IOWA SUMMER WRITING FESTIVAL 

 

It's About Time: Writing That Endures (Five-Week Workshop)

 

Jared Joseph, Instructor 

 

Dates/Time 

 

Tuesdays on Zoom, May 16–June 13, 2023

 

• 6:00–9:00 p.m. Iowa/Central Time
• 7:00–10:00 p.m. Eastern Time
• 4:00–7:00 p.m. Pacific Time
• 5:00–8:00 p.m. Mountain Time

 

 

Fee: $600

 

Course Description 

 

If you can't find the time to write your novel, your memoir, or your collection of poems, chances are you're a human being living in a society. This 5 week-long workshop (itself a time crunch, and that's the point) will teach writers then to "make time," not only to carve out free moments in their day – writing first thing in the morning, or last thing at night, for example – but to write literary works during – or even about! – unfree time.  Students will be encouraged to write while they walk and while they talk (but not while they drive). All genres and all levels welcome.

 

In this generative writing workshop students will learn about writers from several disciplines who write not only about time – the events of James Joyce's monumental Ulysses spans 24 hours – but also according to it (Rome wasn’t built in a day, but Bernadette Mayer's monumental Midwinter Day was). William Carlos Williams, who was also a doctor, wrote most of his poems in transit between patient visits! Students will be exposed to works of poetry and prose written under playful time constraints that make time work for them, and students will write in-class and at-home exercises that are time-based and durational. Ultimately, students will, on the practical side, learn strategies to make daily writing an exciting opportunity rather than a chore; learn to make monthly schedules that balance writing, editing, and submissions; and also will plan out and conceive of a project to be completed some time after the class, whether in a period of years or a period of seconds. In 5 weeks with 5 respective units we will cover:

 

1.     A brief history of time (secondhand reflections)

2.     Time and time again (recording events)

3.     Timeless projects (endless projects)

4.     Itinerary (stopwatch writing)

5.     Deadlines (lifelines)

 

Our class will meet every Tuesday evening on Zoom to discuss and close-read the week’s readings for form and technique, to write in-class generative poetry exercises, and to share each other’s work. There won’t be workshops per se, but each week students will send to me a piece of writing that I will voluminously comment upon and return before our next session. NOTE: my comments will be more thematic – how does this piece engage with and within time, and what further projects will this lead to? – than they will be evaluative. This is just another way of saying that this will be more a strategies class than it is a craft class. Nonetheless, there will be elements of both. Near the end of the 5 weeks I will hold individual 30-minute conferences with each writer. Here’s a flexible rundown of our weekly meetings (in Central Time):

 

6:00 – 7:00: Unit Lesson and Close-Reading

 

7:00 – 8:00: Individual writing exercises with built-in Zoom breaks

 

8:00 – 9:00: Discussion and sharing of exercises, preparation for next week’s challenges.

  

 

Instructor 

 

Jared Joseph’s most recent writing has been published in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Iowa Review, and Action. His book Drowsy. Drowsy Baby is available from Civil Coping Mechanisms Press, and A Book About Myself Called Hell was published by Kernpunkt Press in February 2022. Jared holds a PhD in literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He lives in Los Angeles where he writes, plays music, and drinks coffee like it's a hot dog eating contest.

 

Registration & Fees 

 

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

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.” 

 

Refund & Cancellation Policy

 

If you need to cancel your enrollment, please let us know as soon as possible. We can only offer full refunds if you cancel one week prior to the start of class. After that, before the start-date of class, we can offer a 50% refund. We cannot refund day-of cancellations, and we cannot refund or partially refund registration fees once the class has begun.

 

Terms & Community Policy

 

1.    The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is a program for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to enroll in Festival workshops.

 

2.    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 out and about. If you phone and we miss you, please leave a detailed message!

 

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