On Summer Writing Workshops

By: Sophie Clark

In the summer of 2017, I was willing to try anything. During the semester prior, I had become distant to my writing and decided to devote my free time in the summer to attending poetry workshops and traveling. First, I planned to attend the Juniper Summer Writing Institute at UMass Amherst for a week in June. Then, in July, I signed up for a weekend workshop at the University of Iowa in Iowa City for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. I anticipated a summer of inspiration and dreamed of meeting and learning from well-known writers as well as finding the path to becoming one myself.

At UMass Amherst, I was placed in a poetry workshop with Timothy Donnelly (Author of The Cloud Corporation). For a week, I would attend a craft talk in the morning, a workshop in the afternoon, and enjoy a reading by a contemporary writer in the evening. I found the writers involved in the program to be wonderful and the attending students encouraging. However, while I was there, I noticed I had done very little writing. Although I attempted to write in my free time, I felt too intimidated to write amongst the attending writers and decided to settle for taking a lot of notes instead. At the end of the week, I was glad to have gained a lot of books and information but was ultimately disappointed that I didn’t write more.

After my experience at Juniper, I had not given up hope on my Iowa Summer Writing workshop experience. I planned to do nothing but write for an entire weekend. Although I ended up writing a bit more because my group was writing from prompts in our workshop, I still wasn’t writing from that great source of inspiration I had hoped to find there. Again, I settled for mostly taking notes and exploring the city.

At the end of the summer, I was left with a good amount of books and a good amount of advice written in my notebook. In the coming semester, I would learn my inspiration was just around the corner and that I would soon find my voice in writing once again. Since that summer, I’ve not only learned that you cannot force inspiration but also that you cannot simply expect it. I was waiting for something to happen to me while, in truth, I had to make it happen myself. While I would recommend attending these workshops if you have the time and money, I would also advise you to truly make it worth your resources. Work hard while you’re there and try to get into good writing habits you can stick with afterward. And if you are unable to attend these workshops (which many of us college students are), know that if you work hard, you can gain the same knowledge on your own. Your greatest inspiration is waiting for you, but you ultimately have to find it for yourself.

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Creative Writing + Nonfiction

By: Madison Larimore

My mom gets nervous at the thought of my concentration, creative nonfiction.

“Are you going to write about me? What are you going to say? Does the creative part mean you get to lie?” she asked, when I explained my degree to her for the fifth time.

I don’t blame my mom for having so many questions. I even find it difficult to answer those questions as a student who has studied the craft for three years. But creative nonfiction is not unfamiliar to us, no matter how hard to define the term may be.

The last time my mom asked me about it, I mentioned that the way we communicate on social media is a form of creative nonfiction: we use creative tools to best represent the nonfiction elements of our own personal lives.

In the craft of creative nonfiction, the creative tools are generally literary devices commonly found in fiction and poetry to tell the story well by crafting a scene, establishing character, etc. Of course, in creative nonfiction, the subject matter is true.

Creative nonfiction is not an oxymoron.

In other words, nonfiction, or the truth, does not have to be told boring and lifeless, and good writing does not have to be made up or imagined to be creative. Creative nonfiction can have literary merit, and those pieces that do represent the truth in a way that allows the reader to experience it in the most realistic, purposeful way possible. Creative nonfiction gives you an opportunity to directly expand your perspective through experiencing a piece of someone else’s.

In creative nonfiction, instead of the imagination, our main tool is memory. That’s where we get the term memoir, which is one of the largest sub-genres within the autobiography category. Another popular sub-genre is the personal essay, which commonly explores a question in the writer’s life. Sometimes you will hear both creative nonfiction and fiction referred to as prose, as opposed to poetry.

At the University of Nebraska at Omaha, students are lucky to have two departments with programs in creative nonfiction: the Writer’s Workshop in CFAM and the English department in ASH. Both of these departments are great resources to learn more. And of course, 13^th Floor magazine, our campus literary magazine, publishes creative nonfiction. If you have any questions, please email me, the Lead Creative Nonfiction editor, at mlarimore@unomaha.edu.

Fall 2017 Issue is Now Available!

The Fall 2017 issue is here!

Check out some amazing pieces of writing and art for free via Amazon.com. This free edition is only available as an ebook. Make sure to download the Fall 2017 issue before September 1st. Click here to get your free copy.

Print versions of the Fall 2017 issue will also be available on blurb.com for only $11! Get yours here. Hurry, this sale will only last until September 1st!

