Poetry II: Opening Time: Hooking the Audience and Encouraging Them to Stay with You — Suzanne Cleary, Hayden Saunier

Play with your words! Strategies for opening your poems and freeing their meaning.

 

Making Time Past Present: Memoir/Fiction — Jennifer Clement

Memoir is not fact, neither is it fiction. Find the hidden memory, name or word that sparks your imagination into writing that is more expansive and free.

                            

12:00 - 1:30 p.m.  

Lunch and Readings by the Judges

 

1:35 - 2:50 p.m.    

Afternoon Masterclasses (Concurrent Sessions)*

Fiction III: Open, Close and the Flop — Amy Bloom

Explore ways to ensnare the reader and create an ending that changes and expands the meaning of all that has gone before.

 

Poetry III: Writing the Uncompromised — Nikky Finney, Britton Gildersleeve

“Fearless isn’t just a character trait,” says Finney. “It’s a responsibility.”

The Magic of the Past: Young Adult Fantasy—Patricia C. Wrede

Rooting your YA fantasy in history—and giving history new and exciting twists.

 

Launch Time: Finding an Agent — A. J. Tierney

Ready to send your book out? See how to write effective query letters and book synopses that will help you catch that elusive creature—a literary agent.

 

A Timely Workout: Exercise Your Writing Muscles  — Francine Ringold, Cheryl Pallant

Receive a bag of tricks and writing exercises for the classroom and/or a room of one’s own.

 

Starting and Growing a Literary Magazine: A Guide to a Successful Collaboration— Rachael Luther, Catherine Roberts, Ellen Stackable, Paul Stevenson

How students, teachers, and other interested individuals can work together to begin and maintain a vibrant literary magazine. Hear from 30-year veterans and 2-year start-ups.

 

2:50 - 3:00 p.m.    

Break: Bread & Butter and Tea

 

Meet one on one with a Nimrod editor who will help you revise your work.  Submit 2-3 pages of poetry or 4-5 pages of fiction.  Materials must be received by October 15th.  Each one-on-one editing session is 15 minutes long.

*Registrants may attend one morning panel discussion and one morning and one afternoon masterclass, as well as the entire after-tea reading from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m.  Afternoon one-on-one editing participants may move to and from their session to the Invitational Readings as time permits.

 

The full Saturday conference package ($50) includes workshops, panel discussions, readings, lunch, tea, and one-on-one editing sessions.

 

Full and partial scholarships are available, particularly for students.  For scholarship information, call 918-631-3080 or emailNimrod@utulsa.edu.

 

Scholarship recipients are asked to send payment for the meal ($10) at the time of their registration if they wish to have lunch with us. Recipients who do not plan to join us for lunch should inform us at the time of their registration. The menu includes vegetarian options.

 

Judges and Master Teachers

 

Amy Bloom, judge for Nimrod’s 2011 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, is the author most recently of the novel Away and the collection of short fiction Where the God of Love Hangs Out.  Other collections of short fiction include Come to Me and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You. Bloom’s first novel, Love Invents Us, was a National Book Award finalist. She has also been a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Author also of screenplays, teleplays and television shows, she has published in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, Story, The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad.  She taught at Yale University for ten years and is now Wesleyan University’s Writer-in-Residence.

 

Linda Pastan, judge for Nimrod’s 2011 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, has published thirteen books of poetry since 1971, including Aspects of Eve, The Five Stages of Grief, Waiting For My Life, Queen of a Rainy Country, and mostly recently, Traveling Light. Noted for her “unfailing mastery of her medium” (New York Times), she has been recognized with the Ruth Lilly Award for Lifetime Achievement, The Alice Fay di Castagnola Award given by the Poetry Society of America, the Bess Hokin Prize given by Poetry Magazine, and the 1986 Maurice English Poetry Award. From 1991 to 1995 she served as the Poet Laureate of Maryland. She has been published in Nimrod several times, the first time in 1968.

