Poetry Course
"The Code to the Ode"
Allison will be talking about odes, praise poems, anti-odes, curse poems, and poetic apologies. Poets were put on this earth to praise and critique human nature and behavior. The ode gives us a chance to rejoice in life; the anti-ode does its opposite. Students in this class will read selections from Keats, Neruda, Giovanni, Olds, and Harjo.
______________________________________________________________________________
Allison Joseph lives, writes, and teaches in Carbondale, Illinois, where she serves as
Professor of English at Southern Illinois University. Her most recent books of poems
include Lexicon (Red Hen Press), winner of the Best Book of the Year Award from
Poetry by the Sea: A Global Conference, and Confessions of a Barefaced Woman (Red
Hen Press), winner of the Feather Quill Book Award and finalist for the NAACP Image
Award in Poetry. She was chosen as Illinois Author of the Year for 2022 by the Illinois
Association of Teachers of English. Her work has appeared in newspapers and
anthologies, including the Best American Poetry Series and the New York Times. She is
the widow of the late poet and editor Jon Tribble. Her next books are Blue Streak (Glass
Lyre Press) and Dwelling (Red Hen Press), both forthcoming in 2025.
Fiction Course SOLD OUT
"Flash in the Pan: What Every Writer Can Learn from Very Short Fiction"
The flash fiction, the short short story, the sudden fiction: whatever you call them, it is in these
tightly compressed forms that the techniques of fiction and the compression of poetry meet and
merge to create exciting new modes of expression. Through brief (under 1,000 words, and in
many cases under 500) in-class readings, students will see how such tiny stories can pack a huge
punch. After discussing how these narratives-in-miniature are structured, as well as what they
can teach us about longer forms, students will have the chance to do in-class exercises, and will
walk out with rough drafts of a few very short stories that they can continue to hone, as well as
with a new sense of how to bring economy to their sentences in writing of all lengths and
genres.
______________________________________________________________________
Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a team of poets and their typewriters who compose commissioned poetry on demand. She teaches English and creative writing at DePaul University and is the author, most recently, of the novels From Dust to Stardust (Lake Union, 2023), Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (St. Martin’s, 2017), and Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey (Penguin, 2020), as well as the poetry collection Where Are the Snows (Texas Review Press, 2022). She lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay.
Friday Night Keynote
Ruben Quesada
Ruben will read from his newest book, Brutal Companion published by Barrow Street Press (2024), and speak about why he finds writing to be imperative.
Ruben Quesada is an award-winning poet and editor. He edited the
groundbreaking anthology Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry, winner of the
Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. His forthcoming
collection of poetry, Brutal Companion, was awarded the Barrow Street Press
Editors Prize. His poetry and criticism appear in The New York Times Magazine, Best
American Poetry, Ploughshares, Harvard Review, and American Poetry Review. He has
served as poetry editor for AGNI, Poet Lore, Pleiades, Tab Journal, and as a poetry
blogger for The Kenyon Review and Ploughshares. He has served as a literary advisor
for the Smithsonian Institution, NEA, and Publishing Triangle Awards. He is an
Editorial Advisor for JackLeg Press.
Sunday Morning Generative (both genres)
Before the participant open mic on Sunday, we'll have an hour of generative writing lead by local author Nik Markevicius.
“Word Jazz”
Word Jazz is a series of round-robin word games and imaginative- seeing exercises. Each participant will use their own responses, as well as others’ responses, to pursue and develop an idea that is generated organically from the subconscious. Participants will spend the last quarter-hour engaged in the actual writing of their generated idea, ensuring that everyone walks away with - at the very least - a sprout of story which they can then grow at their own pace.
Word Jazz is adapted from the Story Workshop method of writing instruction, originally developed at Columbia College Chicago.
Kristin LaTour, director
Kristin is the founder of the Aurora Writers Workshop and has lived in Aurora since 2004. Her poetry has been published in several chapbooks, anotholigies, and in journals such as the Massachusetts Review, Tinderbox, Museum of Americana, Escape into Life, and others. Her full-length collection of poems, What Will Keep Us Alive, came out with Sundress Publications in 2015. She teaches writing at Joliet Jr. College and gives writing workshops at libraries in the far-western Chicago suburbs. She is currently working on a novel set during the 1800s whaling industry in New Bedford, and a collection of poems centered around Gen X.
