2022 Chesapeake Writers’ Conference Schedule

TIME	LOCATION	DESCRIPTION
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM	Great Room	Breakfast
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM	Campus Center 226	Teachers’ Pedagogy Session (Teachers only, or by permission)
9:45 Am - 10:45 AM	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Craft Talk: Heather Green “Book Reviewing as Creative Work” Reviewing books can be a great way to participate in a literary community, to think through your aesthetic preferences, and even biases, and deepen your understanding of the craft of writing. It’s a very useful way to think through book construction: what makes a book greater than the sum of its parts? In this talk, I’ll pose some “golden rules” of book reviewing, we’ll think through some of the ins and outs of writing about books in translation, and we’ll consider criticism as its own creative art. Finally, we’ll cover some practical information about the process of pitching and/or publishing reviews.
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Lecture: Crystal Brandt “What Makes a Song Great?” We’ve all been there: a music-loving friend guarantees that you will absolutely love their new favorite song as much as they do. Just listen to it, they say, cueing it up. What happens next — love, hate, ambivalence, or indifference — is the subject of this craft lecture. We’ll look at the space between the songwriter’s intention and the listener’s reception as we explore what makes a song great, how and why greatness happens, and who gets to decide.
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM	Great Room	Lunch
1:15 PM	VARIOUS LOCATIONS (see below to find your workshop)	Workshops Begin
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	Kent Hall 316	Fiction, Matt Burgess This workshop will be descriptive rather than prescriptive. You will not have a group of people telling you how to rewrite your story. Instead, we will describe how your story is working—focusing on basic elements of narrative craft such as plot structures, characterization, and point-of-view—so that you can make your own best decisions on how to revise. We will also conduct short, in-class writing exercises designed to stretch your creative muscles, make you more comfortable with experimentation, and serve as raw material for future stories.
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	Kent Hall 212	Fiction, Patricia Henley Writing the Memorable Short Story This workshop is about possibilities and choices short story writers make. You may bring a draft of a story already written or you may come with only an idea for a story. In early drafts, everything you write should feel malleable. We will focus on how to use the tools of craft—point-of-view, sensory description, character development, your sense of place, and structure--to make your story publishable and unforgettable.
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	Kent Hall 317	Creative Nonfiction, Angela Pelster This workshop will be a supportive discussion and examination of participants’ writing, as well as an exploration of some of the major forms and styles within the genre.
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	Anne Arundel N204	Songwriting, Crystal Brandt Combine lyrics, melody, and performance and you’ve got a song. Add style, heart, and unity — all of those elements working together — and you’ve got the makings of a great song. In this workshop, we will work towards the latter by sharing original songs in a supportive and constructive space, listening for and reflecting on the poetry that lives between the words and music, and participating in exercises that will invigorate and sustain your individual songwriting practice. What can our favorite songs teach us about our own skill and effort, craft and connection? How can we use that information to build songs that preserve the integrity and energy of inspiration while fine-tuning structure and technique? Is there really a secret chord? We’ll explore these questions and more. All skill levels, voices, and genres welcome.
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	Anne Arundel W115	Poetry, Liz Arnold In this workshop, you will read other students' poems as well as poems by past and present masters from a short anthology I will provide. The conversation will span centuries as student work is discussed in the context of the best poetry that's been written. You will learn how to make choices for your poems, and how revision is an ongoing process. You will write in a handful of forms in the evenings, and these newer poems will be discussed as well as poems you bring with you to the conference. My hope is that you will leave the workshop with a fuller appreciation of the possibilities for your writing than you had on entering it.
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	River Center Seminar Room	Youth Workshop, Matthew Henry Hall In this workshop, high school aged conference attendees will explore poetry, fiction, personal narrative, and playwriting. Students will read and write in traditional forms such as sonnets, villanelles, short stories, standard memoirs, and plays as well as read and use less traditional forms and techniques— prose poems, automatic writing, cut-ups, magical realism and first-person journalism as well as writing scripts for television, movies, and graphic novels. This workshop’s fast-paced and wide-ranging literary tour will help young adult writers discover the literature, which truly inspire their lives and writing.
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM	Great Room	Dinner
7:30 PM - 8:30 PM	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Faculty Reading: Nadeem Zaman Matthew Henry Hall Heather Green Patricia Henley
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM	River Center	Social Time

TIME	LOCATION	DESCRIPTION
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM	Great Room	Breakfast
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM	Campus Center 226	Teachers’ Pedagogy Session (Teachers only, or by permission)
9:45 AM - 10:45 AM	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Craft Talk: Liz Arnold “Fact and Feeling: Strategies Toward a Disciplined Lyric” Lyric poetry is not pure lyricism. It’s a mix of many ways of speaking, ranging from near-prose to near-song, each level of intensity of language enhancing the power of the others. How to manage these various ways of speaking and their interactions will be the focus of this talk. Poets discussed will include Louise Glück, Emily Dickinson, George Oppen, and Frank Bidart.
11:00 AM - Noon	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Craft Talk: Nadeem Zaman “Conflict Makes The Story” The heartbeat and lifeblood of stories is conflict. Conflict comes in several forms. Conflicts can be external, conflicts can be internal. Conflicts are part of our everyday existence. So it is with fiction; in the case of this craft talk short fiction (although the methods may just as easily be applied to longer works). Whether conflicts manifest in a shouting match at a family gathering, burrow deep in our consciousness and create inner struggles of conscience, or cause irreconcilable strife between partners, the stories of our lives are rich with conflict.
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM	Great Room	Lunch
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	VARIOUS LOCATIONS	Workshops Begin
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	1. Kent 316 2. Kent 212 3. Kent 317 4. River Center Seminar Room 5. Anne Arundel N204 6. Anne Arundel W115	1. Fiction, Matt Burgess 2. Fiction, Patricia Henley 3. Creative Nonfiction, Angela Pelster 4. Youth Workshop, Matthew Henry Hall 5. Songwriting, Crystal Brandt 6. Poetry, Liz Arnold
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM	Great Room	Dinner
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM	Blackistone Room	Craft Talk: Tre Johnson “Cultural Nonfiction Writing: Making Connections Between History and Culture" A writer on race and culture, Tre Johnson will explore how he makes meaningful connections between contemporary and historical conversations, using a variety of artifacts and questions. This talk will explore the implications of race, culture and history as he constructs various components of his first book nonfiction project, BLACK GENIUS.
7:30 PM - 8:30 PM	Blackistone Room	Participant Reading
8:30 PM - 10:00 PM	River Center	Social Time