We will also be selling print issues (while supplies last) at every Writer’s Workshop Reading Series event, starting Tuesday, September 20, from 7:30-8:30 p.m., at the University of Nebraska Omaha Art Gallery or Milo Bail Student Center, depending on where the reading takes place. You can see a list of the reading series dates and locations here.

Save the Date for the 700 Words Prose Slam!

Have you ever wanted to read your work before an audience? UNO’s Writer’s Workshop and English Department will be holding a prose slam at Apollon Art Space on Thursday, April 6, 2017. Come out at 7:00 to read your work. Or, if you don’t have anything to read, stop by and support the readers for free!

On Campus: Margaret Lukas to Release New Book

Writer’s Workshop instructor Margaret Lukas is set to release her new book, Farthest House with WriteLife LLC on January 14th, 2014.

Farthest House, with its rich threads of mysticism, explores jealous, betrayal, and ultimately the healing power of self-forgiveness. When Willow is born and her mother dies moments later, only the narrator of this spellbinding, debut novel knows the death isn’t from complications of childbirth. Amelie-Anais, who lived in France and is now buried on the Nebraska hilltop where the family home resides, tells this story of deceit and survival from beyond the grave. Following Willow’s life and Willow’s incredible passion to paint despite loneliness, a physical handicap, and being raised by a father plagued with secrets, Amelie-Anais weaves together the lives of four generations.

“Margaret Lukas has written a page-turner of a novel. Farthest House, boldly narrated by an unsettled spirit, is part-ghost story and a full-out love story of a family coming to terms with its mysterious past, much of it lived in an ancestral home set within a gorgeously rendered Nebraska landscape. Above all, Farthest House is the story of Willow, a bewildered little girl who grows into a passionate painter. I can’t remember the last time I rooted so enthusiastically for a heroine.” – Anna Monardo, author of Falling in Love with Natassia, and The Courtyard of Dreams

Farthest House is $17.00, and available for pre-order from WriteLife.com.

Listen to Chapter 1 and 2 of Farthest House at FarthestHouse.com.

In the News: 13th Floor Magazine Creatively Connecting the Campus

13th Floor Magazine: Creatively connecting the campus

By Anna Lynch, Entertainment Editor

Published: Tuesday, September 10, 2013  in Gateway

Layout Editor Jes Liberatore laughs with Emily Maguire at the launch party for 13th Floor Magazine. Photo by Chelsey Risney.

The number 13 isn’t considered lucky. For years the digit sandwiched between 12 and 14 has held a superstitious quality that strikes a contagion of fright among those fearing the number.

Clearly, those on the 13th Floor Magazine staff don’t hold superstition. And that’s a good thing. The magazine team recently released their first issue of the 13th Floor Magazine, which has served as a creative outlet for University of Nebraska at Omaha students. A launch party was held at The Dundee Dell on Friday, in celebration of the recent release.

Far from unlucky, the publication provides a platform for UNO students to share and have their poetry, written and art works published, while celebrating the diversity and talents students have to offer. A product of UNO’s Writer’s Workshop department, the magazine encourages and fosters the creativity of students from all majors.

UNO student and Managing Editor of the publication, Kate Bard, said, “We want to dissolve this unseen roadblock that seems to say if you’re a neuroscience major or a psychology major or an exercise science major, you can’t participate in the art scene on UNO’s campus.” Bard added, “That’s just not true. The 13th Floor Magazine is here, and we’re inclusive.”

The idea of molding these creative works into a publication grew from students in the College of Communication, Fine Arts and Media Writer’s Workshop. The students were “looking for some kind of outlet for our creative work, when we realized that we didn’t have any way to celebrate and encourage the art community on this campus,” Bard said.

For those who wish to get involved with 13th Floor Magazine, email and interest is an ideal place to start. “Email us with submissions or with inquiries. Email gives us a chance to get a dialogue started,” Bard said. “We’re quite accommodating, and we want to make sure that if you join our [literary] magazine, you’re doing something you want to do; that’s where passion stems from, and we’re looking for passionate people.”

With their first issue fully launched, the team sees a bright future for the magazine, as well as some major goals. Bard said a they hope to have print versions available for future issues, so “authors, artists, and fans something tangible.”

Readers can purchase the first issue of 13th Floor Magazine as an ebook for $9.99 from amazon.com.

Original Article: http://www.unogateway.com/13th-floor-magazine-1.3063536#.Ur8vNvRUd8E