The Tomales Bay Workshops

University of California, Davis Creative Writing Program
October 21-25, 2009

Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation Keynote Speaker:
Robert Hass, U.S. Poet Laureate (1995-1997) and Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet

Tuition: $1,550 (includes the $150 application fee).
Space is limited, so please apply as early as possible. The deadline is September 15, 2009, or until full.

Four days of working with an established author, receiving constructive feedback and generating new material.

What Past Participants Are Saying

Download 2009 brochure (650 KB)

Download 2009 application (68 KB)

Download 2009 schedule (1 MB) 

The Tomales Bay Workshops bring aspiring writers into close community with nationally-known poets and writers, and respected editors and agents. Workshops limited to 12 participants ensure an intimate setting. In addition, participants have the opportunity to purchase one-on-one tutorials with a publishing professional.

The workshops are held at the Marconi Conference Center in Marshall, California, on the eastern shore of pristine Tomales Bay, just north of San Francisco in Marin County. The Marconi Center sits on a wooded hillside that overlooks serene water and mountains beyond. The center offers comfortable rooms, excellent food and inviting hiking trails. Come to relax, learn and explore.

The Workshops

There will be six workshops, which meet each morning for four consecutive days. Workshop are:

• Fiction:  Writing Towards a Global Conversation with Daniel Alarcon. This workshop has been canceled.
• Fiction: Imagery, Mystery and Description in the Short Story with Mary Gaitskill. Read and discuss established short story writers, past and present. Discussions focus on how writers may use words to create non-verbal imagery with layers of meaning and/or feeling through which we sense the hidden and irrational lives of their characters and stories, how authors blend the primitive with the intellectual, how words may be used to describe or at least to glimpse the indescribable. Writing  exercises are assigned.
• Personal Narrative: Finding the Story in History: Shaping Fact into Art with Fenton Johnson. Asked to explain Zen Buddhism in ten words, Suzuki Roshi, being a good Zen Buddhist, took two: "Everything changes." At the end of writing the essay, at the end of reading it, you or your reader will be that much closer to your death. How do we embody that constant change in this most abstract of media? In this workshop, you will look at how we take the facts--of our lives, of our research, or both--and shape them into a storytelling arc. Sometimes that arc rises to a climax in a predictable way, at other times we create movement through vivid imagery, tone, pacing or structural devices, ranging from page breaks to the insertion of material quoted from interviews or other writers. We will look at opening paragraphs of classic essays and memoirs whose narrative strategies vary from fireworks (e.g., James Baldwin) to contemplation (e.g., Joan Didion, Thomas Merton). Along the way, we will make time to discuss the spirit that moves us, since the energy setting our writing in motion must finally become the energy that sustains the work.   
• Poetry: Poetry and the Unconsciouswith Dana Levin. "Life's nonsense pierces us with strange relation," says poet Wallace Stevens. To begin, we will explore how to "make sense" of poetry's relationship to the unconscious and the use we can make of this relationship for poetic composition and revision. We will discuss the notion of associative logic, look at poems by poets--such as Charles Simic, Tomaz Salamun, Wallace Stevens and Gertrude Stein--and embark on a poetry exercise that engages the unconscious, source of our wildest visions. We'll then move on to a discussion of poetic resistance, how the unconscious can help us work around that resistance, and give fresh eyes a chance to help each of us move forward with our workshop poem. Each participant will submit two poems for workshop (in case we can get to two) and is encouraged to submit, for one of them, his or her most resistant-to-completion, messy, half-baked poem!
• Fiction and Memoir: Mystery in the Details with Robin Romm. We have no choice; mystery surrounds us. Birth and death are obvious sources--where do we come from and where do we go? But there are also bits of the unknown in everyday life. What compels that neighbor to exercise so often? Is there a deeper meaning to your aching back? What is that particular smell in your ex-husband's car? It's the writer's job to wake up and wonder about all of this--and to write about it. Flannery O'Connor wrote that the habit of art "is a way of looking at the world and of using the senses so as to make them find as much meaning as possible in things." Learn to hone your focus on sensory experience so the details of the everyday may become a portal into larger questions. These questions will not only deepen your writing, they will deepen you. Exercises compliment this workshop. 
• Fiction: Incidents and Accidents at the Intersection of Voice and Narrative--The Pattern of the Thing with Jess Walter. Vladimir Nabokov once said, "The pattern of the thing precedes the thing." Sure it does. And where is Nabokov now? Dead. In this workshop, we will look at the patterns that emerge from some great writing--long and short, realistic and experimental, fiction and nonfiction--as we look to create a metaphoric language for the structure of your own pieces--the beginnings and ends, the framing and the shaping, the narrative architecture and the scaffolding that contain your glittering prose and maybe, just maybe, keep you alive.

