On Voice and Inner Story: Writing About the Things that Matter to Us Most with the Greatest Possible Honesty

A Fiction & Nonfiction Workshop

In this mixed-genre workshop we’ll unpack some of the mysteries of the thing called Voice and look at how wondrously polyphonous it can be, shifting from high to low to medium flavor and intensity, depending on the narrative. We'll look closely at Voice and all its phrasing and diction and self-talk and subtext as wondrous ways to arrive at the Inner Story of your pieces.

We'll write each day together and share that new writing, and also shine a spotlight on excerpts of your previous work, asking all the while how we better leverage pace, tension, escalation, and emotional honesty. This will be a lively, wildly supportive and deeply creative weekend. Lots of writing and meaning-making and laughter. Plus all kinds of eureka moments about your work.

Writers of all levels are welcome.

SUBMIT Participants are asked to submit a work of fiction (story or novel excerpt) OR nonfiction (essay, memoir, reported story), up to 1500 words. Please include a 3-5 sentence introduction telling us concisely what the Inner Story is of the piece and what its most central question is. Email the manuscript no later than 9:00 a.m. on October 16 to director@mainewriters.org with the subject line: “CONLEY MSS.”

Susan Conley is the award-winning author of five critically-acclaimed books, including her newest, best-selling novel Landslide which was named a New York Times “Editor’s Choice,” a TODAY Show “Best Summer Read,” a Vanity Fair “Book We Can’t Stop Thinking About,” and a New York Times "Paperback Row” Best Paperback Pick. It was also named a “Best Book” by Good Morning America, The New York Post, Medium, Bustle, Biblio Lifestyle and others, and it was chosen as Maine NPR's "All Books Considered" Bookclub Pick. Her memoir, The Foremost Good Fortune, was an Oprah Magazine Top Ten Pick, a Goodreads Choice Award Finalist and won the Maine LIterary Award for Memoir. She also co-founded The Telling Room and teaches in the Stonecoast MFA Program.


Registration

To register, click the button below. To read more about the prices and the room & board options for the Harvest Writers Retreat, please go to the Room + Board page.