OUR MISSION

To foster the arts and crafts by providing a wide range of instruction for adults and children. Castle Hill holds exhibitions, lectures, forums, concerts and other similar activities in order to promote social interaction among artists, craftsmen, laymen, and the community at large.

Letter from President | Letter from Executive Director

SUMMER 2009 WORKSHOPS - WRITING

THURSDAY NIGHT LECTURE SERIES AT THEE WELLFLEET LIBRARY

$10 admission – Free for Castle Hill Members
8pm on Tuesdays at the Wellfleet Public Library in Wellfleet.

Summer 2009

Painting

Drawing

Clay

Printmaking/
Book Arts

Performance - Yoga - Music

Teens

Kids

WRITING 2009

Fiction Anne Leclaire

June 15 - 19
Mon – Fri
10am - noon
5 Sessions $355
pamet crossing
For academic
credit $525

Register

This intensive writing workshop focuses on drawing from the twin wells of imagination and memory to craft fiction. Crucial aspects of structure, character development and plot will be addressed as well as the specific problems that arise while completing a narrative and the critical decisions authors must make while creating a story.

Anne Leclaire A journalist and the best-selling author of eight critically acclaimed novels, Anne LeClaire has received international recognition for her work and is published in twenty-four countries. She has taught in France, Ireland, Jamaica, and at the Maui Writers Conference and lectures widely on writing and the creative process. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Ragdale Foundation and is a member of the Fellows Council of the Virginia Center of the Creative Arts.

Writing Credible Fiction David Unger

June 29 - July 3
Mon – Fri
10am – noon
5 Sessions $355
pamet crossing
For academic
credit $430
Register

Our writing reveals the way we see the world. Sometimes what we write parallels or reflects reality; at other times we may distort reality for the sake of portraying a deeper understanding of it. No matter how we choose to write, we still have to create convincing narratives for our readers: to quote García Márquez, "The problem for every writer is credibility. Anybody can write anything so long as it's believed." Setting, imagery, dialogue, character, tone, point-of view and narrative strategies will be explored. Though we will do in-class writing exercises, please bring a 5-10 page piece of writing (double-spaced) for class discussion.

Guatemalan-born David Unger has just completed a new novel In My Eyes, You Are Beautiful. He is the author of Life in the Damn Tropics. His work has appeared in Guernica Magazine, Caratula.net, KGBBarLit, Playboy Mexico, Currents from the Dancing River: New Writing By Latinos, Tropical Synagogues: Latin American Jewish Fiction, and in literary journals here and abroad. He has translated thirteen books, among them Teresa Cárdenas's Old Dog and Letters to My Mother, Rigoberta Menchú's The Honey Jar (Groundwood, 2006) and The Girl from Chimel, Ana María Machado's Me in the Middle, Silvia Molina's The Love You Promised Me, The Popol Vuh, Elena Garro's First Love, Bárbara Jacobs The Dead Leaves, and Nicanor Parra's Antipoems: New and Selected. He teaches Translation in City College of New York's MFA Program and is the U.S. rep of the Guadalajara International Book Fair. Ni chicha ni limonada, a collection of 12 stories and an essay, will be published in October by Fy G Editores in Guatemala.

Poetry Keith Althaus

July 13 - 17
Mon - Fri
10am - noon
5 Sessions $355
Pamet
Crossing
For academic
credit $430

This workshop aims at expanding our own definition of what is possible while remaining true to ourselves. We all seek approval for our work but in the long run admitting new critical insights will prove more useful and fulfilling. I strongly believe in being supportive of the poet's voice and manner. What good does it do us to "workshop" a poem into a kind of perfection until it no longer represents the poet's thought or feeling. I see no reason why we can't learn craft, pick up hints and new viewpoints, without altering our essential approach. I often find the most "hopeless" poems can elicit the greatest general insights, and the most "perfect" poems seem only to have built a wall impervious to criticism around themselves. That same wall often doesn't allow much flow of light or wisdom. This workshop is open to those at all levels of development.

Keith Althaus has published two books of poetry: Ladder of Hours and Rival Heavens. He has been a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, and has received grants from the NEA and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Arts. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, Grand Street, and other magazines.

