WRITERS' LEAGUE OF TEXAS
formerly the Austin Writers' League
Lamar University
Write on the Right Side of Texas
Lamar University’s
Intensive Summer Creative Writing Workshop
Beaumont TX, June 14-25, 2004
Write Poetry, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Scripts, Plays for Undergraduate credit (English 4345) or Graduate credit (English 5345).
Costs: Tuition and Fees for 3 semester
hours: $411
Two weeks stay in Cardinal Village $25/night $350 for two week stay
Cardinal Village is a brand new apartment-style dormitory. The two units, with a 3rd being built, are the showcases of Lamar University. The living units consist of two bedrooms with private baths and a common living area. The dorms have their own pool and volley ball court. They have access to Lamar’s fitness center. They are a five minute drive from Beaumont’s Crockett Street Historical and Entertainment District. Students must supply linens (single beds) and towels. For a dorm room, notify Jim Sanderson (see below).
Duplication of manuscripts: Varies
Procedure for enrolling and deadlines:
For acceptance or information, students should contact Jim Sanderson (409
880-8598 or sandersojb@hal.lamar.edu
or Box 10023, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX 77710) prior
to April 15. They should let him know the following:
1) intent on taking a course 2) the genre to study 3) level of expertise
(previous classes, workshops, lectures, etc. ) 4) desire for graduate,
undergraduate, or “no-grade” credit 5) need for dorm housing
6) name, address, phone, and e-mail.
After notifying Sanderson, students must enroll at Lamar through the Admissions office for undergraduate credit or the Graduate Office for graduate credit. Then students may enroll for Lamar’s 2004 Summer Session I: English 4345 (undergraduate) or 5345 (graduate) by phone or over the internet. This is a relatively painless procedure.
Lamar Web site: http://www.lamar.edu/
Admissions Office: http://www.lamar.edu/admissions/ , 409-880-8888 (application form available online)
Graduate Office: http://dept.lamar.edu/graduatestudies/ , 409-880-8229 (application form available online)
Students should be enrolled for a course by May 14, 2004. At that point, according to genre, Sanderson will assign students to a particular class (15 students per class) and assign instructors to those classes.
Nature of course:
Depending upon the instructor (see enclosed for instructors and speakers/readers),
by June 1, the students must mail or e-mail a manuscript or poems to their
assigned instructors. The instructor will then critique the students’
work and mail or e-mail the critiques back to the students. Students will
then bring copies of their revised poems or manuscripts, or mail them
in to the instructor, when they arrive for the course proper. During the
first week, the class will critique (“workshop”) these revised
manuscripts or poems. After the critique, the students will revise their
work or submit new work for the second week of workshop. Students should
bring their own computers if at all possible. Students are also responsible
for duplicating enough copies of their manuscript for the class.
The workshops will meet for two hours for five days a week during the early afternoons, giving students the mornings to write or take other classes. In the late afternoon, Lamar instructors and visiting instructors will offer seminars, panel discussions, and lectures about writing, publishing, and publicizing. In the evenings, Lamar instructors and visiting writers will give readings open to the public. If time permits, guest writers/speakers will critique manuscripts of selected students.
Headlining Author:
Gordon Weaver is the author of four novels and nine short story collections. The tenth, Last Stands, will be published by the University of Missouri Press in the spring of 2004. More than a hundred of his short stories have appeared in a wide variety of literary and popular magazines. Recognition of his work includes two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the O. Henry First Prize, the St. Lawrence Award for Fiction, and numerous other awards and citations. Several of his stories have been selected for reprinting in anthologies, including Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize. His first novel, Count a Lonely Cadence, was adapted for the screen as Cadence, co-starring Martin and Charlie Sheen. He taught literature and creative writing at colleges and universities in New York, Ohio, Colorado, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin, and served as editor of Mississippi Review and Cimarron Review, and has presented invited readings and workshops at more than a hundred and fifty colleges and universities across the nation and abroad.