TIME	LOCATION	DESCRIPTION
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM	Great Room	Breakfast
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM	Campus Center 226	Teachers’ Pedagogy Session (Teachers only, or by permission)
9:15 AM - 12:15 PM	VARIOUS LOCATIONS	Workshops Begin
9:15 AM - 12:15 PM	1. Kent 316 2. Kent 212 3. Kent 317 4. River Center Seminar Room 5. Anne Arundel N204 6. Anne Arundel W115	1. Fiction, Matt Burgess 2. Fiction, Patricia Henley 3. Creative Nonfiction, Angela Pelster 4. Youth Workshop, Matthew Henry Hall 5. Songwriting, Crystal Brandt 6. Poetry, Liz Arnold
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM	Great Room	Lunch
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM		Free Time/Excursions
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM	Great Room	Dinner
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Faculty Reading Liz Arnold Matt Burgess Crystal Brandt Jerry Gabriel Tre Johnson
9:00 PM - 10:00 PM	River Center	Social Time

TIME	LOCATION	DESCRIPTION
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM	Great Room	Breakfast
8:45 AM - 10:15 AM	Cole Cinema	Publishing Panel Discussion TBA
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM	Aldom Lounge	Individual Publishing Meetings
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM	Campus Center 226	Teachers Pedagogy Session (Teachers only, or by permission)
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM	Great Room	Lunch
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	VARIOUS LOCATIONS	Workshops Begin
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	1. Kent 316 2. Kent 212 3. Kent 317 4. River Center Seminar Room 5. Anne Arundel N204 6. Anne Arundel W115	1. Fiction, Matt Burgess 2. Fiction, Patricia Henley 3. Creative Nonfiction, Angela Pelster 4. Youth Workshop, Matthew Henry Hall 5. Songwriting, Crystal Brandt 6. Poetry, Liz Arnold
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM	Great Room	Dinner
7:30 PM - 8:30 PM	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Craft Talk, Angela Pelster Research as a Creative Act
8:30 PM - 10:00 PM	River Center	Social Time

TIME	LOCATION	DESCRIPTION
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM	Great Room	Breakfast
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM	Campus Center 226	Teachers Pedagogy Session (Teachers only, or by permission)
9:45 AM - 10:45AM	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Craft Talk, Matthew Henry Hall "Yes And..." Improv For Writers What can writers learn from improv? Its a question we all ask ourselves. Okay, hardly anyone asks this. Alright, maybe no one asks this. But if someone did, and they'd be very smart for doing so, they could find out the answer by attending this extremely interactive Craft Talk. First, we will go over the basics of improv. Volunteers then will get a chance to do basic improv warm-ups, then two-person scenes. As we go, we'll discuss as a group the benefits of these activities for writers. [Note: Participation in the improv exercises is not required but will (most likely) be extremely fun.]
11:00 AM - 12:00 AM	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Craft Talk: Patricia Henley "Bending Your Truth" Anyone who writes fiction (or poetry, for that matter) relies on primal scenes or "moments of being" ( Virginia Woolf) from childhood onward that feel like great material. And, let's face it, writers are always seeking their best material, sort of like stand-up comics, although our job is easier. Maybe. In this talk, Patricia will discuss the pros and cons of writing your biography into your fictions. She will unpack examples from her own work. And she will elicit from you various ways forward using your own life story.
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM	Great Room	Lunch
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	VARIOUS LOCATIONS	Workshops Begin
1:15 PM - 4:15 PM	1. Kent 316 2. Kent 212 3. Kent 317 4. River Center Seminar Room 5. Anne Arundel N204 6. Anne Arundel W115	1. Fiction, Matt Burgess 2. Fiction, Patricia Henley 3. Creative Nonfiction, Jeannie Vanasco 4. Youth Workshop, Matthew Henry Hall 5. Songwriting, Crystal Brandt 6. Poetry, Liz Arnold
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM	Cole Cinema	All Faculty Q&A
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM	Great Room	Dinner
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM	Blackistone Room, Anne Arundel Hall	Music by Crystal Brandt & Matthew Henry Hall
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM	Lawn in front of Townhouse Greens	River Concert Series
8:00 PM - 11:00 PM	River Center	Social Time

St. Mary’s College of Maryland reserves the right to provide some or all of the course content through alternative methods of course delivery, including remote methods of delivery, and it reserves the right to change the method of delivery at any time before or during the academic term, in the event of a health or safety emergency or similar situation when it determines, in its sole discretion, that such change is necessary and in the best interests of the College and the campus community.