Memoir as Bewilderment Nick Flynn

July 13 - 17
Mon - Fri
2 - 4pm
5 Sessions $355
pamet
crossing
For academic
credit $430

Frost would sometimes say at his readings that "poems are about what you don't mean as well as what you do mean"-this could apply to the contemporary concept of memoir as well. When we first approach the idea of writing a memoir we generally write into what believe is our individual and unique autobiography, but as we press on we find that our story is connected to everyone's story, and only then can we access the deeper mysteries of life. In our weeklong workshop we will wrestle with these deeper mysteries, as well as the concept of "bewilderment," and how we can embody both in our memoirs-either through syntax, our access to the duende, leaps into the unconscious, or simply circling around what is unsaid, unknown, unrealized. We will look for those moments we begin to stutter and stumble when talking about our projects, for that is the threshold beyond which is unknown, beyond which is the white space on the map. Please come with a willingness to push a little deeper into this shadow world, as well as a working knowledge of the anthology "The Next American Essay" (edited by John D'Agata), and an openness to questioning why you tell the particular stories about your life that you do.

Nick Flynn’s “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” (Norton, 2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award, was shortlisted for France’s Prix Femina, and has been translated into thirteen languages. He is also the author of two books of poetry, “Some Ether” (Graywolf, 2000), and “Blind Huber" (Graywolf, 2002), for which he received fellowships from, among other organizations, The Guggenheim Foundation and The Library of Congress. Some of the venues his poems, essays and non-fiction have appeared in include The New Yorker, the Paris Review, National Public Radio’s “This American Life,” and The New York Times Book Review. His film credits include “field poet” and artistic collaborator on the film “Darwin’s Nightmare,” which was nominated for an Academy Award for best feature documentary in 2006. One semester a year he teaches at the University of Houston, and he then spends the rest of the year elsewhere.

Finding the “Me” in Memory Judith Huge

July 20 - 24
Mon – Fri
10am - noon
5 Sessions $355
pamet
crossing
For academic
credit $430

Register
This workshop invites women who write (or want to write) to probe the courageous question posed by the poet Mary Oliver: "What is it you plan to do with your one, wild, precious life?" Using memory as our own personal Lost and Found Department, step-by-step we'll read a different part of the map of where we've been and discern the paths we want to travel next. By the end of the workshop, you will have a more focused picture of how to write the next chapters of your life. This workshop uses writing as a tool for women seeking the most genuine form in which to craft their lives.
See bio on next page.

Judith huge has spent more than 30 years as a college teacher, writer, corporate consultant, and workshop director. She is founder of a graduate program in the teaching of writing at Goucher College, president of her own national consulting firm, and has trained more than 5,000 people to use communication in managing their work and lives. She has conducted a wide variety of workshops for those in transition including The New PMS (Post-Move Syndrome), Finding the Me in Memoir, Re-Minding the Body, and Your Write to Heal, to name a few. Currently teaching courses in advanced writing and Therapeutic Journaling at Lakeland College, she has written a regular business column and contributes frequent travel narratives for the Gannett newspaper and magazine chain. In addition, she is the author of "A Middle Aged Woman and the Sea," a tale of memoir and transition published in Women in the Wild.

Keeping an Eye on The Story Retha Powers

July 27 - 31
Mon – Fri
10am - noon
5 Sessions $355
pamet crossing
For academic
credit $430

Register

Some of the greatest art has emerged from challenging times. The current political, social and economic landscapes provide writers with rich material as do many eras of the past. However, the most moving and powerful works that explore subjects such as race, class, gender, and sexuality are at center compelling stories. How can writers create complex and layered fiction that encompasses the setting and circumstances of their characters without overburdening the narrative? Through readings of successful examples, in-class writing exercises and discussion of student work we will explore ways to create tales rich with issues while keeping an eye on the story. Please bring 5-10 pages of a work in progress for class discussion.

Retha Powers is editor of the anthology Black Silk and co-editor of This is My Best: Great Authors Share Their Favorite Work. Powers is also General Editor of the first edition of Bartlett's Familiar Black Quotations to be published by Little, Brown. Her essays and articles have appeared in Essence, Glamour, Ms., and The New York Times Magazine. As Executive Editor of Quality Paperback Book Club she oversaw the book club's New Voices Award for outstanding fiction by new writers and was a founding co-editor of InsightOut Books, which received the Lambda Literary Foundation's Pioneer Award. She is now assistant director of the Publishing Certificate Program at City College of New York where she also teaches.

Poetry: Martín Espada

August 3 - 6
Mon - Thurs
1 - 4pm
4 sessions
$355
Pamet Crossing
For Academic Credit $425

Register
This workshop will stimulate the creation of new poems. Every three-hour session will begin with the distribution and discussion of model poems, followed by writing exercises and sharing of new work (to thunderous applause). We will write poems that celebrate as well as condemn the world around us. We may write poems of unheeded prophecy, speak in the voices of the dead at the cemetery, curse our enemies (real and imagined) or apologize for the things we are secretly glad that we did. The goal is not only to help participants write drafts of four new poems, but to create a sense of community and solidarity in the workshop.

