Zach Savich

Is peace the absence of conflict or a state that can exist within conflict? How can writing cultivate, reveal, practice, and advance personal and shared forms of peaceable assembly? What's the relationship between peace and protest, politics and private experience? This lecture will consider diverse poems that help us think about these questions, including work by poets such as Ghayath Almadhoun, Yehuda Amichai, Gwendolyn Brooks, Kenneth Koch, Hayan Charara, Jane Hirshfield, and others. We'll consider how literature can help us make peace, again and again, and what can be made from that.

Episode 128: Poetry and Questions of Peace - Zach Savich




Suzan Aizenberg

Most of us who write feel the need to remember our dead in elegies, memoir, or fiction, a task that can be more difficult than we at first expect. Often our first challenge is to speak at all, to find language adequate to our grief. Then come other questions: given the injunction not to “speak ill of the dead,” and our own love for those we’ve lost, how do we avoid unrealistically idealizing them and thus stripping them of their complex humanity? How do we convey, in the short space of a poem or an essay, how our mother or grandmother or child or spouse was different from anyone else’s? How do we make the work about the person we remember and not primarily about us and our pain—should we even be trying to do so?—etc. In this Eleventh Hour we will consider these and other questions, looking at samples of successful elegies, considering how they succeed, and doing a bit of free-writing towards work of our own. Although the samples we will consider will consist primarily of narrative poems, lessons we can take from them will apply regardless of genre.

Episode 127: Writing the Elegy - Challenges and Approaches - Suzan Aizenberg





Juliet Patterson

We often think about the tool of reflection in writing as a mode of thought or tone of voice we employ when we ruminate, meditate, contemplate or explain—in short, when we provide what Phillip Gerard calls, “finished thought.” But we might also think about reflection as a turning, as a sometimes distorting, but transformational power. In this talk, we’ll look briefly at four qualities of reflection that might encourage artistic transformation in our writing and try some short exercises that will give you some practical tools to “think” about yourself differently on the page.

Episode 126: Me, Myself and I - The Transformative Power of Reflection in Nonfiction - Juliet Patterson




Kelly Dwyer

Many book editors and agents say that they read the first paragraph of a manuscript, and if they like it, they skip ahead to read some dialogue. If the dialogue is strong, they go back to page one and keep reading. If the dialogue is weak, the editor or agent sets down the manuscript, and the chances for publication (with that particular house or agency, anyway) end there. Knowing how to write good dialogue, then, is crucial to publication—and readership (and of course, if anything, is even more crucial in the arts of playwriting and scriptwriting).

Episode 125: Better Talky Talky - The Art and Craft of Strong Dialogue - Kelly Dwyer



Sandra Scofield

As a painter, I am constantly recognizing ideas about composition in art that speak directly to what I do as a writer. One concept that is especially useful is Notan, a Japanese term that means "light-dark balance." We can also think of positive and negative space, or symmetry and asymmetry--all ideas about shapes and patterns that are the foundation of composition. Consider the ways that you, too, can utilize this ancient mindset to heighten the quality of composition in your work.

Episode 124: Notan - How Visual Art Informs Writing - Sandra Scofield



Diana Goetsch

The “central channel,” a somatic and energetic space well-known for centuries in contemplative disciplines,		is rarely discussed in connection with writing. Understanding the central channel, and how to apply it to writing,		can reveal much about us as artists, and it can open up our craft. This will be an informative, and often humorous presentation—from a poet,		essayist, and editor of dharma texts—with examples from many genres, and ample space for discussion.

The “central channel,” a somatic and energetic space well-known for centuries in contemplative disciplines, 		is rarely discussed in connection with writing. Understanding the central channel, and how to apply it to writing, 		can reveal much about us as artists, and it can open up our craft. This will be an informative, and often humorous presentation—from a poet, 		essayist, and editor of dharma texts—with examples from many genres, and ample space for discussion.

Episode 123: Writing From the Central Channel - Diana Goetsch


Anna Bruno

The memory curve, on a most basic level, means the reader’s attention is highest at the beginning, dips in the middle,		and goes up again at the end. When putting pen to paper for the first time, most writers don’t think about a reader’s memory curve, nor should they.		But when considering structure after the fact, during revision, it is of paramount importance. Structuring a story or a novel has everything to do with		managing the retention dip in the middle of the curve. This requires a focus on beginnings, endings and transitions. This lecture will focus primarily on		transitions, their power and how they can become intermittent beginnings and endings when used effectively.

