Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat
July 3 – 7, 2017
Plainfield, Vermont
This 2017 Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat schedule includes our time-honored traditions: Plenary Panel Presentation, Stations of the Word, craft-centered workshops, quiet times for writing, Works in Progress, a Preview Reading from CLOCKHOUSE Volume Five, and evening readings. It also includes an Anniversary Celebration, a Life After Goddard Workshop devoted to CWC’s History, and a workshop where we’ll come together to create a 20th Anniversary commemorative group writing. If you’re already registered, we look forward to seeing you. If, after reading through this, you’d like to join us, please see the CWC website as soon as possible for registration information. There are still a few seats left, and we’d love to see you, too!
With thanks to Co-Coordinators Carolyn Bardos and Lucy Turner,
Kathryn Cullen-DuPont
CWC Lead Steward
Monday, July 3
11:00 – 1:00 Arrivals, Check-ins, and Welcomes Aiken Lounge
11:45 – 12:45 Lunch (optional, additional cost) Dining Hall
1:00 – 2:00 Community Meeting and Elections Aiken Lounge
With Kathryn Cullen-DuPont 2005, CWC Lead Steward
Carolyn Bardos 2010, CWC&R Co-coordinator
Lucy Turner 2000, CWC&R Co-coordinator
Community Meeting: welcome and speed-intros in which each participant gives name, primary genre of writing, whether this is first CWC&R or a return visit, and whether he or she will primarily use the experience as retreat time or as a conference. We will also talk about logistics for the week and possibly look at our Founding Principles.
3:00-4:30 Plenary Panel and Discussion: Pratt Library, South Lounge
“What We Take With Us”
Panelists: Carolyn Bardos 2010, Wanda Pothier-Hill 2007, and Gail South 2005
Moderator: Lucy Turner 2000, CWC & R Co-Coordinator
6:00 – 7:00 Dinner Dining Hall
7:00 – 8:00 Reading with Visiting Writer Meghan Daum Haybarn Theatre
8:00 – 8:30 Q & A and Reception Haybarn Gallery
With Visiting Writer Meghan Daum
Organized by the MFAW Program
Tuesday, July 4
7:45 – 9:00 Breakfast Dining Hall
8:00 – 9:00 CWC Information Table (for MFAW students) Dining Hall Corridor
CLOCKHOUSE and CWC book sales
9:00 – 11:45 Individual Writing Retreat Aiken
Please consider the dorm a quiet location during this time.
Or
8:15 – 9:45 Stations of the Word Garden House and Upper Garden
With Sam Sherman 2005
In this CWC tradition, Sam will lead us through a series of timed writing prompts to start the week with writing. Bring a journal or notebook and your favorite pen.
10:00 – 12:00 Making Memoir Matter Media Room or Haybarn Theatre
With Visiting Writer Meghan Daum
Organized by the MFAW program
11:45 – 1:00 Lunch Dining Hall
12:00- 1:30 CLOCKHOUSE Staff Working Lunch Silo Conference Room
For a brief staff meeting and to prepare for the Preview Reading & Celebration. Please bring your lunch on a tray and return it to the kitchen afterward.
2:00 – 4:30 Improvisation for Writers Pratt Library, South Lounge
With Julie Parent 2005
How about some writing without picking up a pen or tapping on a keyboard? Improvisational Theater, written moment to moment by the actors who perform it, is both a writing process and a finished work. In this workshop, we’ll use fundamental improv theater exercises, games and techniques to stimulate the body and scramble the mind. Creative work away from the page can allow greater access to inspiration, help prevent the editing of one’s creative impulses, and prepare a writer to return to the page. Improv also helps to address blocks, build narrative, develop characters, and mine the imagination.
Open to writers of all forms and genres. Please dress for comfort and unrestricted
movement, and get ready for lots of fun!
4:45- 6:15 Works in Progress, Meeting 1 Pratt Library, South Lounge
Bring a draft, preferably in multiple copies, to distribute and discuss. Participants will decide how to structure the group and allocate the time.
6:00 – 7:00 Dinner Dining Hall
7:15 – end CWC Readings Pratt Library, South Lounge
Please sign up for one slot for the week; that should allow everyone an opportunity to read. There will also be a table for CWC authors who have books to sell. Individuals take responsibility for their own wares and sales.
Wednesday, July 5
7:45 – 9:00 Breakfast Dining Hall
8:00 – 9:00 CWC Information Table (for MFAW students) Dining Hall Corridor
CLOCKHOUSE and CWC book sales
9:00 – 11:45 Individual Writing Retreat Aiken
Please consider the dorm a quiet location during this time.
or
9:00 – 10:00 Sit. Walk. Write. Pratt Library, South Lounge
With Jennifer Puk 2012
Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones, revealed in her book
The True Secret of Writing the bare bones that make up her writing and life
practice and her forty years of teaching and retreats ~ Sit, Walk, Write.
From Goldberg’s model, we will engage in a similar practice. We will sit in a guided meditation, first anchoring our minds in our breath. We will disperse outside and walk slowly and silently, anchoring our minds to the feel of our soles and allowing ourselves to receive the world, fully immerse ourselves in the environment, and let intuition guide us. We will write, anchoring our minds with pen on paper. We’ll leave our critical minds behind and write from our bodies and hearts. Natalie Goldberg informs us that learning the true secret of writing allows us to mine the rich awareness in our minds and to ground and empower ourselves in a way that leads to a deep, eloquent self-expression. Walk away from this experience surprised, inspired, and with your pen still moving.
