Stonecoast Writers' Conference
July 15-21, 2012
Details
Application
Workshops
Faculty
Tuition and Fees
Location
Housing
Schedule
Contact
Details
July 15-21, 2012
Imagine: seven days to live inside the book you want to write; seven days to work and rework your poems; seven days surrounded by people who grapple with sentences, who fall in love with words; seven days to soak in the salt air, to contemplate the waters of Casco Bay.
At the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference students have the chance to work closely with a distinguished faculty composed of award-winning writers. We offer workshops in each of four genres: poetry, short fiction, novel, and nonfiction/memoir. Daily lectures and nightly readings give students the opportunity to meet other writers and to explore work that expands and challenges our understanding of literature.
Whether you have only recently started to commit your ideas to paper, or if you are polishing a manuscript before submitting it for a contest, the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference has something to offer you. Students who want maximum structure are encouraged to consider the traditional workshops—three hours of class time each day, plus access to the conference’s eclectic afternoon programming. Self-guided students are encouraged to consider our intensive afternoon workshops—a focused two hour class in your genre each afternoon; mornings are left open so you can do your own writing.
We are now accepting applications for the 2012 Conference! Download an application.
The Stonecoast Writers’ Conference is open to students of all experience levels. However, admission is selective. Applicants must submit a writing sample, a completed application form, a $200 non-refundable deposit, and a brief cover letter outlining your writing background and conference goals.
For questions regarding the application process or program content:
Justin Tussing, Director
Stonecoast Writers’ Conference
c/o Department of English
University of Southern Maine
P.O. Box 9300
Portland, ME 04104-9300
Telephone: 207.228.8393
For questions regarding billing:
Student Services
Professional & Continuing Education
University of Southern Maine
P.O. Box 9300
Portland, ME 04104-9300
Telephone: 207.780.5900
Application
We are now accepting applications for the 2012 Conference! Download an application.
The Stonecoast Writers’ Conference is open to students of all experience levels. However, admission is selective.
Applicants must submit a writing sample, a completed application form, a $200 non-refundable deposit, and a brief cover letter outlining your writing background and conference goals.
For details on how to apply, download the application form. Once you’ve submitted your application, you should receive a decision from us within two weeks.
When applying to the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference, students must select a particular course of study. Students choose workshops according to the genre they are working in, because of a desire to study with a particular instructor, or because they are seeking a specific challenge.
If you are unsure which workshop best meets your needs please call Justin Tussing, Conference Director, at 207-228-8393.
Workshops
In each workshop, regardless of genre, the primary “texts” are the writing samples submitted by you and your peers. Our instructors adapt their course materials to suit the students. Most instructors divide class time between craft talk, workshopping student work, and writing exercises. By customizing the classes according to the needs of its members, our instructors ensure that every student has a personalized workshop.
If you are unsure which workshop best meets your needs, please call Justin Tussing, Conference Director, at 207-228-8393.
This summer the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference is offering traditional workshops in short fiction, poetry, memoir, and the novel. These traditional workshops are available for academic credit and for non-credit. We are also offering two afternoon intensive workshops. The afternoon intensive workshops are only available for non-credit.
Traditional Workshops:
- Short Fiction Writing with Dianne Benedict—If you want a supportive environment where you feel free to take risks and push yourself, look no further. This is the perfect workshop for a writer who is just beginning to explore crafting fictional narratives.
- Short Fiction Workshop with Salvatore Scibona—This course is designed for students who have completed a few stories and are looking to push themselves. Salvatore is a consummate (and obsessive) craftsman; this course will help you see your work—and the potential of your work—in a new light.
- Novel Writing Workshop with Lily King—It doesn’t matter if you’ve just finished the first draft of a novel or had the first inkling that a novel is lurking in your laptop, Lily offers the feedback and encouragement necessary for you to see your project through to “The End.”
-
Memoir Writing with Susan Conley - Writing about personal experience in a way that is both compelling and truthful is a glorious challenge. It’s little wonder that no genre has experienced more growth in the last twenty years.
- Poetry Writing with Jennifer Moxley—Whether you’ve been breaking lines since you were in short pants, or if you’ve come to poetry more recently, the cool, green light of the Wolfe Den Patio offers an oasis for contemplation and composition.
Afternoon Intensive Workshops:
- Salvatore Scibona’s Intensive Short Fiction Workshop is designed for our most masochistic fiction writers. Craft talk will range from the practical to the theoretical.
