Field's End Events

How do writers shape and inform stories depicting a culture other than their own? Margaret Chang, who married into a Chinese family, offers insights based on her experience as a writer, teacher, critic, librarian, and member of a supportive community that advocates for cross-cultural understanding.

Margaret Chang, a former children’s librarian, holds an MA in Children’s Literature and for 17 years taught college courses in children’s literature. With her Chinese-born husband, she has published four children’s books set in China, and an introduction to the Chinese language. A longtime reviewer for School Library Journal, she served on two American Library Association award committees: the 2005 Caldecott and the 2007 Batchelder. Chang was also a judge for the 6th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards. She is now on the Board of Directors for USBBY, an organization promoting international understanding through children’s books. Her most recent book is Celia’s Robot.
http://www.holidayhouse.com/podcast_display.php?podcast_id=2

Writing your life story is a journey of self-discovery that will help you create realistic characters for whatever writing you do. Add the people who helped shape you along the way and you have a great glimpse into human nature and the dynamics that move our stories—real or fictional.

Marcia Rudoff is one of the founding members of Field’s End, a memoir-writing instructor, newspaper columnist, and freelance writer. She holds a BA from Douglass College and an MA from Sarah Lawrence College. After retiring from a career in education, Rudoff moved to Bainbridge Island, where the desire to write and teach re-emerged. The result was the creation of memoir-writing classes on Bainbridge, an assignment as columnist for the local newspaper, and an interest in freelance writing that has resulted in several published pieces and awards.

The P-I’s longtime book critic looks back at more than a decade of interviews and reviews of authors from across the country and around the Pacific Northwest. He discusses the craft of book criticism and offers his recollections of interviews with such notable authors as John Updike, Margaret Atwood, Richard Ford, Elizabeth Gilbert, Barbara Kingsolver, and Tom Robbins.

John Marshall was the longtime book critic of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer until it ceased publication in 2009. His work there included in-person interviews with many major literary figures and celebrities. Marshall is the author of several nonfiction books including Reconciliation Road, an award-winning family memoir, and Place of Learning, Place of Dreams: A History of the Seattle Public Library. He is also coauthor of Volcano: The Eruption of Mount St. Helens, a national bestseller. Marshall teaches a popular memoir-writing class at Richard Hugo House in Seattle. He has lived on Bainbridge Island since 2010.

Why do great poems surprise us? Not only do they defy predictable accounts of being alive, they move language around until it says the unsayable. This interactive talk showcases some surprising, inspiring poems and offers techniques to create verse that tingles and shimmies with unexpected turns.

Frrances McCue, winner of the 2011 Washington State Book Award for Poetry and finalist for Nonfiction, has written three books: The Bled, The Stenographer's Breakfast (both poetry), and The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs, a collection of essays about Northwest towns and Richard Hugo. She is Writer in Residence in the Undergraduate Honors Program at UW and is a freelance Arts Instigator, a catalyst for people and organizations to generate creative, innovative projects.

It's not always what is said and how it is said in our fiction, but often what isn't said. We'll look at how writers convey information by writing "between the lines." Using examples from modern short fiction and novels, we'll explore the advantages and disadvantages of leaving some things unsaid (at least in our fiction).

Michael Overa is a Seattle native and a 2010 graduate of the Hollins University MFA program. In addition to working as a private tutor and freelance writer, Overa has volunteered with 826 Seattle, Richard Hugo House, and the Writers In The Schools program. His work has appeared in the Portland Review, Line Zero, Ink Collective, and at Pindeldyboz.com, among other places. www.facebook.com/michael.overa

The techniques utilized in acting can be translated to writing...after all, writing fiction is acting on paper: from entrances (Page One, Chapter One) to exits (The End); from holding the audience in the palm of your hand; to knowing when to get off the stage. From audition (query letter) to opening night (book launch), we have to be professionals, whether we are working community theater (small press or self –published) or Broadway (big publisher). Come see how the craft of acting can teach you about the craft of writing.