The memory curve, on a most basic level, means the reader’s attention is highest at the beginning, dips in the middle, 		and goes up again at the end. When putting pen to paper for the first time, most writers don’t think about a reader’s memory curve, nor should they. 		But when considering structure after the fact, during revision, it is of paramount importance. Structuring a story or a novel has everything to do with 		managing the retention dip in the middle of the curve. This requires a focus on beginnings, endings and transitions. This lecture will focus primarily on 		transitions, their power and how they can become intermittent beginnings and endings when used effectively.

Episode 122: The Memory Curve and Transitions - Anna Bruno


Mary Allen

"The present moment is all you have,” as author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle says, and nowhere is this more the case than in writing. Successful narrative writing allows the reader to virtually experience a series of present moments through the magic of language and imagination. Mary Allen shares what’s she’s learned as a writer and a writing coach about how to create present moments on the page, why it’s important to do so, and what learning how to do so can teach us about living our lives.

Episode 121: Writing and the Power of Now - Mary Allen


Kerry Howley

No one wants your story, essay, or poem to read like Fast and the Furious 9. But Hollywood formulae reflect a kind of science of narrative satisfaction, which can be transformative for a piece that isn't coming together in precisely the right way. We'll apply a number of hallowed screenwriting maxims to works of nonfiction and fiction, from overall structure down to the level of the scene. This session will give you resources for revising work in any genre.

Episode 120: Revising Like a Hack - Screenwriting "Rules" as a Guide for Rewrites - Kerry Howley


Christine Hemp

We’re all voyeurs when it comes to the habits and practices of other writers. Do they churn out a certain number of pages each week? Do they have a day job? A cat? A room of their own? What does the desk look like? After peeking into several artists’ practices, we’ll turn to our own—not just with our writing, but our everyday lives: doing the dishes to walking the dog; vegetable gardening to schlepping kids to hockey; playing drums to serving at the church soup kitchen. We will explore the nature of dailiness and how such activities can shape our art. What does it take to create a whole life, one that will nourish us and allow our writing to flow out of it rather than squeeze into it? Come with questions and a niggling sense of possibility.

Episode 119: The Writing Life - Christine Hemp



The Writing University podcast features recordings of illuminative craft talks from the renown writers, novelists, poets, and essayists who present at the Eleventh Hour Lecture Series during the University of Iowa's Iowa Summer Writing Festival.

Fantastic podcast on writing and the writing process, information is useful and inspiring. I’m working my way backward through the series. As others have mentioned, it would be a much better listening experience with improved sound and some basic editing (removing blank spaces and inaudible comments). I’d also appreciate if the presenters were more aware that podcast listeners don’t have access to the visuals, so if presenting something on the screen that’s needed for context, a quick summary would be helpful (for example, the episode on titles is largely PowerPoint dependent; a listener misses out on a lot of the actual content.) Despite that, I still think this is a 5-star podcast, enjoyable and educational. Keep up the good work!

Great presenters, needs better audio/editing

New episodes have much better sound quality now, and the talks are incredibly helpful for any writer at any point in their career. Helped me have some major breakthroughs.

Writing breakthroughs and sound has improved!

The Writing University Podcast

One of the biggest challenges, and imperatives, of writing is finding the time—making time—to sit down and do it. It’s something like that moment in the movie Field of Dreams, where a mysterious voice says to Kevin Costner, If you build it they will come. Except that in the case of writing, ‘building it’ means not creating a ballpark to attract ghostly baseball giants, but creating a little window of time in which to write. We can’t make the writing come to us, but if we make a space for it in our day, it will inevitably show up. And if we don’t make space for it, writing definitely won’t come. Mary Allen will share her experiences and struggles with finding time to write, and will pass along the workable solutions she’s arrived at over the years.

Episode 50: Mary Allen -- Harnessing Time: The Key to Writing

Karen Bender

In this Eleventh Hour, Karen Bender will address a strategy that she found helpful while writing her first novel—finding a short excerpt within it and polishing it to send out. She will discuss the differences between a story and a novel, what to look for in your novel when trying to shape a good excerpt or story, and how to use the story form to help you revise a nebulous, inchoate novel.