- Susan Conley’s Intensive Memoir Workshop is for students who want to have their mornings free to write. Most students will have done significant work in the genre and will be working on developing or completing writing projects.
Faculty
- Dianne Benedict, Fiction Writing
Author of Shiny Objects, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, Dianne is a professor at the University of Southern Maine. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment For the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and Best American Short Stories. Whether this is your first writing class, or if you’re working on finishing a collection, Dianne always fosters a supportive community, where writers feel free to take risks and discover their stories
- Susan Conley, Memoir
Author of The Foremost Good Fortune, a "Top Ten" pick by O Magazine and a "Book of the Week" with Slate Magazine. A cofounder of Portland's The Telling Room, Susan has an MFA from San Diego State University. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, and Ploughshares, among other places. Her first novel is forthcoming from Knopf. For more information, visit her website.
- Lily King, Novel
King's novel, The Pleasing Hour won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and was a New York Times Notable Book and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her second book, The English Teacher, was a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and the winner of the Maine Fiction Award. Father of the Rain, her third novel, won the 2010 New England Book Award for Fiction. For more information, visit her website.
- Jennifer Moxley, Poetry
Moxley is the author of six books of poetry, including Clampdown (Flood, 2009), The Middle Room (Subpress, 2007), and The Line (Post-Apollo, 2007). She has also published two chapbooks and two books of translation. Her work appears in many anthologies. Moxley teaches poetry and poetics at the University of Maine in Orono. John Yau calls Moxley's work "intimate and dramatic." Arielle Greenberg says "Moxley's voice surfaces as ambitious and original, at once deeply immersed in the past and utterly forward-looking." This will be Jennifer’s second summer at the Stone House. For more information, visit her website.
- Salvatore Scibona, Short Fiction
Scibona's first novel, The End, was a finalist for the National Book Award. He won a Young Lion Fiction Award and a Whiting Writers' Award. In 2010, the New Yorker named Scibona one of their "20 Under 40." For more information, visit his website.
- Justin Tussing, Conference Director
Justin is the author of the novel The Best People in the World. A member of the faculty at the University of Southern Maine, Justin is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Previously he has held administrative positions at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, The Iowa Young Writers Studio, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He is currently at work on a novel about medicine, rock and roll, and parents.
Tuition & Fees
Deposit:
All applications must be accompanied by a $200 non-refundable deposit. If accepted into the program, this deposit is deducted from the total program tuition. If you decide to withdraw from this conference for any reason, the $200 application fee is non-refundable. For those not accepted into the program, the deposit will be returned.
Tuition:
Students select tuition options within their application form.
Tuition does not include housing.
- Traditional Workshops:
Students who are accepted into one of the traditional workshops have the choice of registering for three (3) undergraduate academic credits or as a non-credit course. A confirmation and bill/invoice will be sent (via e-mail) once your registration is processed.
The cost of the traditional workshops covers participation in morning traditional workshops, mid-day programming activities, evening readings, and includes tuition and fees, course handouts, daily lunch, coffee all day every day, a final banquet on Friday evening at the Stone House, as well as commencement, and closing ceremonies.
Academic Credit – Traditional Workshop $1122
Non-Credit - Traditional Workshop $890
- Intensive Workshops:
Intensive Workshops cannot be taken for credit. These afternoon courses run Monday-Friday, 1:30-3:30pm. Since space in limited, preference is given to Stonecoast Alumni. Cost of the intensive workshops covers participation in afternoon intensive workshops and evening readings, and includes tuition and fees, course handouts, daily lunch, coffee all day every day, and a final banquet on Friday.
Non-Credit Intensive Workshop $560
Refund & Cancellation Policy :
If you are not accepted into the conference you will be refunded your $200 application fee. If you decide to withdraw from this conference for any reason, the $200 application fee is non-refundable.
In order to receive a full refund, notice of cancellation must be received in writing on or before June 15, 2012.
Location
The coast of Maine is both metaphor and substance.
Here the absolute meets the plastic, the known meets the unknown. Water and land are locked in a marriage of inconvenience. The jagged rocks are worn smooth; the sinuous waves are shattered.
Each July the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference meets at the Stone House, a waterfront estate designed by John Calvin Stevens. The Colonial Revival style building is located near the tip of Wolfe’s Neck on Casco Bay. The property is surrounded by extensive rhododendron gardens and pastureland. Most classrooms have water views. Located approximately five miles outside of the center of bustling Freeport, the Stone House was donated to the University of Southern Maine by Mrs. Eleanor Houston Smith.
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."