 

2011 Nimrod Award Winners and Instructors

 

Sultana Banulescu, first-prize winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, is a Ph.D. Candidate at the City University of New York Graduate Center and the 2010-2011 recipient of the Randolph Braham Dissertation Fellowship in Eastern European History and Holocaust Studies.  Her winning short story, Beggars and Thieves, a coming-of-age tale set in Bucharest’s formerly Jewish neighborhood, is centered upon the historical events of March 4, 1977, that claimed 1,570 lives and almost 33,000 buildings.

 

Suzanne Cleary, second-prize winner of the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, has published the poetry books Keeping Time and Trick Pear. Recipient of a Pushcart Prize, her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Poetry London, and the anthology Best American Poetry. She is Professor of English at SUNY Rockland and also teaches in the Converse College low-residency M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program.

 

Hayden Saunier, first-prize winner of the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, published her first book of poetry, Tips for Domestic Travel, in 2009. Her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Drunken Boat, Rattle, Nimrod, and U.S. 1, among others. She won the 2005 Robert Fraser Poetry Award and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize.

 

Kellie Wells, second-prize winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, is the author of the short story collection Compression Scars, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Prize, and the novel Skin. She teaches in the creative writing programs at the University of Alabama and Pacific University.

 

Master Teachers

 

Jennifer Clement is the author of multiple books of fiction, memoir, and poetry, including The Poison that Fascinates, Widow Basquiat, The Next Stranger, Newton’s Sailor, Lady of the Broom, and Jennifer Clement: New and Selected Poems. She is the recipient of the Canongate Prize and the MacDowell Fellowship, in addition to being awarded Mexico’s “Sistema Nacional de Creadores” grant. She studied English Literature at NYU and French Literature in Paris, France. She has directed the famed annual writing seminars in San Miguel, Mexico, for over twenty years. Clement currently resides in Mexico City, Mexico.

 

Nikky Finney is the author of four poetry collections, Head Off & Split, Rice, On Wings Made of Gauze, and The World is Round, as well as a collection of short stories, Heartwood. She is the editor of the anthology The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. She is the winner of a PEN America Open Book Award and the 2004 Benjamin Franklin Award for Poetry. She was recently featured in the March/April 2011 edition of Poets and Writers. Nikky lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where she is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Kentucky.

 

Britton Gildersleeve’s award-winning work has appeared in New Millenium Writings, Nimrod, Passager, Spoon River, Atlas Poetica and the Florida Review, among other journals. She is the director of a federal non-profit—the Oklahoma State University Writing Project—at OSU, where she also teaches. Most recently, Pudding House Publications released her chapbook, Trading with Devils.

 

Ron Hansen is the author of eight novels and two short story collections, most recently A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion. His novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was adapted into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck in 2007.  His short stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Iowa Review and Esquire, in addition to many other journals. His novel, Atticus, was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has received Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in addition to a Lyndhurst Foundation Grant.

 

Rachael Luther is a senior at Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences. As a student artist and staff member for Ex Cineribus since its first volume, she has developed her interests in writing and journalism. She plans to pursue journalism throughout her college career.

 

Susan Mase is the Fiction Editor of Nimrod.  Her appreciation of great prose, as well as a passion for preserving the short story form, has motivated her work with the Nimrod Editorial Board for over fifteen years.  She has an M.A. from the University of Tulsa, has taught college English, and is a freelance writer, editor, and tutor.
   

Eilis O’Neal, Nimrod’s Managing Editor, is the author of the young adult fantasy novel The False Princess, which was recently nominated for this year’s YALSA Teens’ Top Ten Award. Her short fantasy has appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and other magazines.

 

Cheryl Pallant is the author of three poetry books, Morphs, Uncommon Grammar Cloth, and Into Stillness, as well as four chapbooks. Her nonfiction books include Contact Improvisation: an Introduction to a Vitalizing Dance Form, her forthcoming memoir, Ginseng Tango, and a work in process on the somatic connection to writing. She has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Richmond, Keimyung University, and in 2009-2010, was the Lubell Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at The University of Tulsa.

