IOWA SUMMER WRITING FESTIVAL

Essay Bootcamp: A Generously Generative Workshop with Amy Butcher (Five-Week Workshop) 

Dates/Time

Saturdays on Zoom: April 10–May 8, 2021

10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. Central Time (11:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. Eastern; 8:00–11:00 a.m. Pacific; 9:00 a.m.–12:00 noon Mountain)

Fee: $600

Course Description

You’re out of shape, bored of the same routine, or simply haven’t had the time to keep that promise you made to yourself months ago. You’re stuck, in other words, in one way or in several. You need that extra push. Welcome to Essay Bootcamp. In this course, we’ll sweat our way back into the writing chair and work our way up to heavy lifting—of pencils and of thought—through a dozen new and generative exercises guaranteed to jumpstart our writing.

Shaped closely by in-class discussions of a wide variety of both contemporary and canonical essayistic forms (including personal essays, narrative essays, braided essays, lyric essays, stream-of-consciousness essays, and experimental essays, to name a few), our exercises will target point-of-view, chronology, form, voice, and structure, requiring us to weave the abstract qualities of beauty and truth—the two pillars of strong, memorable literary essays.

While we’ll find ourselves flexing our creative muscles daily, worry not: there’s no need to hit the gym. Here, victory takes the shape of new and meaningful work. By the end of our time together, students will have the beginning framework of a dozen new essays, substantial notes for one such essay’s revision through a thorough and constructive critical workshop, and most importantly, deep connections with fellow writers to ensure accountability long after our class. There is perhaps no greater workout than the one found in constructing artful narratives of our lives. Together, we’ll reap the rewards as we sweat our way into peak prose-ical fitness.

This workshop is for writers of all backgrounds and skill levels. Our focus will be on generating new material.

Class Structure & Objectives: Our class will meet weekly on Zoom. Each class will include a lesson with accompanying readings and discussion on one or more unique essayistic forms, several in-class and/or take-home exercises, and—at the end of the course—the opportunity to workshop one short essay (up to 1000 words) with our classroom community.

Writers will receive written feedback from Amy on their workshop submission, and Amy will also hold a 30-minute (Zoom or phone) conference with each writer. By the end of the workshop, participants will have ample material to continue shaping and revising into polished essays.

Please download Zoom before class begins. Feel free to set up a quick meeting with Amy before class starts to make sure you are comfortable with Zoom before we meet for the first time.

Instructor

Amy Butcher is an award-winning essayist and the author of Mothertrucker (Little A/Topple Books, 2022), which in July 2019 was acquired by Makeready Films for film development with  Emmy-winner Jill Soloway directing and Academy Award and Golden Globe-winner Julianne Moore in a starring role. Her first book, Visiting Hours (Blue Rider Press/Penguin-Random House, 2015), earned starred reviews and praise from The New York Times Sunday Review of Books, NPR, The Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and others. Her work has been featured on National Public Radio and the BBC, anthologized in Best Travel Writing 2016, and awarded grand prize in the 2016 Solas Awards' "Best of Travel Writing" series and the 2014 Iowa Review Award judged by David Shields. Additional essays have also been awarded notable distinctions in the 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 editions of the Best American Essays series and have appeared in Granta, Harper's, The New York Times "Modern Love," The New York Times Sunday Review, The Washington Post, The Denver Post, The Iowa Review, Lit Hub, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Fourth Genre, The Rumpus, The Paris Review online, Tin House online, and Brevity, among others.  She earned her MFA from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program. Amy is the Director of Creative Writing and an Associate Professor of English at Ohio Wesleyan University. She lives in Ohio with her three rescue dogs, beautiful beasts.

Registration & Fees

The fee for this course is $600. Payment in full is required to register.

Registration for this course opens at 10:00 a.m. Central Time, Wednesday, March 31, 2021.

Registrations are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Class size is limited to 10.

Note: Your credit card payment will be processed by an external provider and will appear on your credit card statement as “UI Writing—Magid Center.” 

Cancellation Policy

A $100 cancellation fee will be applied to refunds for cancellations received by Monday, April 5, 2021. Thereafter, no refunds are available. 

Terms & Community Policy

The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is a community built on an assumption of shared enterprise, in the spirit of mutual respect. We reserve the right to a) revoke the registration of or b) dismiss from the program any person who disrupts the learning/working environment of others. Participants in the Festival are subject to all University of Iowa policies governing conduct in our community, whether online or in person.

Questions?

Contact the Iowa Summer Writing Festival: iswfestival@uiowa.edu. Phone: (319) 335-4160.

Our tiny staff is working remotely. If you phone and we miss you, please leave a message!