Below is the 2024 schedule for Winter Wheat workshops. Please use this page as you register. You may also download and print a copy: Please be sure to note which workshops take place on Zoom.
SESSION A: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 3:30-4:45 PM
A1 The Sounds of Poetry: Sound-Spelling & Phonics with Jenna Bazzell
Poetry is a genre of sound as much as sense. What defines poetry even more than what is understood is how it makes us feel. Do you ever wonder why you take away a certain feeling from a poem, but you cannot evidence it within the content of the poem itself? At first glance, the compilation of words into lines makes sense, but upon more investigation, the inner workings of the sounds the letters make are what’s contributing to the feeling we get from a poem. Within this workshop, we will explore the basics of phonics and sound-spelling and discover how the understanding and implementation of phonic-based knowledge directly affects how a poet utilizes and influence sound devices such as rhyme and near rhyme, echoes within words including both spelling and pattern, consonance, assonance, alliteration, rhythm, and meter.
A2 Writing for Performance with Pella Felton
Text and Performance are often siloed as separate mediums of communication. However few writers consider the thought that the process of writing itself can be seen as a performance just as much as the act of performing can be a mode of writing. Performative Writing seeks to disrupt these binaries by centering the temporal and embodied experiences of the writer as a crucial epistemology. This workshop explores Performative Writing through its perverse and often baffling relationships: text and performance, art and research, archive and inquiry.
A3 The “How To” Story: A Generative Workshop for Writing Second Person with Hannah Goss
Inspired by Lorrie Moore’s short stories like “How to Be an Other Woman” and “How to Become a Writer,” this workshop will explore experimenting with second-person stories that occasionally drop the you and take the reader through how to do or be someone they are not, moving from experiences as if they are universal until they become all too personal. We will examine how Moore’s how-to style creates immediacy and closes the distance between the reader and the character. If you like playing with point of view and form, this workshop might be for you.
A4 Something Smells Fishy: A Generative Poetry Workshop with Anna Vaughn
Special note: This workshop will take a field trip to the BGSU Marine Lab in the Life Sciences Building!
In this poetry workshop, we will dive into a variety of aquatic poetry. You might be asking yourself: “What is an aquatic poem?” These are poems that include water, aquatic plants, fish, frogs, and more! If it is aquatic, we got it! We will read and discuss aquatic poetry, and generate our own fishy poems.
A5 Zoom: Writing Our New Story: Poetry of Possibility with Janine Harrison
In this workshop, participants will explore how poetry can be used as an agent of social change to help readers to envision a better world. We will consider: How can we best ask global citizens to coexist on our planet as it could be rather than as it is? How can we encourage innovation? Action toward advancement? To mitigate global heating? To promote social and economic justice? To encourage mental and emotional wellness? To bolster hope? See vision as attainable? Participants will examine poetry and prose to initiate conversation and illustrate techniques to ignite our pens and then write.
SESSION B: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 5:00-6:15 PM
B1 Characters Breaking Out of the Dungeon: How Dungeons and Dragons Practices Can Help You Develop Your Fictional Characters.
Join some experienced Dungeon Masters to learn about character sheets, experiment with a character sheet of your own, and learn more about tabletop role-playing games in preparation for tonight’s One Shot experiences!
B2 Dairy Cow: Composing Poetry at the Intersection of Feminist and Animal Rights Rhetoric with Jaden Gootjes
In this workshop, we will examine various feminist and animal rights poems, the history of feminist and animal rights rhetoric, and where they overlap. We will also take time to craft our own poems with our new insights in mind. Anyone is welcome to join, learn, and create together!
B3 Ekphrastic Writing: The Art of Responding to Art with Carolyn Hogg
Consider your favorite work of visual art, perhaps it’s a painting, sculpture, or a photograph. What response does this work evoke from you? How does what you know about the artist, the history of the work, or the artistic strategies used to create it shape your response? More importantly, if it could speak, what kind of stories might it tell? In this workshop, participants are invited to respond to various works of art through their writing, allowing creations from different artistic disciplines to inspire new characters, settings, metaphors, narratives, and more.
B4 Flawed Mods: On Using Exactly the Right Word in Poetry and Prose with Paula J. Lambert
For this session, participants are asked to bring the draft of a short piece of poetry or prose that doesn’t seem to be working quite right. We’ll review work by well-known authors, discussing the proficient use of modifiers—how finding exactly the right word in a line or sentence can make your writing stronger, and how too many can make your work weaker. We’ll then spend time revising your own piece by culling and changing imperfect word choices.
