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BRUSH CREEK WRITERS' COOPERATIVE
Page Writers Loft - Marietta, GA

The Brush Creek Writers Cooperative is a collective of published writers who conduct single day and multi-day workshops in a variety of private and public venues around the southeast. Each member participates in co-op workshops in an effort to promote good writing and to foster and nurture relationships among writers and writing communities. Our purpose in to providing educational programs that define and refine the voice of the writer within.

Membership in the co-op faculty is based on an invitation to participate, and that invitation emerges from observed teaching and a recognized common philosophical approach to writing and to the teaching of writing. Brush Creek Cooperative focuses primarily on a literary or character-driven approach to story telling through fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry. Instructors participating in the Brush Creek Writers' Cooperative adhere to the belief that all writers are students of writing and that a student's primary focus should be first to create quality work.

Brush Creek is not a membership organization. Our audience members belong to a host of other writers organizations, and we applaud the variety and good work of those communities. We simply offer seasonal opportunities to enhance your writing experience.
For additional information on workshops, contact Barbara Collins, Workshop Coordinator @ 770-309-3611 or ginger4410@bellsouth.net.

PAST WORKSHOPS..........................

Developing the Premise in Your Novel
In a novel, the premise is the supposition of what the main character wants, or at least what he thinks he wants. This workshop will examine five components of premise: 1) the style or tone; 2) the unique voice; 3) character development; 4) compelling situations; 5) forward movement toward an unfolding story.

Structure: The Foundation of Fiction
Because the structure of a novel is the foundation supporting the entire work, choosing a structure is often the hardest decision a writer has to make. This workshop will look at the questions that arise when determining structure. From point of view and order of events, to the use of special effects like letters, interviews, or other devices, every decision has an impact.

Fast Fiction
This workshop will focus on the art of the short short story, often dubbed “sudden fiction” or “fast fiction” or “flash fiction.” This story form has a great deal in common with a poem. You have a little bit of space to accomplish a lot. Typically, a short short is brief, intense, and the ending is a bit unexpected. What you may also find unexpected is how much writing you can accomplish in a short amount of time, how whole a first draft can be, and how you can begin to read the energy of your writing.

Character in Community
Creating a community full of characters is a valuable resource for a fiction writer. Think about the rich stories and characters mined from the return to fictional communities by writers including William Faulkner, Wendell Berry, Randal Keenan, Lisa Koger, Clyde Edgerton, and Robert Olin Butler. In this workshop we will explore the role of place in fiction, and the role of community in developing story ideas and the conflict essential for good storytelling. Using a variety of exercises, you will create your own fictional place, explore the hubs of relationships that exist there, and cultivate the opportunities those conditions offer you as a writer.

Finding Fiction in a Photograph
Faulkner once said that he followed his characters around with a pad and pencil in hand and wrote down what they said and did. The fiction of many beginning writers is heavily grounded in autobiographical experience. This course is designed to help you look beyond your autobiographical experience and into the life of a character you create. Using photographs, lists, short exercises and more, we will learn to write and analyze character sketches and short stories where character development essentially creates plot. A variety of writing exercises will be used to stretch your imagination and allow you to use what you know to more fully cultivate fictional characters and place them in stories that emerge from the character’s experience.

Making Memory Speak: The Art of Memoir and Self-Narrative
Sometimes writing about one’s life is like trying to eat a pie—whole. At first glance writing about you seems like an easy enough proposition. After all, you were there. But when you think about creating an interesting narrative that is manageable to write and manageable and interesting to read, you realize that you were there for ALL of it. Every last bit of it. So where do you start?
You approach self-narrative just like the pie—one bite at a time. First you slice a manageable wedge and then you taste and digest one delicious morsel and then another. In this class we will learn to address a life by individual and vivid meaningful moments, told in specific detail. We will learn how these meaningful specifics work together to open a wellspring of forgotten moments and to reveal a deeper story. We will learn how to identify the apparent story and develop the hidden story, the real reason we write memoir and the reason others want to read it.

Journey and Conflict
We like to think we read to see what happens at the end, but the best stories we read because of what has happened by the end. Every good story has conflict. Without it, no one would want to read very far into the story. Writing a novel or story is nothing less than a journey of faith and the borrowing of a life. In this workshop, we will examine ways of defining journey, look at how they work to propel a story forward, and explore the types of conflict that make journey interesting and make the story work. We will look at the “eight point arc” as a way to measure movement and action in a story, and determine how the arc can be used to make a story interesting and plausible without making a story predictable.

Florida, 2004 Workshop Students pose with instructor Darnell Arnoult, (bottom right.)

Students at spring, 2005 post-workshop booksigning

OUR INSTRUCTORS.................................

Darnell Arnoult www.darnellarnoult.com
Darnell has published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals including Nantahala Review, Southern Cultures, Southern Exposure, Asheville Poetry Review, Sandhills Review, Sow's Ear, and Now and Then Magazine. Darnell has over twelve years of experience teaching and coaching creative writing and creative practice. She is a long-standing member of the Duke Writers Workshop faculty and teaches writing workshops around the country. She holds a BA in American Studies from UNC-CH and an MA in English and Creative Writing from North Carolina State University. Her first full-length collection of poems, What Travels with Us, will be released by LSU Press this fall. Her first novel, Sufficient Grace, will be released in 2006.

Judy Goldman www.judygoldman.com
Judy is the author of the just-published novel Early Leaving. Her first novel, The Slow Way Back, was a finalist for the Southeast Booksellers Associations' Novel of the Year and won both the Sir Walter Raleigh Fiction Award and the Mary Ruffin Poole First Work of Fiction Award. She is also the author of two books of poetry. A long-time teacher, and member of the Duke Writers Workshop faculty Judy received the Fortner Writer and Community Award for "outstanding generosity to other writers and the larger community." Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Ohio Review, Kenyon Review, and other publications.

Linda Busby Parker www.lindabusbyparker.us
Prior to her career as a novelist, Linda had a 20-year career as a university professor. Now she lectures on craft (has given lectures at Mid Tennessee State University, University of South Alabama, and Spalding University) and enjoys panels on the writing life. She holds the Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and the MFA from Spalding University where she now teaches writing. Her novel, Seven Laurels was winner of the Winner of the James Jones First Novel Award, and was chosen as the Book of the Year for 2004 by the Langum Project for Historical Literature.

Judy Goldman and students at Barnes & Noble in 2004