 

Francine Ringold, Editor-in-Chief of Nimrod, completed two terms as Oklahoma’s Poet Laureate (2003-2005, 2005-2007). Her most recent book of poems, Still Dancing, won the Oklahoma Book Award in 2005.  Her books include The Trouble with Voices: Poetry, another Oklahoma Book Award winner; Every Other One, with Manly Johnson; and Making Your Own Mark: Writing and Drawing for Senior Citizens. Her newest book, How Not to Write a Memoir, is forthcoming.

 

Lisa Ransom is one of Nimrod’s Poetry Editors. She has published work in the Mid-America Poetry Review, Creosote, Redbud and others.  She was the winner of the Edgar Lee Masters prize.

 

Catherine Roberts is an English and Economics major at The University of Tulsa. In 2010, she helped found the literary journal Ex Cineribus at her former high school, Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences, as part of her participation in the TU’s Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge. Catherine was also a Nimrod Editorial Assistant in 2010.

 

Diane Seebass is a fiction editor for Nimrod, an editor for Council Oak Books, and a teacher of writing.

 

Ellen Stackable is an English teacher at Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences. She is currently teaching Advanced Placement Literature, World Studies, and an advanced writing course. Two years ago, with University of Tulsa student Catherine Roberts, Ellen helped found the TSAS literary journal, Ex Cineribus, and she currently serves as its advisor. She is passionate about the importance of writing and presented on “Collaborative Journaling in the Age of Technology” at several national conferences.

 

Paul Stevenson teaches Creative Writing and AP English Language and Composition at Edison Preparatory School. He sponsors Eyrie, Edison’s journal of creative expression, which has won numerous national awards. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines of the National Council of Teachers of English and is a Folger Shakespeare Library Master Teacher.

 

A. J. Tierney obtained an M.F.A. in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, and then joined the Fine Print Literary Agency in New York City where she worked as an agent under the legendary Peter Rubie.  Since moving back to her home state of Oklahoma, she has established her own literary agency, Tierney Literary Management.  She is open to all kinds of books, her only criterion being excellence.  She is passionate about working with writers and helping them craft their books and get them published.  She is also a member of the Nimrod Editorial Board.

 

Patricia C. Wrede is the author of over nineteen fantasy novels for young adults and adults. Her books include the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which begins with Dealing With Dragons, the Regency Magic novels, which begin with Sorcery and Cecelia, and, most recently, the Frontier Magic series, which begins with Thirteenth Child and continues with her most recent novel, Across the Great Barrier. In 1980, she was a founding member of the Interstate Writing Workshop, The Scribbles. Wrede has also adapted Star Wars: Episodes I, II and III into young adult novelizations.

 

A supplement to the biographical notes will be available at the conference and will introduce additional one-on-one editors, including Diane Burton, Bill Epperson, Cynthia Gustavson, Ellen Hartman, Diane Seebass, Krista Waldron, and others.

 

 

REGISTRATION FORM

 

NAME:

 

 

ADDRESS:

 

 

CITY, STATE, ZIP:

 

 

PHONE:

 

 

EMAIL:

 

 

___ I wish to receive more information regarding the Nimrod Literary Awards Presentation Dinner and Keynote Speech on Friday, October 21.

 

___ I wish to attend the entire Nimrod Conference for Readers and Writers on Saturday, October 22, 9:30 a.m-4:00 p.m., Allen Chapman Activity Center, TU, 5^th & Gary.  The cost for the all-day Saturday conference includes masterclasses, workshops, panels, readings, and lunch.

 

_____ x $50 (full registration) = $ _____

_____ x $10 (scholarship registration) = $ _____

 

Make checks payable to:

Nimrod International Journal

800 S. Tucker Dr.

Tulsa, OK 74104

 

Full and partial scholarships are available, particularly for students. For scholarship information, call 918-631-3080 or email Nimrod@utulsa.edu. 

