The Tin House Summer Writers Workshop in Portland, Oregon

By Guest Writer, 7-26-10

Tin House Summer Writers Workshop
Where: Portland, Oregon.
When: Annually, in July.
What: Started eight years ago, Tin House Summer Writers Workshop was an outgrowth of Tin House Magazine, one of the top literary magazines in the country. In 2005, the magazine expanded to include Tin House Books. The summer conference includes writing workshops in fiction (some devoted specifically to the novel), poetry, and creative nonfiction, in addition to seminars on craft, and readings by the writers who teach the workshops. Once participants have been accepted into the workshops, they may apply for mentorships. These include a written critique of an entire book by an available workshop leader or editor and several meetings during the week of the conference.
Food and Lodging: The conference takes place at Reed College, where participants of the conference eat in the cafeteria and sleep in the dorms.  The cost for food and lodging is $575.
Cost: Tuition is $1000-$1100, and applications are due July 10 each year.  Manuscript critiques are $750-$1000.  A pass to attend all the readings and seminars is $250, and tickets to individual events are available for $5-$20.

Bonnie ZoBell, who has participated in five Tin House Summer Writers Workshops, offers her report:

The folks who run the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop in Portland, Oregon, aren’t stupid. I’m at the July 2010 conference now. When they asked me the other day to write an article on the conference for their newsletter, you have to figure they’d noticed I’ve attended five years in a row. They’ve probably seen me rave about the place online. In fact, for years I’ve been trying to convince them they should give me a cut for every new recruit I bring in. They laugh nervously. People who know me, though, will tell you I don’t even have to be prompted to gush. I continue to have a great experience every time I come here, so I have nothing secret to report to you.

Steve Almond alone is worth the price of admission. Steve (aka Chocolate Boy, because of his book Candy Freak) is a regular. If you’re not in his class, try to eavesdrop. Read his books. Study his children to find out how much of what he knows is genetic and how much is learnable. Listen carefully when he explains (as he has to me) that if the story is worth telling, you need to start at the beginning and tell the whole damn thing through instead of employing clever jumps in time. He will gently point out that while you yourself are welcome to avoid confrontation, your characters are not, and then he’ll point out exactly where they’re holding back, forcing you to experience unbearable pain while you make this brood you have borne face down issues very much like your own. Your story will get better. 

Where else but at Tin House can you sit with Antonya Nelson and only eleven other people for seven days and receive not only her insight in your work, but be quickly trained to find the heart of the story and how to help it be more fully realized?  You sit out drinking into the wee hours with participants from all over the world you connect and will continue to trade with. Finally one night you think you’re going to get a full eight hours of sleep, and that’s when you start to feel annoyed with Anne Hood. You picked up her collection after hearing her impressive comments on writing the beginnings of stories, and because you can’t put the book down, you don’t get any sleep at all.

The readings every evening feature some of the most important writers in the country: Charles D’Ambrosio, Dorothy Alison, Dorianne Laux, Nick Flynn, Anne Hood, Joy Williams, Aimee Bender, TC Boyle, Abigail Thomas, Robert Boswell …the list is delicious and goes on endlessly.

Some of these all-star workshop leaders can be found at other conferences, but the atmosphere won’t be the same and the setting won’t include Reed College’s old English buildings (faux Princeton) built in 1903 and planted with more than one hundred different kinds of trees. There won’t be the jogging trails crisscrossing campus or the peaceful creek burbling behind the outdoor amphitheater’s evening readings.

An intimate enclave, Tin House doesn’t need secret hiding places for the well-known like the shopping mall conferences of the world because there aren’t as many of us to hide from. Out of more than 400 applications, this year there are 183 participants, roughly the same as last year. Therefore, our leaders grab breakfast trays alongside the rest of us. Anthony Doerr or David Leavitt may have forgotten his contact lenses. At lunch, that shy Rob Spillman—director of Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, editor of Tin House Magazine, and executive editor Tin House Books—may look serious over there playing croquet, but all you have to do is introduce yourself, and he’s the most generous guy in the world about telling you what he really thinks about that other conference you’ve been considering attending. Despite the word “cafeteria,” the food at Reed College is fairly outstanding—lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, always vegetarian choices, and a lot of different selections to choose from.

True, even the most charming of the dorms—in the Old Dorm Block—are a bit antiquated. There are the old window seats, bay windows, century-old doors and hardware, but then there are also the shared bathrooms down the hall. Air conditioning and luxury linens are not part of the charms, but fans and reading lights can be rented for $5- $10 for the week. Bring your own 1500-thread count sheets if that’s important to you. Don’t stay in a hotel nearby because that will distance you from the wonderful sense of community that develops.

By Sunday you’ll have to convince yourself that if you lived here all year round, Tin House wouldn’t be as special. 

Bonnie ZoBell has received an NEA and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award and her work has been included or is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Night Train, Storyglossia, JMWW, The Greensboro Review, elimae, and Pank. She received an MFA from Columbia, and teaches at San Diego Mesa College.

Are you interested in reporting on a Western literary festival?  Please send an email to NewWest Books & Writers Editor Jenny Shank, jenny@newest.net.

Also in this series:

Aspen Summer Words Fest: Southern Lit, Secret Hopes and a Surprise Stand-In by Jennifer Lee Sullivan

Plus: The Map!

Check out NewWest’s comprehensive map and rundown of regional events, Book Festivals of the West.