version of the punctuation review that I've done many times with students in the past, which they've always been surprised to love. So come and bring with you all those punctuation questions to which you've never quite known the answers: Do you know, for instance, when a comma goes inside quotation marks and when it goes outside? What about the difference between who's and whose, or it's and its? And what's the deal with compound adjectives? And what are the three correct purposes for semicolons (which happen to be my favorite punctuation mark); and when do you use single quotation marks, and when double? Extra credit: See if you can come up with a sentence that contains the following punctuation: '"?'?" (In other words, six consecutive punctuation marks.)
Nance Van Winckel	015 Faculty Class: "Staking the Claim of the Title" Sunday 3:30pm-5:00pm Nance will talk about what makes for effective and not-so-effective titles for poems and works of fiction. She'll offer suggestions about ways to make titles do more "work" for a literary piece. There will be many examples of strong titles and a brief titling exercise for all to try.

"Welcome to Orcas" Thursday 7:30-9:30pm at the Orcas Center Featuring Orcas Island's eclectic (and humorous) band The Olga Symphony, and a literary smorgasbord from Orcas Island - short plays, monologues, poetry, even a literary dance!

"Fabulous Faculty Readings" Friday 7:30-9:30pm at the Orcas Center Featuring our workshop presenters Diane Lefer, Jody Gladding, Matthew Goodman, Nance Van Winckel, and Ellen Lesser, faculty associated with the Vermont College of the Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program.

A Special Night of Poetry and Jazz with Al Young and Martin Lund Saturday 7:30-9:30pm at the Orcas Center Saturday evening is sponsored by The Big Read in celebration of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ellen Lesser will kick off our evening with a reading of a passage from this novel. Check out the NEA's website at: www.neabigread.org Al Young was appointed Poet Laureate of California in 2005 by Governor Schwarzenegger. His honors include Wallace Stegner, Guggenheim, Fulbright and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the PEN-Library of Congress Award for Short Fiction, the PEN USA Award for Nonfiction, two American Book Awards, two Pushcart Prizes, two New York Times Notable Book of the Year citations, Radio Pacifica's KPFA Peace Prize, the Glenna Luschei Distinguished Poetry Fellowship, and the Richard Wright Award for Excellence in Literature. Young has taught poetry and literature at 15 colleges. His many books include novels, collections of poetry, essays, memoirs and anthologies. Blending story, recitation and song, Young often performs with musicians. Martin Lund has played with some of the great blues artists of our time and worked in the studios of LA as a composer, arranger and musician with artists like Mel Torme and Isaac Hayes. His eclectic background has allowed him to move freely through any style of music from classical to rock and from jazz to Broadway. He is equally adept at clarinet, saxophone, flute and piano.

"The Big Send-Off!" Sunday 5:30-9:00pm at the Orcas Center Madrona Room Come join us for a gourmet dinner with our faculty in the Madrona Room at the Orcas Center. Don't miss Chef Bill Patterson of the Sazio dinner club, musician Carolyn Cruso, and poet Dustin Fox. Carolyn Cruso moves gracefully between the hammered dulcimer, flute, guitar and voice, taking you on a magical journey of lyrical song, instrumental music, and storytelling. She'll be joined by the popular and dynamic performance poet Dustin Fox.