B5 Dialogue as and in Poetry with Garret Miller
Together we will study dialogue’s impact on poetry, both internally and externally. Some poets use character as a vehicle for dialogue (or vice versa) to significant effect. We will read some examples. We will write. We will chat. Hopefully we’ll leave with a better understanding of how to employ dialogue and character within poetry.
B6 Zoom: Capturing Middle Grade Voice in an Adult World with Rod Martinez
Capturing the voice of a young protagonist isn’t as hard as we make it as adult writers, my choice to work in middle grade stemmed from being that parent who hung with kids a lot – naturally, grasping the middle grade voice was inevitable. In my presentation I will walk you back in time to your childhood and pull out the voice you need to write a convincing young hero, heroine or antagonist.
SESSION C: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 9:30-10:45 AM
C1 Elegies for Disappearing Nature with Nathan Fako and Melayna Pongratz
In this workshop, participants will learn about environmental poetry and art as elegy, protest, and call to action, then generate their own poems in this genre.
C2 Playing with Present Tense with Samantha Imperi
The nature of storytelling is intuitively retrospective: a look into the past at what has already happened. Learning how and why to employ the present tense allows us to construct a conceptual framework through which we can understand storytelling in a new way. In this workshop we will explore the potential of the present tense to create a dynamic environment in which your characters and your readers are experiencing the story together. Together, we will both explore texts and attempt to create our own.
C3 Let’s Steal Some Identities Together with Tyler Michael Jacobs
Unfortunately, this isn’t a workshop on how to commit identity theft, but we will explore the persona poem. We’ll even write a persona poem, if the voice, idea, and essence call to us.
C4 Dreamweaver: Crafting Fiction from Nightmares and Daydreams with Sydney Koeplin
In this workshop, we’ll explore how our dreams—and our nightmares—can provide ample material for us to write about. Looking back on some of your own dreams, we’ll generate flash fiction and ponder ways we can turn a concept into a story. Don’t remember your dreams when you wake up? Don’t worry, we’ll go over some strategies to retain those nighttime visions, too.
C5 Almost Straight to the Heart: Using the Self-Discovery Process as a Craft Tool in Creative Writing with Sophfronia Scott
Joan Didion famously noted, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking…” That kind of writing can mean a precarious process. After all, what you’re thinking may be unsettling! And writing has been compared to opening a vein and bleeding onto the page. But the journey of self-discovery need not be so dramatic or traumatic. In fact, it can be quite productive. Unpacking your interiority as you put words on the page may solve writing blocks, present new ideas, and result in deeper and more meaningful and authentic work. We will play with a writing exercise and think about how to observe your thoughts as you write. We will also discuss what to do with what you find in the marginalia of your brain. By embracing the unknown, we may see that writing, no matter the genre, doesn’t have to be about opening a vein. It may be as simple as stepping onto a path and seeing where it takes you.
C6 Zoom: Midpoint Medicine with Joe Celizic
From solving a novel’s sagging middle, to crafting a short story’s turning point, to finding a resonant image deep in the heart of a flash fiction, we’ll discuss ways to add and revise midpoint reversals to existing works, as well as how to design stories from the middle outward.
SESSION D: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 11:00-12:15 AM
D1 Aliens, Vampires, Ghosts, Oh My: Writing Speculative Fiction with Lori D’Angelo
In this course, we’ll talk about the growing popularity of speculative fiction and look at some classic and contemporary examples from writers such as Ray Bradbury, Ursula LeGuin, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Haruki Murakami, and Karen Russell and talk about venues that are friendly to speculative fiction writers. We’ll also talk about fiction that bends genres and breaks rules. This class will include a writing exercise to help you get started on your speculative fiction journey.
D2 Being Your Best Villain with Caleb Danielak
Writing a compelling villain in any story is difficult. The main antagonist could be man, nature, industry, society, or even oneself. This presentation aims to inform aspiring writers about the difficulties of writing compelling antagonists while addressing common pitfalls for each type of major villain. Ideas and suggestions for fixing these villains will be discussed with audience members being encouraged to participate, sharing their ideas and input.