Instructors:
Sam Gwynn: was born in Eden, North Carolina, in 1948 and educated at Davidson College and the University of Arkansas, R.S. (Sam) Gwynn is the author of five collections of poetry. His criticism of contemporary poetry regularly appears in the Sewanee Review and the Hudson Review. He is the editor of two volumes of the Dictionary of Literary Biography covering contemporary poets, The Advocates of Poetry: A Reader of American Poet-Critics of the Modernist Era, the Pocket Anthology series from Penguin Academics, New Expansive Poetry: Theory, Criticism, History from Story Line Press, The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction (with Dana Gioia), and the forthcoming Contemporary American Poetry: A Pocket Anthology (with April Lindner). His volume of selected poems, No Word of Farewell, was published in 2001 by Story Line Press. A teacher of creative writing at Lamar since 1976, he was Distinguished Faculty Lecturer in 2001 and is University Professor of English.
Jim Sanderson, born in San Antonio, has published six books. Sanderson’s collection of short stories, Semi-Private Rooms (1994), won the Kenneth Patchen Prize for fiction in 1992, sponsored by Pig Iron Press. A collection of essays, A West Texas Soapbox appeared in June of 1998 from the West Texas A&M State University Series from Texas A&M University Press. Sanderson’s first novel, El Camino del Rio, won the 1997 Frank Waters Prize, and was published by The University of New Mexico Press. The University of New Mexico Press also published two other novels: Safe Delivery (2000) and La Mordida (2002). Nevin’s History, a historical novel, will appear from Texas Tech University Press in 2004. Sanderson has previously published about fifty short stories, essays, or scholarly articles. He has a Ph.D. in fiction writing from Oklahoma State University. Sanderson teaches fiction at Lamar University and was the 2002 Distinguished Faculty Lecturer at Lamar University.
Jerry Bradley is the author of 4 books including The Movement: British Poets of the 1950s and Simple Versions of Disaster, which was commended by the Dictionary of Literary Biography. His poetry has appeared in Modern Poetry Studies, New England Review, American Literary Review, and other literary magazines. He is listed in Outstanding Writers of the 20th Century, International Who’s Who in Poetry and Poets’ Encyclopedia, and International Authors and Writers Who’s Who. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he is past president of the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers and the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association. He was selected as the 2000 Scholar-Teacher of the Year by the Texas College English Association.
Renee Smith has an M.A. in fiction writing from West Chester University in West Chester, PA, and she has an MFA in poetry from McNeese University in Lake Charles, LA. Renee grew up in New Jersey, but now lives in Beaumont, TX where she teaches at Lamar University. She has been published in The Review, Daedalus, The TACWT Newsletter, and Concho River Review.
Guest Writers/lecturers
Laura Parker Castoro is a best-selling author of 34 titles, published in the U.S. and 14 foreign countries. She has written in several genres, including western, saga, romantic suspense, and non-fiction. Until recently her specialty was historical and contemporary romance, written as Laura Parker. Her publishers include Warner, Pocketbooks, Avon, Simon and Schuster (Jan Messner), Dell (under three different imprints), Harlequin, Silhouette, Kensington, Berkley and soon Red Dress Ink. Last year, under the name Laura Castoro, she published Crossing the Line, a work of mainstream women’s fiction
Terry Dalrymple teaches literature and writing at Angelo State University, where he holds the John S. Cargile Professorship in English. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, and his publications include Fishing for Trouble, a novel for middle readers, and Salvation, a collection of short fiction.
Kathleen Crist is a publicist, agent, copy editor, and independent editor from Dallas. She has helped edit novels and non-fiction for a variety of authors and for a variety of publishers.
home | about
WLT | calendar |
classes & workshops | star
instructors |
membership | contests,
awards, & grants | on
the air | footnotes |
contact us |
writers resources |
FAQs | site
map