For those of you already registered to attend the Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat, here’s what awaits!  And if you’re not signed up but would like to make a last-minute reservation to join us, there are still spaces available–please see the CWC website for information and registration materials.

 

Monday, July 2

 
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 Lucy Turner 2000, CWC Lead Steward
Jennifer Puk 2012, 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
“Against the Grain”
Panelists: Patricia C. Shepard 2010, Sarah Cedeño 2014, and Julie Parent 2005
Moderator: Julie Parent
 
6:00 – 7:00    Dinner     Dining Hall
 
7:15 – end    CWC Readings    Clockhouse
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.)
 

Tuesday, July 3

 
7:45 – 9:00     Breakfast, Dining Hall
 
8:00 – 8:30    CWC Information Table (for MFAW students),  Dining Hall Corridor
CLOCKHOUSE and CWC book sales
 
9:00 – 11:45    Individual Writing Retreat, Aiken Dormitory
Please consider the dorm a quiet location during this time.
Or
8:30 – 10:00    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.
 
10:15 – 11:45    Life (Right) After Goddard: The First Eighteen Months, Cottage
MFAW students and alumni alike are invited to this panel with Clockhouse writers Sarah Cedeño 2014, Jennifer Judge Yonkoski 1999, Sarah Shellow 2010, and Maggie Cleveland 2011. Panelists will discuss a wide range of post-graduation topics including the importance of finding your writing community, submitting your work on a schedule, incorporating professional writing into creative work, making time for your material, taking space from your manuscript before revising, continuing to be a literary citizen and supporting the work of others, and maintaining relationships with writers who nurture your creativity. They’ll address finding a balance between your creative life and other responsibilities, building your teaching career (including the possibility of creating a position for yourself), and even how the MFA can lead to a killer job in the construction industry! Many paths lead outward from a Goddard College MFAW. Come join the conversation.
 
11:45 – 1:00    Lunch, Dining Hall
 
12:00 – 1:30    CLOCKHOUSE Staff Working Lunch,  Silo Conference Room
We’ll hold a staff meeting and prepare for the Preview Reading & Celebration. Please bring your lunch on a tray and return it to the kitchen afterward.
 
2:00 – 4:30      Creative Writing Potluck, Pratt Library, South Lounge
With Jennifer Judge Yonkoski 1999 and David Waite 2006
Need new exercises to break out of your writing rut? Looking for new activities to use in a class you’re teaching? Think of this session as a recipe swap. Over the years we’ve all discovered, modified, or written our own creative writing exercises that yield great results. Participants are asked to bring several copies of one or two of their favorite creative writing exercises, written out step by step. Each attendee will discuss the exercise(s) he/she brought, giving us background on the places where these exercises worked and possible audiences for the process. Participants will then have the opportunity to try out exercises, share ideas, and compare results.
 
5:00 – 6:00    CLOCKHOUSE Volume Six,  Manor Oak Room
Preview Reading & Celebration
With Editorial Director Sarah Cedeño and the CLOCKHOUSE staff
Please join us for readings from the forthcoming issue of CLOCKHOUSE, our national literary journal published in partnership with Goddard College. CLOCKHOUSE is an eclectic conversation about the work-in-progress of life—a soul arousal, a testing ground, a new community, a call for change. Join in.
 
6:00 – 7:00     Dinner,  Dining Hall
 
7:15 – end    CWC Readings, Clockhouse
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 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 Dormitory
Please consider the dorm a quiet location during this time.
Or
9:30 – 11:00    To and From the Lighthouse: Language as Sound, Pratt Library, South Lounge
With Lucy Turner 2000,
Inspired by Sarah Townsend (MFAW-PT)
Riffing on Sarah Townsend’s session “Language as Sound, Narrative as Score” from the winter 2018 Lighthouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat, this workshop involves immersing ourselves in the spoken word and then moving into writing, conversation, and back again to sound. In what ways is a piece of writing like a musical score: a partial transcription or suggestion of a greater experience? In what ways does that analogy fail to describe your own writing and others’? Texts will include the London-based Somali poet Warsan Shire’s “warsan versus melancholy: the seven stages of being lonely,” among others. Writers of all genres and hybrids are welcome; bring your favorite writing paraphernalia and be ready to experiment.
 