D3 Partners in Crime: Developing Craft Through Collaborative Writing with Amanda Ellard and Madison Porter
Throughout our writing careers we typically are at our desks, for hours, alone. Others don’t enter the picture until workshop or editing—after a draft is produced. In this workshop, we’ll demonstrate how writing can be collaborative from the very beginning. Together we’ll discover how writing can be a collaborative experience instead of a traditional solo escapade through picture prompts, writing swaps, genre play, and call and response lines (including the Exquisite Corpse technique). Developing collaborative writing skills earlier in the writing process helps authors with character creation, generating ideas, getting unstuck, and feeling less alone in the process. Collaboration creates and embraces unexpected styles to build your ever-growing writer’s tool kit. Exposing yourself to others writing processes helps you create a more intentional and multi-dimensional process of your own.
D4 Writing Your Family Tree: Using Genealogical Research and Materials as the Beginning of a Writing Project with Jessica Manack
Family history can be a rich vein of material to mine for writing projects. The act of writing about our family members can serve several purposes: honoring the past, remembering those departed, setting the record straight, or imagining what might have happened in the absence of concrete details. In this workshop, writer Jessica Manack will share examples of poetry, both hers and that of other writers, written from family lore. She will also share strategies to investigate your family history — it is not a requirement that writers have information in hand. Prompts given during the session will ensure that each writer leaves with the beginning of a new piece or pieces.
D5 Reinventing the Fable with Mary Simmons
This poetry workshop will focus on fable, myth, legend, and fairytale and the ways in which we can reinvent and revisit them in our work. We will read examples, discuss the importance of fable and why it is worth revisiting, and spend time drafting our own poems.
D6 Zoom: Furrowing: A Technique for Weaving the Past and Present in Novel Writing Caitlyn Mlodzik
Understanding your character’s past is critical to their present actions, but how we layer these moments and scenes in a novel is equally important. We’ll talk about how much and what kind of past is important to include, examine examples from writers like Fredrick Backman and Ann Patchett, and discuss novel structure and writing processes to better prepare you in the drafting or revision process.
SESSION E: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2:30-3:45 PM
E1 The Whirlwind Speaks Revelation Chasmal To My Ant-Soul: A Study of Contemporary Sublime Poetics with Lucas Clark
This workshop will focus on how feelings of the sublime (i.e. a limited expansiveness toward the idea of infinity) can be conveyed through poetry. In a broader sense, discovery in the artist lies in the ability to catch a new, unique perspective on the universe. The stumbling block that commonly waylays the artist from attaining such discoveries is—in my terminology—a spiritual crisis. Spirituality is here evoked in a secular way: When an artist’s imagination of the universe is smaller than how the universe appears to the artist. Sublime revelation expands the limits of human perspective through artistic discovery and thus allows an awareness of infinity to be sustained. The whirlwind that speaks to the poet becomes the whirlwind inside the poet’s heart. We hold vast expanses inside us waiting for representation.
E2 Writing Personal and Family History: Finding Inspiration in the Past with Serenity Dieufaite
This workshop focuses on using personal and family history to create interesting stories. The main difference between writing history and historical fiction is the ability to explore and be creative. There is some creative freedom in fiction. Certain aspects of the story can be real, others can be fictional. Your past experiences and family history can create interesting narratives that you have a personal connection with.
E3 You Can Tell Me Anything: A Few Strategies to Find and Hone Your Authentic Writing Voice with Naomi North
Whether you’re an undergrad, MFA student, a writer who’s been struggling for a while now, a writer who’s not sure they’re still a writer and is here to brush things off and see, or just curious, I’ve made this little space for you. A writer’s style or voice is unique, individual. Some say voice can’t be taught. I say you are your own best teacher. You just have to be brave enough to say what you know. Finding and refining your voice is a lifelong adventure. Just for today, let me be your adventure guide. I’ve got strategies, exercises, and a few maps to get you started or help you find your way again. Let’s make some friends as we go! All genres welcome.
E4 Gandalf Never Attended Hogwarts: Creating Fully Realized Characters Through Worldbuilding with Jennifer Pullen
A school for wizards would perplex Gandalf. Wizards in Middle Earth are angelic beings without childhoods. If Frodo was selected for the Hunger Games, he’d think it was an invitation to an eating contest. A fully realized character in fantasy or science fiction must be embedded in their world, their values, beliefs, fears, dreams, and the opportunities available to them, can’t be separated from the worlds they live in. This workshop will discuss writing character driven fantasy and science fiction with vibrant lived-in worlds, through contemporary fiction examples and writing activities designed to make your characters feel alive.
