paths to publishing

1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. | Thursday, August 1, 2024

The Paths to Publishing panel features writers from the MCWC community who published in the last year. Each will share about their publishing journey and the steps that led to their success.

how to query an agent

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. | Thursday, August 1, 2024 

A wide-ranging session with literary agent Sarah Bowlin about how to research, begin, and manage the agent query process. When do you know your manuscript is ready? How to research agents? What does a query letter look like? How many agents should you query? What follow up is considered customary? What questions should you ask if an agent is interested? We will cover the major elements of querying and have plenty of time for questions.

ZODIAC PACT: ON WRITING GENERATIONAL NARRATIVES

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. | Thursday, August 1, 2024

Unlike the western Zodiac with its monthly divisions, the eastern Zodiac runs in twelve-year cycles. Within this framework, generational "discourse" manifests not in terms of opposition, but of commonalities. In this seminar, we'll work through storytelling structures and practices that focus on broaching and breaching arbitrary boundaries based on age and epoch, with a goal of extending compassion and grace for narrative "non-contemporaries."

Journaling as a creative vehicle

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. | Thursday, August 1, 2024 

In a published collection of her journals and notebooks, Susan Sontag wrote: “In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself.” Journaling is a ubiquitous practice, recommended in wellness and therapeutic spheres, but the journals kept by writers are particularly fascinating documents, a complement to a writer’s public output. In this seminar, we’ll discuss how journaling can unlock creativity. We’ll look at various habits of keeping a journal or notebook, and how such informal writing can deepen and enrich our creative practices. We’ll consider the value of keeping a corner of one’s writing life private—having a space in which you can freely explore, strengthening your writerly habits of noticing, and recording the fluctuations of the mind. Conversely, we’ll consider how the writing in our journals might be utilized for public-facing projects down the line. We’ll look at examples from writers like Sheila Heti and Virginia Woolf, who elevated journaling to an art form. We’ll do a generative, in-class exercise and experiment with transforming the raw material of autobiographical writing into fiction or poetry.

Pitch Panel

4:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. | Thursday, August 1, 2024

Pitch your book in two minutes flat to an editor, an agent, and a published author. They’ll give you frank reactions to the concept of your book, and to the way you made your pitch.

Participants will have the opportunity to drop their name in the hat for selection, though we cannot guarantee that all interested participants will get a turn to pitch. Private, one-on-one consultations can also be requested when you register for the conference. Consultations are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

faculty Reading

5:30 p.m. | Thursday, August 1, 2024

Enjoy a medley of readings by the MCWC faculty.

This event is free and open to the public.

open mic 

1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. | Friday, August 2, 2024

Share a two-minute excerpt of your work—or sit back and enjoy a medley of good writing and entertainment.

This event is free and open to the public.

Collision vs Precision: To Metaphor or to Simile, That Is the Question

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. | Friday, August 2, 2024

This seminar will begin by briefly developing working definitions of metaphor and simile. As we develop our definitions, we will then discuss the role each term plays in the meaning-making possibilities of poetry, paying special attention to the fact that a simile is a type of metaphor but not all metaphors are similes. After establishing this foundation, we will then take a look at some classic and contemporary poems that demonstrate the subtle differences between the two terms. After each example poem, students will perform a writing exercise in which they have the opportunity to mimic either individual metaphors and/or similes from the example poem, or they can draft a piece that mirrors the metaphorical landscape of the example as a whole. The main aim of this seminar is for each student to leave not only able to recognize the qualities of each term but also to feel more comfortable and competent while utilizing and implementing each term in their own writing. 

writing deliciously

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. | Friday, August 2, 2024

In “From Blossoms,” Li-Young Lee writes: “O, to take what we love inside, / to carry within us an orchard.” In this seminar, we will delve into the intimate sensory memories that food evokes. How can writing about food open up evocative spaces of comfort, family, memory, shared rituals, and desires? How can writing through and about food radically strengthen our communities and open up our creative craft? Along with celebrating and exploring food writing by writers such as Lucille Clifton, Chen Chen, and Naomi Shihab Nye, we will write together inspired by delicious prompts. Bring snacks!

GETTING PUBLISHED: FROM FIRST DRAFT TO FIRST BOOK!

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. | Friday, August 2, 2024 

A publishing professional will discuss the landscape of the publishing industry and the process from writing your first draft to the final printed book through editing, acquisitions, contracts, production, design, marketing, and publicity. Building your literary career is a process filled with opportunities to be taken and rejections to be overcome. Learn which opportunities are best for you and understand the industry better so as not to take rejections personally. Everybody can get a book published, it’s just a matter of what you want to accomplish and how you want to get there. 

ANONYMOUS Critique

4:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. | Friday, August 2, 2024

Submit your opening page to see the candid reactions of an editor, an agent, and an author.

Participants will have the opportunity to drop their opening lines in the hat for selection, though we cannot guarantee that all submissions will be read.

faculty Reading

7:00 p.m. | Friday August 2, 2024

Enjoy a medley of readings by the MCWC faculty.

This event is free and open to the public.

open mic 

1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. | Saturday, August 3, 2024

Share a two-minute excerpt of your work—or sit back and enjoy a medley of good writing and entertainment.

This event is free and open to the public.

The Work That Makes All Other Work Possible

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. | Saturday, August 3, 2024

Without domestic care and labor, no other work – creative or professional – is possible. This session will explore the history of why care work is undervalued and often invisible, as well as challenge and expand our understanding of what ‘mothering’ and care labor is and can be. We’ll explore our own care journeys – the memories, emotions, and physical sensations – that brought us to where we are today and reframe care work as rich terrain for storytelling. And we will imagine what a more equitable and caring writing community can look like. 

THE EDITORIAL EYE

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. | Saturday, August 3, 2024

In this session, Tin House editor Alyssa Ogi will discuss when a prose or poetry manuscript might be ready to share with an editor, what the acquisition process at an indie press looks like, the working relationship between an author and editor, different pathways to publication, and more insights into the often opaque publishing industry. At the end, there will be time for any questions you might have. 

Twelve Questions to Structure Your Writing

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m | Saturday, August 3, 2024

What does your character want? What do they need? What is their gift? What is their flaw? Do you know their arc? Who is your main antagonist? How does setting enhance your story? How about your style/voice?  Do you know you're the crisis of the book? The climax? The resolution? Finally, are you aware of your theme? Are many of these elements present in your first chapter, on your first page, even in your first paragraph or sentence?

In this seminar we will look at 12 questions to help structure your novel, short story or memoir by examining work by Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Sandra Cisneros and others. Please come prepared with some general answers to the above questions in relation to your own work and one novel of your choice.

Pitch Panel

4:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. | Saturday, August 3, 2024

Pitch your book in two minutes flat to an editor, an agent, and an author. They’ll give you frank reactions to the concept of your book, and to the way you made your pitch.

Participants will have the opportunity to drop their name in the hat for selection, though we cannot guarantee that all interested participants will get a turn to pitch. Private, one-on-one consultations can also be requested when you register for the conference. Consultations are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

Closing Keynote ADdress

5:30 p.m. | Saturday, August 3, 2024

We’ll wrap up the conference with a keynote address by Rachel Kushner. Rachel is the author of the internationally acclaimed novels The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers, and Telex from Cuba, as well as a book of short stories, The Strange Case of Rachel K. Her more recent book, The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020, was published in April 2021. She has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her books have been translated into twenty-six languages.