Herman Melville-Moby Dick
Housing
Housing is not included in program tuition.
Residential Housing Option:
For those seeking a bit more camaraderie and a low-cost housing option, we have arranged with Bowdoin College in Brunswick to offer housing.
Book your residential housing online at http://www.regonline.com/stonecoast
All those interested in this residential housing option must coordinate their housing and housing payment directly with Bowdoin College by contacting Tara Studley, the Assistant Director of Summer Programs:
Tara Studley
Assistant Director of Summer Programs
Bowdoin College
3200 College Station
Brunswick, ME 04011-8423
207.725.3307(phone)
207.725.3925 (fax)
Year in and year out, we hear two things from residential students: they love the food and the camaraderie. Located just over ten miles from Wolf’s Neck, a shuttle van will take you to and from the Stone House.
Must be at least 18 years old for residential option
Participants will be housed in one of Bowdoin's student dormitories or college houses (formerly fraternity houses). All college houses and dormitories are located either on or directly adjacent to Bowdoin's campus - almost all of the college's facilities will be within a five to ten minute walk of your residence. Residential rooms may be single occupancy or shared, depending on the arrangements you make; bathrooms are typically shared by suite or by floor. In most cases, genders are separated by floor. Bowdoin's residential spaces are not air-conditioned; however, fans are available for a small deposit fee at the Summer Programs Information Desk. Upon arrival, each residential participant will find his or her bed made up with two sheets, one blanket, one pillow and a pillowcase. Two towels and one washcloth are also provided for each residential participant. All rooms are furnished with a bed, a desk and chair, a wardrobe closet and a bureau for each participant.
Bowdoin dorms are located within an easy walk to downtown Brunswick – one of the most picturesque main streets in Maine. You will find restaurants, galleries, shops, pubs and, on most nights, a band playing on the village green.
Reservations must be made directly with Bowdoin College.Book online residential housing online at http://www.regonline.com/stonecoast
Local Hotels:
There are a wide variety of hotels in the Freeport/Brunswick area. For more information about hotels in the area, go to http://www.visitmaine.com/ .
A Word About Freeport:
Freeport is located on the shores of beautiful Casco Bay. Well known for its outlet shopping, the town is rich in history and recreational opportunities. Home to LL Bean, Freeport is a great place to visit; Yankee Magazine selected Freeport as the Best Shopping Town in New England. The small town has myriad opportunities for shopping, recreating, and outdoor enjoyment, too. A wide variety of accommodations are available to suit all tastes. There are restaurants, pubs and coffee shops all within an easy walk of the downtown area.
Schedule
The below schedule is subject to change. A finalized schedule will be provided closer to program start time.
Sunday
- Check-In for Resident Students- 4:00pm to 5:00pm
- Check-In for Commuter Students- 5:00pm to 6:00pm
- Opening Event – 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Monday – Friday
- Traditional Workshops – 9:30am to 12:30
- Lunch – 12:30 to 1:30
- Mid-day Programming* – 1:30 to 3:30
- Afternoon Intensive Workshops – 1:30 to 3:30pm
- Evening Readings – 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Saturday
- Traditional Workshops – 9:30am to 12:30
- Closing Ceremonies - 12:30 to 1:30
*Each day, traditional workshop participants have a choice of events to attend; in this way, each student personalizes his or her experience at the conference. Recent Mid-Day Programming included:
- Literary Agent Visits
- Debut Writers Panel
- How Dialogue Works
- Professional Writing
- Writing Nature Poetry
- Ten Rules for Freelancing
- Using Humor in Your Writing
- The Modern Writer: Social Media
- Reading Before an Audience
- The Role of the Indie Bookshop
- Point of View and You
- Bookbinding Workshop
- Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance
- Writing About Personal Experience
- Revision is Writing
Special Evening Events:
- Evening Readings at the Stone House – Evening readings will include faculty and guest speakers.
- Night on the Town in Freeport, Maine – enjoy an organized night on the town with your fellow program participants.
- Friday Night Banquet at the Stone House – End the program with an evening of student readings and a banquet.
Contact
For questions regarding workshops, the application process, or program content:
Justin Tussing, Director
Stonecoast Writers’ Conference
c/o Department of English
University of Southern Maine
P.O. Box 9300
Portland, ME 04104-9300
Telephone: 207.228.8393
For questions regarding billing:
Student Services
Professional & Continuing Education
University of Southern Maine
P.O. Box 9300
Portland, ME 04104-9300
Telephone: 207.780.5900
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