11:45 – 1:00    Lunch, Dining Hall
 
1:00 – 2:30    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.
 
3:00 – 4:30    Six things, I Remember:   Reconciling Trauma & the Mundane in Writing,
Pratt Library, South Lounge
With Brenda Beardsley 2014
In an era where social media and news subject us to an avalanche of images and atrocities of more and more frequent trauma — often, with videos and personal narratives, the necessities of daily life become more imperative: to stay grounded and focused on those things that continue to define our existence. Yet, what is it about trauma that compels us to recall seemingly, innocuous details? How can these details inform our writing? In this workshop, the tension of memory, articulated with the burden of reconciling trauma, will be explored through readings, discussion and generative exercises. (Please note, you do not need to be a survivor of trauma to attend this workshop). Open to all genres. Limit: 10-15 attendees; minimum, 5.
 
5:45 – 7:00    Dinner    Dining Hall
 
7:00 – 8:00    Visiting Writer Reading and Q&A    Haybarn Theatre
With Nick Flynn
Flynn has received fellowships and awards from, among other organizations, The Guggenheim Foundation, PEN, and The Library of Congress. His poetry collections include: Some Ether (2000), Blind Huber (2002), The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands (2011), and My Feelings (2015). Memoirs include: The Reenactments (2013); The Ticking Is the Bomb (2010); and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (2004), which was adapted for the movie Being Flynn, starring Robert De Niro, for which he was also a producer and artistic collaborator. Some of the venues his poems, essays, and nonfiction have appeared in include The New Yorker, the Paris Review, and National Public Radio’s This American Life. He is currently a professor on the creative writing faculty at the University of Houston, where he is in residence each spring. In 2019, Graywolf will publish his latest book, I Will Destroy You. His work has been translated into fifteen languages.
 
8:00 – 8:30    Book Signing & Reception    Haybarn Gallery
With Nick Flynn
 

Thursday, July 5

 
7:45 – 9:00    Breakfast    Dining Hall
 
8:45 – 11:00    Individual Writing Retreat, Aiken Dormitory
Please consider the dorm a quiet location during this time.
    Or
10:00 – 12:00    Bewilderment, with Visiting Writer Nick Flynn    Haybarn Theatre
Frost once said that “poems are about what you don’t mean as well as what you do mean.” In our brief time together we will wrestle with the concept of bewilderment, and how we can embody it in our writing— either through syntax, our access to the duende, leaps into the unconscious, or simply circling around what is unsaid, unknown, unrealized. We will look for those moments when we begin to stutter and stumble when talking about our projects, for that is the threshold beyond which is the white space on the map. Please come with a willingness to push a little deeper into this shadow world.
 
11:45 – 1:00    Lunch    Dining Hall
 
12:15 – 1:45    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    “To Thine Own Self Be True”:   An Exploration of Artistic Inspiration and Collaboration Beginning with Rilke, Rodin, and Cezanne, Pratt Library, South Lounge
With Carolyn Locke (1996)
What can be gained or lost by surrounding ourselves with other creative people, or by having a community to buoy us and offer mentorship? How might the influence of others deepen or derail our own work?
Inspired by a workshop offered by Laura Shaeffer at the Lighthouse Writer’s Conference and Retreat (Port Townsend, February 2018), this workshop will first explore the ways in which Rilke’s work may have been influenced by his relationships with Rodin and Cezanne while he lived in Paris from 1902 to 1910. We will then leap into a more general exploration of our own experiences with and questions about artistic collaboration and influence, and what it means to be true to the self.
 
4:45 – 6:15        Works in Progress, 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.
 
5:45 – 7:00     Dinner    Dining Hall
 
7:15 – end    CWC Closing Readings    Clockhouse
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 6

 
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 2019, and identify the conference co-coordinators for 2019, 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!