Randall Platt's interest in acting led her to begin writing screenplays at a young age. After working on stage and discovering she wanted to rewrite all her lines, she decided she was probably a writer and not an actress. In the mid-1980s, she left the traditional workplace to write full time and be with her young sons. Her most recent novel, Hellie Jondoe (2010), won the Willa Literary Award, the Will Rogers Medallion Award for Western Fiction/Young Adult, and the Moonbeam Children's Book Award Gold Medal for historical/cultural young adult fiction. Platt is also the author of The Four Arrows Fe-As-Ko (1991), the first in a three-part humorous western series for adults, and Honor Bright (1998), the Young Adult winner of the Keystone State Reading Award. www.plattbooks.com

Think of Fitzgerald's Long Island, its eastern and western sides and the inlet between. Think of DeLillo's New York, violently reborn in the collapse of the Twin Towers. Think of Hemingway's sea, washing an old man away and back again, to a home that may no longer hold a place for him. Think of settings such as these and you cannot help but know the characters that populate them. In some books, you may scarcely recall where the narrative took place. Perhaps this was a purposeful decision by the author—universality, timelessness. But if the story is intended to be a product of its setting, how to render that setting in a living way? How do you take it from backdrop to character?

David Rocklin grew up in Chicago. He graduated from Indiana University with a BA in Literature. After attending law school, he pursued a career as an in-house attorney and continues to serve as a mediator. He lives in California with his wife and children. The Luminist, his debut novel (literary/historical fiction), will be published in October 2011 in the U.S. (Hawthorne Books) as well as in Italy and Israel. www.davidrocklin.com

Ekphrasis, “the verbal representation of visual representation,” has a long literary tradition dating back to Homer’s description of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad. How and why do writers engage with art? We will explore the mode of ekphrasis adopted by writers such as Gertrude Stein, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Frank O’Hara. By discussing the art and artists that influenced literature, we’ll begin to uncover the social, political, and aesthetic implications of interdisciplinary scholarship.

Janée J. Baugher holds a BS in Human Physiology from Boston University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. For the past decade, she has taught at Highline Community College, University of Washington—Experimental College, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Richard Hugo House, and elsewhere. Baugher regularly collaborates with visual artists, composers, and choreographers. Her recent collaborations were produced at University of Cincinnati–Conservatory of Music and Dance Now! Ensemble (Miami Beach). Baugher is the author of a collection of ekphrastic and travel poems, Coördinates of Yes (2010), and in 2011 she presented her work at the Library of Congress. http://JaneeJBaugher.wordpress.com

This talk about poetry by Bob McAllister plays in the fields of experience, juxtaposition, fulcrums, the genius of subconscious, and his belief that everyone has a multitude of poems waiting, which only require a fork, a delve, a spinet, and a loom to help them take shape. Most of all, he approaches the subject of his conversation (What Is Poetry?) with humility, knowing that answers are less important than questions and the obverse is often antithetical to the spirit of poetry. However, to speak about a subject that's dear and carouses with the best and worst in us, contains conversations that may, willy-nilly, conjure magic. What better to pursue or attempt? He advises attendees to "fasten their jellybeans."

Bob McAllister taught English and Theater at Bainbridge High School for 34 years because he found a way to make a living doing what he loves. He has five daughters, three granddaughters, and has been married for 21 years to his wife, Merry, who teaches Science at Woodward Middle School. His collected book of poems, Even in the Wind, Even in the Dark, is available at (support your local bookstore!) Eagle Harbor Books. He's currently teaching English, Interpersonal Relations, Public Speaking, and Acting classes at Olympic College, and is gratified to do so.

“Sometimes I read a passage in a book that moves me, touches me deep down—that is what inspires me. What keeps me going is much more practical,” says Margaret Trent, an artist, novelist, and former Field’s End Core Team member. Barbara Clarke will share her thoughts on three favorite writing books, including Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. “Each time I start a long project—fiction or nonfiction, it doesn’t matter—out comes Bird.” Lin Kamer-Walker recommends Studs Terkel’s Working, a book that delivers a double shot of can-do energy to her nervous system. We can relate to that! Join us for a discussion about these books and many other favorites that keep us inspired and keep us writing. Please bring your own favorites to share.