 

Early registration helps to assure your first selection of masterclasses.

 

Professional development credit is available for Tulsa Public Schools teachers.

 

 

Conference Schedule and Registration Form: Saturday, October 22, 2011

 

Concurrent Sessions: Each registrant may attend all readings, as well as lunch and tea, but only one panel discussion, and one morning and one afternoon masterclass. Please indicate your first and second choices for concurrent sessions.  Early registration will help to assure first choice.

 

Concurrent Panels (Please indicate your first and second choice.)

 

10:00 a.m.-10:40 a.m.

 

___ Panel Discussion: What Time Is It? Interpretations

Sultana Banulescu, Amy Bloom, Suzanne Cleary, Ron Hansen, Cheryl Pallant, Linda Pastan, Patricia C. Wrede

___ Q&A: Editing and Publishing: Why? How? What? When?

Jennifer Clement, Nikky Finney, Susan Mase, Eilis O’Neal, Lisa Ransom, Hayden Saunier, Kellie Wells

 

Masterclasses—Concurrent Sessions (Please indicate your first and second choice.)

 

10:45 a.m.-12:00 noon

Morning Masterclasses:

___ Hands-on One-on-One Editing Workshops I

I have included a sample of my writing (2-3 pages of poetry or 4-5 pages of fiction) for pre-review by my editor. Materials must be received by October 15th.

___ Fiction I: A Timely Past: Historical Fiction

Ron Hansen, Diane Seebass

___ Fiction II: Time’s Limit: The Unreliable Narrator

Sultana Banulescu, Kellie Wells

___ Poetry I: Aspects of Poetry: Q&A with Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan

___ Poetry II: Opening Time: Hooking the Audience and Encouraging Them to Stay with You

Suzanne Cleary, Hayden Saunier

___ Making Time Past Present: Memoir/Fiction

Jennifer Clement

 

1:35 p.m.-2:50 p.m. (Please indicate your first and second choice.)

 

Afternoon Masterclasses:

___ Fiction III: Open, Close and the Flop

Amy Bloom

___ Poetry III: Writing the Uncompromised                               

Nikky Finney, Britton Gildersleeve

___The Magic of the Past: Young Adult Fantasy

Patricia C. Wrede

___ Launch Time: Finding an Agent

A. J. Tierney

___ A Timely Work Out: Exercise Your Writing Muscles            

Francine Ringold, Cheryl Pallant

___ Starting and Growing a Literary Magazine: A Guide to a Successful Collaboration

Rachael Luther, Catherine Roberts, Ellen Stackable, Paul Stevenson

 

3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.**

___ Hands-on One-on-One Editing Workshops II

I have included a sample of my writing (2-3 pages of poetry or 4-5 pages of            fiction) for pre-review by my editor. Materials must be received by October 15th.

 

**Readings by invited guests will also take place from 3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.

 

Registrants may attend one morning panel discussion and one morning and one afternoon masterclass, as well as the entire after-tea reading from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m.  Afternoon one-on-one editing participants may move from their session to the Invitational Readings as time permits.

 

 

Email: Nimrod@utulsa.edu

Online: www.utulsa.edu/nimrod

Call: (918) 631-3080

 

Full and partial scholarships are available, particularly for students.  For scholarship information, email Nimrod@utulsa.edu or call (918) 631-3080.

 

Professional development credit is available for Tulsa Public Schools teachers.

 

The University of Tulsa is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.  For EEO/AA information, contact the Office of Legal Compliance at (918) 631-2423; for disability accommodations, contact Dr. Jane Corso at (918) 631-2334.

 

 

Hotel Information:

 

The official conference hotel is the Hyatt Regency Tulsa at 100 E. 2^nd St. in Tulsa. The Hyatt is located in downtown Tulsa, a five-minute drive from The University of Tulsa. The conference is offering a special rate of $89.00 a night for conference-goers. To receive this rate for your stay, contact the Hyatt at 918-582-9000 and ask for the “TU Nimrod conference rate” for your reservation.