In the 1940's Weldon Kees did it all: poetry, stories, criticism, painting, jazz piano, even filmmaking. He triumphed in NYC then conquered San Francisco just before the Beat era. He is remembered primarily as the Nathaniel West of poetry, his cutting edge work having a cheerfully sardonic tone and precise description. That he fled very conservative Nebraska, his birthplace, should not be held against him.

He was the quintessential liminal man, gender-conflicted yet very social, always a step ahead but distanced—until he stepped away too far and off the Golden Gate Bridge. Or fled to Mexico. Poets often require distance, psychic or physical, some way out of society in order to see it clearly or with new perspective. We will take these days of our own exile to use a few of Kees' simple, disciplined poems to help us produce sustained work of our own.

Have a great idea for a story, but don't know how to get started? Wrote a few pages (or a few hundred) and now you're stuck? What you need is to grow some backbone...for your story that is.

According to screenwriting instructor Robert McKee, the spine is the "primary unifying force that holds all the other story elements together." It asks the major dramatic question and then scene by scene answers it, propelling your story forward. This class will help you figure out your spine--where your story might begin; how things might be looking at the end; and help you identify some of the important scenes (set-ups and payoffs and turning points) that should happen along the way. Writing exercises, group discussion and reading will help you generate ideas and organize your thoughts to take you (and your readers) vertebrae by vertebrae through your story.

What is it that makes a piece of fiction memorable, makes it something an editor just can't refuse, makes it something readers just can't forget? Why do certain stories and novels stay in our heads and our hearts? Most likely because they have something that touches what William Faulkner called "the old verities and truths of the heart." To get at those truths of the heart, or in other words, the mysteries of human existence, writers need to be practiced at portraying the contradictory impulses that reside in their characters, as well as being aware of the opposing layers that make up the dramatic situation of a story or a novel. This deepening of character and situation is what makes a piece of fiction come alive for an editor or a reader in an unforgettable way. This workshop is designed for both the short story writer and the novelist. We'll look at examples from writers whose work has resonated with critics and general readers. We'll engage in brief writing activities. We'll read and respond to one another's stories and novel chapters. Our objective will be to consider issues of characterization, structure, point of view, language, and detail with an eye toward making our own fiction more resonant and more memorable, thereby improving our chances of finding editors who will say, "Yes, yes, and, again, yes!"

The term "creative nonfiction" can sometimes sound like an oxymoron. But when writers approach the genre with thoughtfulness, honesty, and courage, they often make important discoveries about voice and subject matter. This course will explore how creative techniques can be applied to nonfiction forms such as memoir, essay, cultural criticism, and more. Students will be encouraged to experiment with different styles and subjects with an aim toward finding their own unique approach and forging a path that will help them develop it to the fullest. Prompts will be given for in-class writing assignments and students working on longer projects will be encouraged to share pages for critique and discussion. Some outside reading will be assigned. While it is not necessary to arrive with pre-existing work, please come with at least one idea for a piece of nonfiction.

What might rupture or rapture have to do with the political imagination in poetry? What is the place of the ecstatic in *overtly* political poems? In this session, we will look at aspects of the relationship between poetry & the political landscapes of the 20th & 21st centuries. We will read from essays, letters, manifestos, & poems by writers including Audre Lorde, Martín Espada, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nazim Hikmet, & Bhanu Kapil. We will also engage in a series of writing experiments & investigations that will help us explode, construct, & re-explode our notions of the political poem. Linking poetics to ethics, we'll experiment with rupture/rapture as they relate to the craft, quest, & perspectives of our poems. Writers should be ready to take risks, & to explore various art mediums & techniques in the poetry. All reading materials will be provided. Our first session will be generative & each day thereafter will be a critique-based & generative-based workshop mix.

This workshop will investigate the uses of personal, lived experience in both fiction and memoir. For writers already writing about their lives and writers conflicted and confused about their story's place within their story, in this group we will discuss the challenges of exposure, craft, vulnerability, self-centered-ness, tactics, ethics, honesty, authenticity which come up when using your own experience as inspiration, while also exploring the various forms of writing - fiction, memoir, essay, journalism, poetry - personal narrative can be useful. Prepare to converse, to ask and answer questions, to write and share your writing. Please bring a piece of writing which includes an element of personal narrative to the first gathering.

On Sunday, June 10, poet and editor Kwame Dawes will conduct a live master class on stage, leading a discussion with six poets. The poets selected for the master class will submit five poems to Dawes; in this two-hour session, Dawes and the poets will read from their work and discuss the poems specifically, and poetry and process in general. The event is open to all conference participants, and all in attendance will have the opportunity to read the poetry and follow the workshop as it unfolds. Those poets interested in being among the six students in the master class should submit writing samples to Timothy Schaffert, tschaffert2@unl.edu. This is a unique opportunity for both participants and observers, and allows the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference to introduce the English Department's new Chancellor's Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner. Dawes is also the editor of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and Short Fiction.

Marianne Moore said, "Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads." But in order to create "imaginary gardens," we have to first be able to imagine them, to come up with the image of the garden in which to put our real toads-those raw experiences we might call our own. In this poetry workshop, we will take up the question of imagination and its relationship to image. How do we invent surprising images? How can our recollected experience (or our narrative) embrace its imagistic possibilities? How can poets enrich, expand, and exercise their imaginations? Through writing exercises (both collaborative and solitary), we will stretch our notions of what is possible in a poem; we will consider what imagistic and narrative possibilities seem beyond our imaginations; we will learn more about how we can discover those imaginative possibilities in poems we've already written and in poems we will write. In addition to group discussion and in-class writing exercises, we will also workshop 1-2 poems from each participant, paying particular attention to image and imagination as we discuss one another's work.

The power of nonfiction comes from its hybrid nature. Nonfiction writers borrow from novelists in sensually constructing true narratives. They borrow from poets in writing about our world in lyric turns. And they also borrow from journalists in performing research to uncover the facts behind the story. In this workshop, we'll write from prompts and group activities to exercise our nimble, thieving fingers. How can the memoirist incorporate nerdish research into his life story? How can the essayist expand her ideas with poetic language and imagery? Come to this workshop with your own projects or just an open mind. Come with first drafts or final drafts. No matter what stage of the process you're in, you'll leave with any number of new directions for your writing.

Doesn't matter if you write zombie novels or family dramas, begin your drafting from theme or plot, or consider your fiction literary or genre: if you're currently writing (or planning to write) anything longer than an experimental short story, you need to create fictional characters that your readers will come to care about. (Which of course doesn't always mean come to "like.") We remember Miss Havisham and Humbert Humbert, Scout Finch and Jay Gatsby, not for their likability, but for their desires and obsessions, their speech patterns and mannerisms, their secrets and vices. This weekend workshop will offer a mix of exercises exploring point of view; motivation (that crucial link between character and plot); conflict; and effectively using characters in-scene. In addition, each participant will submit one, 3-5 page scene, for a "mini-workshop" to be held at the end of our session on Sunday.