CLIFF NOTES
Creative Writing Workshop
“Land(e)scape”
Hone your writing skills with some of the best writers in the country in one of the most beautiful places. This year’s focus will be on nature writing with poetry, prose, and photography. One session by each faculty member will be conducted in one of the beautiful canyons of the area, weather permitting.Friday
9:00-12:00 Nancy Takacs – Poetry Session
12:00-1:00 Brown Bag with David Lee and Bruce Hucko talking about their “Collaboration of Arts”
1:00-4:00 Craig Childs – Hogsback Heritage Writing Project Session
4:00-5:00 Manuscript Consultation
7:00 Reading and Discussion with David Lee and Photo Sharing with Bruce Hucko
Saturday
7:30-1:00 Bruce Hucko – Photo Session
1:00-2:00 Lunch
2:00-4:00 Nancy Takacs – Poetry Session
4:00-5:00 Manuscript Consultation
7:00 Readings and Discussion: Nancy Takacs followed by Craig Childs
Sunday
8:00-9:00 Continental Breakfast (may be at site)
9:00-12:00 Craig Childs – Writing Session
12:00-2:00 Lunch Panel: What Are You Reading and What Reading Most Influences Your Work?
2:00-4:00 Workshop Participants Reading
Craig Childswill teach the nature writing sessions.Craig Childs is a writer who focuses on natural sciences, archaeology, and remarkable journeys into the wilderness. He has published more than a dozen critically acclaimed books on nature, science, and adventure. He is a commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men's Journal, Outside, Orion, and High Country News. His subjects range from pre-Columbian archaeology to US border issues to the last free-flowing rivers of Tibet and Patagonia.
The expeditions Childs undertake often last weeks or months, informing his writing with a hard-earned sense of landscape and culture. The New York Times says "Childs's feats of asceticism are nothing if not awe inspiring: he's a modern-day desert father." He has been called a born storyteller by the New York Sun, and the LA Times says his writing is like pure oxygen, and "stings like a slap in the face." He has won several key awards including the 2011 Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award, 2008 Rowell Art of Adventure Award, the 2007 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award and the 2003 Spirit of the West Award for his body of work, an honor he shares with Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams and N. Scott Momaday. Childs is an Arizona native, and grew up back and forth between there and Colorado. With a mother hooked on outdoor adventure, and a father who liked whiskey, guns, and Thoreau, his life was rigged from the start. In his teens, Childs began working as a river guide, and since then has held numerous jobs to support his field time, from gas station attendant to journalist to beer bottler. Now making a living as a writer, Childs lives off the grid with his wife and two young sons at the foot of the West Elk Mountains in Colorado.
Nancy Takacs will teach sessions on poetry. Nancy Takacs lives in Wellington, Utah and is the author of books Pale Blue Wings, Limberlost Press, 2001; Preserves City Art Press, 2004; and Wild Animals, Outlaw Artists Press, 2008. She has been the recipient of several poetry awards, including First Place both in the Utah Arts Council Poetry Book Competition and in its Poetry Competition, The Nation/Discovery Award, as well as Utah Individual Art Grants and fellowships, and residencies at Ucross and Vermont Studios. Nancy was a wilderness studies instructor and a creative writing professor at the College of Eastern Utah in Price, from where she has recently taken early retirement. She received an MFA from the University of Iowa. A new book Juniper is forthcoming from Limberlost Press sometime this year.
Bruce Hucko will teach photography sessions. Bruce Hucko employs photography to express the ongoing relationship between people and the land. Since 1976 Bruce has taught visual art, photography and video to children in the American Southwest, USSR and New Zealand. Much of his work has been with Navajo and Pueblo children, teaching the art in an environment of cultural and community integrity.
David Lee, Utah's first Poet Laureate will join us to provide feedback about the writing that participants bring to the workshop. He will also read on Friday evening. Dave's book From Down to the Cafe was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, a testament to the wide national interest in his work. In 2001, he was chosen as a finalist for United States Poet Laureate. Dave taught at Southern Utah University and is currently retired and writing. Dave will read on Friday night as well as provide feedback on participants writing.
There are only 3 motels in Boulder. Make your reservations now!
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