10:30 – 11:30 Community Service and Writing: Pratt Library, South Lounge
Bring Together Your Personal Passions and Your Love for Writing
With Jennifer Judge Yonkoski 1999
Asked to teach a community workshop? Teaching freshman composition at a local college and need a way to invigorate your course? Or just wondering how to bring life to your own work? After 19 years of teaching freshman composition, beginning to feel a little worn out by the constant repetition of the task, I stumbled upon an idea that brought together my concern for social justice with my love for writing: service learning.
In this workshop, I will discuss how I created a service learning course at the college where I teach and explore ways in which this can be applied to community workshops and your own writing. Participants will work through several short writing activities to illustrate how small writing exercises can allow us to tackle big issues.
11:45 – 1:00 Lunch Dining Hall
1:00-2:30 Works in wProgress, Meeting 2 Pratt Library, South Lounge
Bring a draft, preferably in multiple copies, to distribute and discuss. Participants will decide how to structure the group and allocate the time.
3:00-4:30 The Space Between Haybarn Theatre
With publisher Ira Silverberg, Visiting Professional
Organized by the MFAW program
4:30 – 6:00 Twentieth Anniversary Celebration Manor House and Gardens
CLOCKHOUSE Celebration
4:30-5:00 Appreciation Ceremony
5:00-5:30 CLOCKHOUSE Preview Reading
5:30-6:00 Strawberries and Cream
5:45 – 7:00 Dinner Dining Hall
7:15 – end CWC Readings Pratt Library, South Lounge
Please sign up for one slot for the week; that should allow everyone an opportunity to read. There will also be a table for CWC authors who have books to sell. (Individuals take responsibility for their own wares and sales.)
Thursday, July 5
7:45 – 9:00 Breakfast Dining Hall
8:45 – 11:00 Individual Writing Retreat Aiken
Please consider the dorm a quiet location during this time.
or
8:45 – 10:15 Life After Goddard: CWC, Twenty Years & Here for You Media Room
With CWC Founders, past Lead Stewards, past and present Conference & Retreat
Coordinators, and members of the CLOCKHOUSE staff.
Moderator: Kathryn Cullen-DuPont, 2005
Open to Current MFAW Students as well as CWC&R Participants
Clockhouse Writers’ Conference—you hear that it’s the MFAW alumni association, but why did it start, how has it grown, and what does it have to offer your writing life? And what about those rumors that the sense of MFAW community continues to deepen and grow after graduation? Don’t rely on rumors: Come hear the CWC origin story, get the real details about its East and West Coast opportunities for community building and more, and take a true insider’s look at the national literary journal published by our—and soon-to-be your—alumni community. CWC Founders, past Lead Stewards, Conference & Retreat Coordinators, and members of the CLOCKHOUSE editorial staff will all be on hand. Questions, suggestions, and your hopes for the future are all invited!
10:30 – 11:00 Special Community Meeting Pratt Library, South Lounge
With Kathryn Cullen-DuPont 2005, CWC Lead Steward
11:45 – 1:00 Lunch Dining Hall
11:45 – 1:15 Board of Stewards Working Lunch Meeting Silo Conference Room
Please bring your lunch on a tray to this meeting and return it to the dining hall afterward. All are welcome to attend; only BOS members may vote.
2:00 – 3:30 A Walk in the Woods: Fine-Tuning the Senses Pratt Library, South Lounge
With Yvonne Rutford 2002
This workshop, first offered at CWC in 2014, will get us out in the Goddard woods to experience the natural world up close. The nature observation exercises in the workshop are based on Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking and are aimed at helping us slow down and deepen our awareness of the world around us. And while the workshop focuses on exploring nature, honing our skill at observation and description can be applied to any environment we find ourselves in (or need to create in our writing). Wear comfortable clothing that can withstand a little dirt. Indoor options will be available for those with mobility issues and in case of stormy weather.
4:00 – 5:30 Commemorative Writing Pratt Library, South Lounge
With Lucy Turner 2000
With an emphasis on the “memory” and on the “co,” as in together, we will discuss what we would want our commemorative writing to evoke and share strategies for creation. Then we’ll generate! I suggest that we want to preserve some favorite moments from CWC across the years without fossilizing or mythologizing, and I offer this goal: to draft a piece of writing that can be read as some kind of whole without sacrificing the unique texture of any individual writer’s voice. To that end, let’s get some ideas on paper that capture aspects of Goddard and CWC and our experiences of individuals within it. I’ll bring prompts, as well as ideas for structure, and serve as a guide through our ninety-minute process. You bring memories, your favorite prompts to generate vivid writing about the past, and your willingness to boldly experiment with form, tone, and content. We’ll share what we generate and discuss next steps, which might include my asking your permission to edit your work into a multi-voice piece. Let’s give it a whirl!
5:45 – 7:00 Dinner Dining Hall
7:00- end CWC Closing Readings Pratt Library, South Lounge
Like to take the final bow? Then this one’s for you!
Please sign up for one slot for the week; that should allow everyone an opportunity to read. There will also be a table for CWC authors who have books to sell. Individuals take responsibility for their own wares and sales.
Friday, July 7
7:45 – 9:00 Breakfast Dining Hall
10:00 – 11:00 Closing Community Meeting Aiken Lounge
Revisit the Founding Principles, discuss and select a plenary panel topic for 2018, and identify the conference co-coordinators for 2018, among other business.
11:00 – 12:00 Pack Up, Clean Up Aiken
In support of the Goddard housekeepers, please leave your room tidy, strip the bed, fold the bed cover, and leave sheets and towels in the pillowcase on the bed.
11:45 – 1:00 Lunch Dining Hall
1:00 Dorm closes
See you next year!
