BECOMING A NOVELIST
A Year-long Workshop
Jane Vandenburgh
The Workshop
Novelists are not like others in several fundamental ways. Because they're committed to what Flannery O’Connor called "the habit of art," they experience the world through a particular quality of mind that's analogous to the scientist’s ability to view the world scientifically. They also practice this art, in a way that resembles meditation, just as they must train to tell their story in the manner of the distance runner.
Our workshop addresses both the spiritual and practical problems a writer in the long form encounters in getting a coherent book-length draft down on paper over the course of a calendar year.
We’re interested in all kinds of book-length storytelling including the autobiographical–or nonfiction–novel and the one built of shorter interrelated pieces.
We'll meet face-to-face three times: during the week in July of Fishtrap 2008, following up with a long weekend in Portland in January and a final week at Fishtrap in July 2009.
New work in delivery packets will be critiqued in eight segments by the award-winning novelist Jane Vandenburgh, whose course on structure, "The Architecture of the Novel," has been developed in her teaching at Georgetown and U.C. Davis. The book, which is forthcoming, will be sent to students chapter-by-chapter as periodically emailed lectures.
2. The instructor
Jane Vandenburgh has published nonfiction and criticism in the N.Y. Times, the Boston Globe, the L.A. Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and The Threepenny Review, among other journals Her novels are Failure to Zigzag and The Physics of Sunset. A new book of stories called A Pocket History of Sex in the 20th Century will be published in January 2009.
3. Fees
The fee for the workshop is $6,000 ($5500 early payment), which covers all instruction fees, and registration, food and basic lodging for Summer Fishtrap at Wallowa Lake in 2008 and 2009. The workshop each year is five days, Monday-Friday, 9:00–noon. There are readings and open mikes in the evenings. Registration fee, food, and basic lodging for the annual Fishtrap Gathering, which overlaps with workshops and goes through the weekend, is also included. The Gathering provides opportunities to meet and hear other writers and workshop instructors. Dates for Summer Fishtrap in 2008 are July 6-13; in 2009, July 5-12. January date and place in Portland is to be determined.
There is a $500 discount for payment of entire fee on admittance. Alternatively, $2500 will be due on admittance, $2000 in January, 2009, and $1500 in June, 2009.
4. Application process
Please send a two page proposal for your novel, and a 15-20 page sample of your writing. This may but does not have to be a chapter from the novel. We are especially interested in new writing projects, and not interested in working with rewrites of novels that have been written. If you have a completed novel, set it aside and pick up the new idea that came to you as you wrote it. Write the proposal, and send it along with one chapter from the old one--or a first chapter from the new one.
Please understand that this sample you are sending is the first connection between you and Jane Vandenburgh. It might be brilliant, but she might not be the right person to work with you. We suggest that you look at Jane's writing and see if you find connection. This will be an intense relationship, and in order to make it work, you need to find comfort and fit with each other.
Jane has suggested that she would like a mix–some writers who have plowed through a novel or more already; some who are trying the long form for the first time. Some writers who have a publishing history; some who have not. Let your interest in this workshop inform your application.
There is a $50 reading fee, applicable to the workshop fee for those accepted. Applications close April 18, and notice of acceptance will be given by May 9.
5. Workshop minimum and maximum. Notes on instructor interaction.
We need a minimum of 8 writers to begin this workshop, and will take no more than 10.
You will see work from other participants during the three formal class meetings. At other times, your writing exchanges will be with Jane Vandenburgh only. It's our aim to give your book its best chance by eliminating the distraction of our participants' need to give and get criticism from other workshop members, an obligation for which most novelists frankly do not have time.
The exchange of criticism also furthers not the habit of art, but the habit of the mind’s being highly critical– being highly critical is actually useful only later in the process and is the job of the teacher or editor, two of the internal voices we need to silence as we're trying to discover the best way for you to tell your story.
Please call Rich Wandschneider at 541-426-3623, or email rich@fishtrap.org with questions about this special workshop. This is a Fishtrap first: Get in on it!