Episode 24: Karen Bender—How to Find the Short Story within your Novel

A single lecture compressed from a popular weekend workshop: you have your favorite story, poem, limerick, song, theater piece, and you keep getting close—so close—to completing it.  Then the dog gets the measles, you worry that your mom will read it, you get divorced, married, a new job, you take up fantasy football or water polo, you give up smoking, you try to live without the internet and everything grinds to a halt.  You never finish the thing.  Beau O’Reilly will use his psychic bulk, creative moxie, and his own experiences in playwriting to help you Finish the Thing.

Bonus Episode: Beau O’Reilly — Finish the Thing

When we write narrative, both sides of our brains ideally work together: the left brain controls linear thinking, logic, and language skills, and the right brain creates context and inserts emotion. This Eleventh Hour Lecture will emphasize the importance of using both sides of the brain when writing fiction and nonfiction, to push beyond an episodic recounting of events into territory that reveals your story's deeper truths. Nonfiction author Hope Edelman will give you with tips for identifying universal themes and archetypes in your stories, and methods for articulating them to readers.

Episode 55: Hope Edelman -- The Story Behind Your Story 

Gordon Mennenga

Lord Byron said, "We of the craft are all crazy." Maybe, maybe not. This talk will examine the forces that influence what we write, why we write, when we write, and where we write. Drugs, drink, depression, joy, compulsion, imagination, dreams, secrets, dollars—we'll cover the bitter and the sweet aspects of the act of creation. Caution: Gordon Mennenga is a writer not a doctor.

Episode 105: Writing Under the Influence - Gordon Mennenga


Mieke Eerkens

During workshops, it often becomes clear how heavily the “feminine” voice—characterized by multi-angled, expansive prose and a focus on the emotional realm—is criticized in writing, and the “masculine” voice—characterized by straightforward, sparse prose and a focus on the physical realm—is pushed. Editors and the work they publish reinforce this aesthetic preference, which affects our culture in a feedback loop. Yet, male, female, and gender-neutral writers alike reflect varying degrees of traditional masculinity or femininity in their authorial voices. We will interrogate the assumptions about the masculine voice versus the feminine voice, and discuss how it relates to our writing.

Episode 109: On the Feminine vs. the Masculine Narrative Voice - Mieke Eerkens


Katie Ford

In this podcast, poet Katie Ford examines the usefulness of employing the “ghosts” of classical forms in crafting contemporary poetry. Ford advises writers to look to the sonnet and listen for the “inherent music” of popular and tested literary technologies.

Episode 15: Katie Ford: "Ghost Forms: Using Traditional Form in Free Verse" 

Venise Berry

Clarity and Depth: Writing between the Lines w/ Venise Berry

Episode 74: Clarity and Depth: Writing between the Lines w/ Venise Berry

Elizabeth Robinson

One of the best ways to participate in, and help define, contemporary literature is to start your own press or literary publication. This may sound intimidating, but you might be surprised to find that such projects need not be prohibitively expensive or overwhelmingly difficult. This talk will discuss a variety of media (print and electronic) and a variety of projects (magazine, blog-zine, chapbook press, and full-length book publications) and how to make your project sustainable, enjoyable, and meaningful.

Episode 61: Elizabeth Robinson -- You Can Start a Press/Publication  

Actually Writing: The Outer, Inner &amp; Secret Practice w/ Diana Goetsch

Episode 79: Actually Writing: The Outer, Inner & Secret Practice w/ Diana Goetsch

Lon Otto

Nerve: Some Kinds of Courage Necessary for Writing: Lon Otto

Episode 90: Nerve - Some Kinds of Courage Necessary for Writing - Lon Otto

Risk taking, risk evaluation, risk avoidance are all leaned up against when one decides to become a writer and decides how to write what one writes. We hear writers say to one another all the time: how did you get away with that?! Or, I can’t believe you got away with that! We admire how writers “get away” with things in writing. Why is this? What attracts us to this? Obviously, at least partly, because in that expression is implicitly also unsaid: Hmmmmm, I don’t know if I could have let myself do that. Courage, recklessness, intention, all big things writers concern themselves with on a word-by-word basis. We will also expand our conversation into areas that involve Chance, Chance Operations, Generative Procedures, Erasure, Treated Texts, Ouilipian and other contingent constraints and why these are experiencing a renewed popularity. We will also talk about issues of agency and accountability.

