Summer Writing Retreats in the West

The Great Debate: A Workshop Roundup

By Allen M. Jones, 2-24-05

It's the rare professional writer who is willing to argue that MFA programs actually do what they're supposed to do, that is, teach creative writing. Instead, folks tend to point out the corollary benefits. The sense of community, the political contacts, etc. It's a junky's habit, creative writing. Lonely, too. Sitting down every morning to spray out truth and beauty. There's just got to be an easier way. Got to be. And so, not unlike late night infomercials (Burn calories while you're fast asleep!) your local state-funded university is happy to step up and meet an imagined need (Pay to have someone turn you into a great novelist!).

Anyway, is any MFA degree worth the money? Leave that question for the philosophers. Summer workshops, though, ahh...Here's an ingenious compromise. Rather than risking twenty or thirty grand, you're only being asked for four or five hundred bucks. You can belly up to the local bar and get drunk with some of your heroes and then, afternoons, stand a reasonable chance of hearing some honest reactions to your work. (Apropos, a brief aside and piece of advice: Learn to watch for the strength within the reaction rather than the stated reaction itself. When the instructor says, for instance, "You've got a good start here." what he's really saying is snowball's-chance-in-hell, yada yada yada, might as well go back to diesel mechanics school.) In the West, we're blessed / cursed with any number of summer workshops. Dozens? More than a few, anyway. Having been on both ends of the scenario, student and teacher, seems to me that a handful are more legitimate than the others.

In the region carved out by Newwest, and starting from the north in Idaho, we've got the Squaw Valley Writer's Workshops ($725), August 6-13, 2005. This one, cynicism aside, seems like a jewel. Expensive but maybe close to worth it. Dorothy Allison's going to be there this year (if you haven't read Bastard out of Carolina, go buy it now) as well as NPR's Alan Cheuse. Friends who've workshopped with Cheuse tell me he's great behind the podium. Tom Jenks from GQ and Rob Spillman from Tin House (next to McSweeney's and Zoetrope, Tin House is the best literary magazine we've got) will both show up, as well as twenty or thirty others, including Diane Johnson and Amy Tan. As far as sheer starpower goes, this one may be the best of the bunch.

Next door in Missoula, through the University of Montana and sponsored by the University's Environmental Studies Program, we've got the Environmental Writing Institute ($250), May 25-28. The gist of this program lies in "small workshops, writing field trips and manuscript consultations." What this year's faculty lacks in renown (unless you live in Montana, you probably haven't heard of Janisse Ray, Kim Todd or Phil Condon) they no doubt make up for in talent, sincerity and goodwill. I've never met Ray or Todd, but Condon's just a great guy. The history of this institute is thoroughly distinguished (previous faculty have included Peter Matthiessen, Wendell Berry, Rick Bass, David James Duncan...) and no doubt, this year's program will live up to its reputation.

Wyoming's got a couple strong, perennial contenders to attract the average workshop buck. The Jackson Hole Writer's Conference ($300-$325), June 23-26, is always a safe bet. I mean, hell, worst that can happen, you've signed yourself up for a Wyoming summer vacation. Your credit card number gives you access to the resident crowd (Tim Sandlin, Deborah Bedford, the esteemed Jon Billman) and, I would suspect, an extra publishing celebrity or two. I was there teaching a few years ago and got to hear Annie Proulx give a brief talk. Up the road toward the Park, you've got the Murie Center and their summer roster of programs. While not strictly a writing workshop, two of their summer events do fall into the phylum. August 18-21, Jonathan Waterman ($445 / $495) will be discussing and workshopping "wilderness-adventure writing." A couple months later, October 21-23, Erica Wheeler ($310 / $345) will be heading a retreat entitled, "The Soulful Landscape: Writing with a Sense of Place." When it comes to environmental activism and education, the Murie Center is about as legitimate as you can get (albeit maybe just a little spacey in their publicity, with a fondness for words like "empowerment," "pathway" and "self-understanding and exploration") If nothing else, your fees will go toward the support of an admirable organization.

Down the road in Colorado, you've got the Pike's Peak Writer's Conferece ($235 / $325), April 22 - 24. No doubt overbilled ("an exhilarating three-day adventure into the world of commercial fiction"), it nevertheless does seem like an opportunity to network and gain access to some reasonably legitimate literary agents. (For the most part, agents who are actually players, who can call up Fisketjon and expect to have their phone calls returned, avoid workshops the way most of us avoid colon exams; pragmatists by nature, they know workshopping is, by and large, a waste of time and money.) This year's list of Pike's Peak authors is unremarkable (Judith Guest is the biggest name), but if you do wind up signing on, it's probably not for the writers. Polish up your pitch and pay a few bucks to pull yourself out of the agenting slush pile. Who knows. Could happen. Also in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers will be holding a 2005 workshop "similar" to last year's. Not much other information is available, but given the extensive list of previous participants, it might be worth checking out here in a few months.

In Utah...Well, I guess I don't really want to talk about Utah. And finally there's New Mexico. The Taos Institute of Arts is, alas, no more (always got a kick out of their chutzpah, charging over $1,000 for a week with some famous hotshot), but there is the Taos Summer Writers' Conference ($275 - $750), July 9 - 15. With a dozen or so novelists, poets and short story writers (Pam Houston and Antonya Nelson are probably the best known), and with an option between weekend workshops and week-long, it would be easy to customize this one to personal preference. In Santa Fe, there's also an ongoing series of single day "Wordharvest Writers Workshops" ($125). The titles of these workshops are all a little Writer's Digesty and suspicious (IE: "Clueless in Publishing Land: 10 Perplexing Secrets of How to Get an Agent and Get Your Book Published"; "It's No Mystery: How to Write Your Novel"; "Revitalize Your Writing and Double Your Sales!") but, you know, whatever. For $125, you can't go too wrong.

End of the day, of course, the best advice anyone can give is just to sit your ass down in the chair and rub some words together. The time that you spend away from your computer (including the time spent at workshops), that's time that you've wasted. Even now it occurs to me, as I'm trying awkwardly to tie up this grocery list, here's another couple hours when I could have been finishing up my own novel. I'm at this critical juncture wherein my flawed but stalwart (and finally admirable) characters come to this unpredictable emotional epiphany... anyway. It's full of truth and beauty, and if anybody out there wants to pay a few hundred bucks, I'll be happy to show them how to write one just like it. Meet me at the bar.

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