Report on “Writing in Place” Summer Writers’ Workshop

By Stella M Čapek, Hendrix College

This past June, Sterling College offered a “Writing in Place” workshop (June 9-20) that was co-sponsored by ASLE. Located in the tiny Vermont town of Craftsbury Common, Sterling is known for its Wildbranch Workshop. This summer, though, it tried out a different model. Instead of working with one visiting writer for a week, the seven of us who signed up for the workshop encountered four different writers over the course of two weeks–Clare Walker Leslie, John Elder, Rowan Jacobsen, and Ginger Strand. Each visiting writer took a turn facilitating group discussions as well as meeting with us individually to offer feedback on our writing. Our group activities included plenty of writing prompts, shared readings of our writing, and wide-ranging discussions in response to assigned readings. With the exception of two evening readings (Clare Walker Leslie with John Elder, Rowan Jacobsen with Ginger Strand), there was no overlap between the visiting authors. Pavel Cenkl, Dean of the College and Faculty, organized and facilitated the writing workshop, meeting with us at the beginning, setting us up to share our work on Google Drive, and concluding with a session that included a reading of our pieces.
Elder talk Sterling

John Elder addresses Sterling College Writer’s Workshop participants

The pattern for the workshop included two to three days with each visiting writer. The contrasts between them enhanced the workshop experience. Although Clare Walker Leslie commented that she “isn’t a writer,” after sharing her illustrated journals with us, she got our eyes (and drawing pencils) attuned to what was around us in that particular season. Personally, I enjoyed starting out this way, although some of us were more challenged than others by drawing (or thinking that they had to draw well). John Elder came next, with a segment focused on memoir. We couldn’t have asked for a better mentor to kick off the more writing-focused part of the workshop. He encouraged us to see the workshop as a chance for everyone to develop, and modeled that for us. He also hosted us one afternoon at his cabin on a nearby lake, a cozy place on that chilly day for our lively discussions of our assigned readings. Our last session with him was in the pavilion/gazebo on the commons, assisted by some local microbrews (or in my case, Vermont hard cider, gluten-free). He took great care to give us useful personal feedback and a thought-provoking collective experience.

Next, Rowan Jacobsen brought us his expertise on writing about food and place, and shared his experience with successfully placing his nature-related essays in a broad range of publications. He invited us to think about movement in our writing, including communicating the adventure of discovering a local place and bringing in its broader context. He was happy to give in to our requests for a small field trip to a local farm that produces cheese, and turned it into one of our writing prompts. Our concluding session was outside in a small garden pavilion, accompanied, in the spirit of local food and place, by Vermont hard cider, including some of his own making (we thought it beat out the best commercial contender in the local store). Last–but certainly not least–in the lineup, Ginger Strand offered us her experience with writing fiction and nonfiction, including spunky stories about her background research for Inventing Niagara and Killer on the Road. Like all of the visiting writers, she pushed us beyond superficial responses to readings that we didn’t immediately connect with, encouraging us to find the careful art and technique practiced by each author so that we could make more informed choices about our own writing. We also had a helpful discussion of background research sources. Our last session with her included individual writing conferences on the front porch of one of the white wooden campus buildings. Besides that, in the two evening readings, each of the visiting writers offered us their own carefully crafted words and informal comments about their writing.

This summary doesn’t do justice to the details and the intensity of the two week experience, but it gives some idea of how we spent our time. You might ask, when were we writing, in the midst of all of this? We were writing every day, responding to many writing prompts, and often at night, putting work into a longer piece. Having four visiting writers to work with was exciting, but coordinating all of the different activities was a challenge. Fortunately, while all four visiting writers came “loaded for bear” with readings, prompts, and ideas about how best to structure our time, they were very open to our needs. They balanced their desire not to shortchange us in any way with our need for time on our own or individual conferences. Their flexibility helped us make the best use of the workshop experience.

Sterling College hosted us well, from the student who came and picked me up from my very late flight into Burlington and drove me the hour and half to Craftsbury Common, to all of the staff at the college. The food, much of it locally grown, all of it carefully labelled, practically got up and danced with us, it was so inviting. The hours were tough on night owls, though–breakfast at 7:30, workshop starting at 8:30. It was fun to explore miniscule Craftsbury Common, especially with the help of one of our workshop participants, Michelle, originally from Canada, who had almost earned the status of a local, and could tell us the difference between the “regular” general store down the road and the fancy one for “flatlanders.”

As for me, I took advantage of the beginning of a sabbatical to do something I’ve long meant to do: take part in a writers’ workshop, instead of always writing alone. The seven of us were a perfect number for interacting and sharing writing. I liked the diversity in age, occupation, ambitions, where we hailed from, and reasons for wanting to develop our writing. I came away glad for the experience, and enjoying writing about lilacs.