Episode 18: Dara Wier—Chance, Risk, and “Getting Away With It”

Robert Siegel

FLASH

What is flash fiction? You’ve read it, perhaps even written it in class: super-short stories, anywhere from a paragraph to a couple of pages in length, sometimes zeroing in on a single moment of experience, sometimes trying to tell a whole life story in a handful of lines. In recent years, flash fiction has moved from the margins to the center, grabbing attention at literary magazines and spawning anthologies. Some of our best contemporary writers do their most challenging work in the form. Nevertheless, flash fiction is hard to define. Look at it one way and it seems to be related to folktale and parable—streamlined forms that know how to cover a lot of ground in few words. Look at it another way and it seems to have its roots in poetry, particularly the prose poem, with its emphasis on the power of language and image to alter the reader’s perceptions in a single magical moment. It’s a hybrid, which makes it great for both fiction writers and poets to explore. In this hour, we will take a look at some examples of flash fiction, considering what makes them work, what makes them different, and what makes them valuable for writers learning the craft. Be sure to bring pencil and paper because we’ll be writing some of our own.

Episode 23: Robert Siegel—Flash Fiction

“It sounds like a simple thing say what you see,” Mark Doty has written. “But try to find the words for the shades of a mottled sassafras leaf or the reflectivity of a bay on an August morning." In this hour, we’ll take refuge in the sensory experience found in some contemporary poets, as a way of thinking about a number of questions: How does description contain or convey meaning? What do we do when we describe something? Reproduce, account for, portray, trace, parcel out? How does one take the measure of the external world and what can it mean for our writing?

Episode 60: Juliet Patterson -- How Poets See the World: The Art of Description  

Amber Dermont

Has anyone ever told you, “I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you,” only to discover that you are not laughing at all?  While some people don’t realize just how much of a joke they are to us, the vast majority of people who consider themselves to be funny are not funny.  Amber Dermont is that rare genius and comic wit who is actually funnier than she thinks she is (I know this because I am Amber Dermont).  In this craft talk, Amber will offer up a variety of strategies for creating occasions of narrative delight by injecting your writing with unexpected humor.

Episode 71: Amber Dermont—The Joke Is Always on Me: A Writer Walks into a Bar (Again) and Other Tales of Repetition, Juxtaposition, Self-Deprecation and the Understated Power of Stealing from Stand-Up Comedy and Deploying Humor to Reveal, Heighten and Distract or Is This Craft Talk Just One Long Practical Joke (Yes, But It’s on Me)

There’s often a crucial distinction between our whole life experience and the narrower story, or stories, that we create from it. In this Eleventh Hour, Sarah Saffian—a memoirist, teacher, and mental health therapist—will explore the concept of journal writing and its usefulness both creatively, as the raw material that we draw from to craft our stories, and personally, as a means of achieving deeper, clearer self-reflection, processing, and discovery. Please bring materials to participate in writing prompts during this lecture.

Episode 64: “Please, Just Don’t Call it “Journaling”: Writing for Self Versus for Others”

How to Write the Ten-Minute Play: Kelly Dwyer

Episode 92: How to Write the Ten-Minute Play - Kelly Dwyer

In this lecture, we’ll consider some recent poems in which gratitude emerges from or exists alongside difficult experiences. How do moments of acute gratitude interact with loss, grief, memory, and ongoing complexity? What are some ways in which a poem can break into thanks, however briefly? Perhaps poetry of gratitude goes beyond “finding a silver lining;” perhaps it offers an ethics of reflection that, through ways of speaking that become ways of being, intricately connects a poem to culture and community. We’ll discuss work by poets such as Kazim Ali, Ross Gay, Lauren Haldeman, Carl Phillips, Juliana Spahr, and others, as we think closely about what it means for a poem to say thank you.

Episode 107: Gratitude for Time - Poetry and Moments of Thanks - Zach Savich
	

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