E5 Slips in Voice and Perspective with Jane Wageman
In this workshop, we’ll look at instances where the relationship between narrator, characters, and words on the page are murky: The collective “we” voice in The Virgin Suicides that splinters as individual characters within that group are named. The ghostly first-person narrator in Housekeeping, who disappears from the page as she relates events beyond her knowledge. And the use of free-indirect discourse in Mansfield Park, which obscures the characters’ relationship to their own thoughts, even as it adopts their language and views. In the second half of the workshop, we’ll spend time generating writing that experiments with the boundaries of voice and perspective.
E6 Assemblage: A Visual Poetry Workshop with Found Text and Images with Jessica Zinz
An ASSEMBLAGE is a bunch of parts, pieces, or people collected into an organized group, always for some specific purpose. In this workshop, we will briefly discuss how this definition relates to collage poetry and visual poetry. We will discuss the purpose of collage poetry, ways it differs from traditional poems, the goals we set when crafting collage poems, and the relevance of juxtaposition and interdependent work when considering words and images together. We will also spend time creating (all materials provided). Most of the time in this panel will involve MAKING.
E7 Zoom: Just Breathe: Finding Your Place in the Big, Scary Publishing Industry for the Newly or Unpublished Writer with Daniel Groves
The publishing industry is a complicated place for the most successful writers, but how is a newly or unpublished writer supposed to break onto the scene? Unless you’re the next Stephen King, the answer is simple but daunting: lots of time, lots of energy, and lots of patience. In this talk, Daniel Groves—a newly published writer himself who is still working to find his way—discusses what he’s learned in his first few years as a serious writer, which tools he’s found most useful to help get work published, and attempts to answer any questions you may have. Most of all, remember: Just breathe.
SESSION F: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 4:00-5:15 PM
F1 Worldbuilding: Creating Convincing Cultural and Historical Context with Breshea Anglen
Building original and convincing worlds can be a daunting experience for many writers, especially those new to worldbuilding. The purpose of worldbuilding is to give your story both structure and believability within the creative boundaries you set. The purpose of this workshop is to provide strategies for generating a strong cultural and historical background for your story.
F2 A Grimm look at Adaptation with Liz Barnett
Have you ever watched or read an adaptation of a story you like and then thought, “Wow. That was awful. Why did they make that decision?” Well, now it’s your turn! In this workshop we’re going to examine the art of adaptation. Why people may choose to make an adaptation, why they make the decisions they make, and are there times when something should be left in the past? We’ll also be looking at some Grimm fairy tales specifically and writing our own adaptations of them to examine what choices you make when adapting your chosen fairy tale into a new story.
F3 Brainstorming the Novel with Lawrence Coates
In this panel, participants will be guided through some basic steps that will help guide them toward articulating an idea for a novel. Topics will include what makes a character suitable for a novel, what might be an inciting incident, how to use the archetypical plots, and some useful questions to interrogate your idea.
F4 Paranormal Poetry: Ghosts, Monsters, & Little Green Men with Timothy Greiger
Participants will look at the tradition of ghosts, monsters, and unexplained phenomena in contemporary poetry while examining strategies to incorporate the same in their own writing. Topics will include the metaphysical to magical realism, Bigfoot to UFOs to haunted houses. A workshop prompt will allow participants the opportunity to craft their own paranormal poem.
F5 Writing About That Which We Dare Not Speak with Lara Lillibridge
We all have secrets so deep we dread anyone discovering them, yet these are often the very things we need to write about. This workshop will give several concrete ways to write about that which we dare not speak—whether due to trauma or privacy concerns—while remaining safe.
F6 Syntax: The Slippery Nature of Poetry with Elly Salah
In this generative workshop, we will explore the intricate role of syntax in poetry and discuss its impact on a poem. We will explore how syntax is used to subvert the ordinary in contemporary poetry, and we will use our new insights into poetic craft to generate our own work.
F7 Flash Battle with Meg Spring, Jamie Manias, and Jaden Gootjes
Write and fight your way to victory in 600 words or fewer. We’ll give you a prompt, and you’ll have a limited time to write a flash fiction piece based on it. Participants will read their work and vote on their favorites. The top three writers will read their pieces at the open mic event in Prout Chapel on Saturday evening. The overall winner will be decided by applause at the open mic, and the winning piece will be published on the Mid-American review blog.