Called "The Pablo Neruda of North American authors," Martín Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. He has published fourteen books in all as a poet, editor and translator. His eighth book of poems, The Republic of Poetry (Norton 2006) received the 2007 Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Robert Creeley Award, the Charity Randall Citation, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Premio Fronterizo, the PEN/Revson Fellowship and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. His poems have appeared in the The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Harper's and The Nation. He has also published a collection of essays, edited two anthologies, and released an audiobook of poetry called Now the Dead will Dance the Mambo (Leapfrog, 2004). His work has been translated into ten languages. Espada is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he teaches creative writing and the work of Pablo Neruda.

Essay Writing Ed Siegel

August 17 - 21
Mon - Fri
2 - 4pm
5 sessions
$355
Pamet Crossing
For Academic Credit $400

Register
How do you shape an opinion piece, whether a review, op-ed piece or a long-form essay? How do you find the voice necessary to make your writing compelling and accessible? We'll dissect the writing of everyone from you to Frank McCourt in five two-hour classes that will cover a wide spectrum of writing, helping you to find your inner Norman Mailer. We all have a point of view. We'll concentrate on turning it into a piece of writing that others will want to read. Homework is optional.

Ed Siegel was theater critic, television critic and an arts editor for the Boston Globe from 1971 to 2006. He now is a regular contributor to the Globe's op-ed page and to WBUR-FM as well as a feature writer and essayist for Berkshire Living magazine.

Autobiography and Memoir Justin Kaplan

August 24 - 27
Mon - Thurs
10 - 11:30am
pamet crossing
4 sessions $325
For academic
credit $425

Biography and autobiography are literary ways of shaping and understanding real-life experience. This is a workshop course that requires active participation. Please enroll only if you have a specific project in mind or in progress and are willing and prepared to present it for class discussion.

Justin Kaplan author of Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award), Walt Whitman: A Life, Lincoln Steffens: A Biography, and Mark Twain and His World. He is General Editor of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In collaboration with his wife Anne Bernays, he wrote The Language of Names and Back Then: Two Lives in 1950's New York, a joint memoir published by Morrow/HarperCollins. The paperback edition of his latest non-fiction book, When the Astors Owned New York, was published by Plume in 2007.

Elements of Fiction Anne Bernays

August 24 - 28
M on - Fri
2 - 4pm
pamet crossing
5 sessions $355
For academic
credit $425

Register

The main goal of a fiction writer is to tell a compelling story; to be any good a narrative must keep the reader reading. In this class students will do exercises that enhance their narrative skills through mastery of plot, description, characterization, dialogue and creative tension.

Anne Bernays’ nine novels include Trophy House, Growing Up Rich and Professor Romeo and she has co-authored two books of non-fiction. A long time writing teacher, her book reviews, essays and travel pieces have been widely published. Currently she teaches writing at Harvard's Nieman Foundation and Lesley University's MFA program. Bernays and her husband, Justin Kaplan, are the authors of Back Then: Two Lives in 1950's New York, now in paperback.

Poetry Master Class Maxine Kumin

Sept 12 & 13
Sat & Sun
10am - 2pm
pamet crossing
2 sessions $275

Register
Participants will be asked to read other's poems, as well as their own work, aloud. This will give each poet the opportunity to "hear" the poem without prejudice, and provides others the chance to interpret what the poet intended. Discussions will then focus on the content, diction, and intent of the poem.

Maxine Kumin sixteenth poetry collection, Still to Mow, appeared in 2007 in her 82nd year, following Jack and Other New Poems, The Long Marriage, and Selected Poems 19860-1990. She is also the author of Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry, and a memoir, Inside the Halo and Beyond: Anatomy of a Recovery. Her awards include the Ruth E. Lilly Poetry Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the Harvard Arts and the Robert Frost Medals. She served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (now titled Poet Laureate) in 1980-81. She and her husband live with their dogs and horses on a farm in New Hampshire, where for many years they bred and raised Arabians and competed in distance rides and drives.

Maxine will be giving a reading on Friday September 11 at 7pm at the Wellfleet Public Library.

© 2009 TRURO CENTER FOR THE ARTS AT CASTLE HILL
10 Meetinghouse Road, P.O. Box 756, Truro, MA 02666
www.castlehill.org | e-mail info@castlehill.org
tel. 508 349-7511 | fax 508 349-7513