Please indicate your workshop preference on your application form.

Publishing Consultants

Participants will have the opportunity to confer privately with publishing industry professionals. Acceptance for these sessions will be determined on a first-come, first-served basis. There is a $100 fee for each half-hour session.

The Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation Keynote Speaker

Robert Hass, U.S. Poet Laureate from 1995-1997, is a poet of great eloquence, clarity and force, whose work is rooted in the landscapes of his native Northern California. His most recent book is a collection of poems entitled Time and Materials, which won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Widely read and much honored, Hass brings the same kind of energy found in his poetry to his work as an essayist, translator and activist on behalf of poetry, literacy and the environment. He has published many books of poetry, including Field Guide, Praise, Human Wishes, and Sun Under Wood, as well as a book of essays on poetry, Twentieth Century Pleasures. Hass has also translated many of the works of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz. He is a recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, twice the National Book Critics’ Circle Award (1984 and 1997), and the Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1973 award. Hass is a professor of English at UC Berkeley.

The Tomales Bay Workshops Faculty

Mary Gaitskill is the author of the novels Two Girls, Fat and Thin and Veronica, which was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Critic’s Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. She is also the author of the story collections Bad BehaviorBecause They Wanted To, a PEN/Faulkner Award nominee. Her story “Secretary” was the basis for the feature film of the same name. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. In 2002 Gaitskill received a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction. Her latest story collection released in March 2009.

Fenton Johnson is the author of the novels Crossing the River and Scissors, Paper, Rock as well as the memoir Geography of the Heart. His most recent book, Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey among Christian and Buddhist Monks, received a Kentucky Literary Award and a Lambda Literary Award. Johnson has served as a contributor to Harper's and the New York Times Magazine. He is the recipient of numerous awards, among them a James Michener Fellowship from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships for fiction and nonfiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Johnson is an associate professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Arizona. 

Dana Levin’s In the Surgical Theatre received nearly every award given to first books and emerging poets, including the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize. Levin’s poetry has appeared in many anthologies and magazines, including Poetry, Conduit and The Kenyon Review. She has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN, the Witter Bynner Foundation, the Library of Congress, the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the Whiting Foundation. A 2007 Guggenheim Fellow and poetry teacher for more than 17 years, Levin chairs the Creative Writing and Literature Department at the College of Santa Fe.

Robin Romm is the author of two critically acclaimed books, her collection of stories The Mother Garden and The Mercy Papers, a memoir.  The Mother Garden was a finalist for the PEN and the Northern California Independent Bookseller's Book of the Year awards.  The Mercy Papers received a cover  review by the New York Times Book Review, calling it "a furious blaze of a book."  Romm is assistant professor of creative writing at the College of Santa Fe.

Jess Walter is the author of four novels, including The Zero, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and Citizen Vince, winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award. He has also won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the PEN in both fiction and nonfiction. His books have been New York Times, Washington Post and NPR best books of the year and have been published in 20 countries. He lives in Spokane, Washington, where he must constantly apologize to fellow residents for once calling it the trailer park of the Northwest.

Program Director

Pam Houston is the author of two collections of linked short stories, Cowboys are My Weakness, which was the winner of the 1993 Western States Book Award and has been translated into nine languages, and Waltzing the Cat, which won the Willa Award for Contemporary Fiction. Her stories have been selected for volumes of Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, and her story The Best Girlfriend You Never Had appeared in Best American Short Stories of the Century. Her first novel, Sight Hound, was published in January 2005. She is the Director of Creative Writing at the University of California, Davis, and teaches at many writers conferences and festivals in the U.S. and abroad. When not in Davis, she lives in Colorado at 9,000 feet above sea level near the headwaters of the Rio Grande. For more information on Houston visit www.pamhouston.net.

The Format

Morning workshops offer participants the opportunity to work closely with an established writer, to receive constructive feedback from peers, to spend four intensive days dedicated to creative work and to generate new material.

Afternoons will be devoted to craft talks by conference presenters and panels comprised of visiting editors, agents and members of the larger Davis writing community.

Evenings will be devoted to readings by conference presenters and UC Davis creative writing faculty.

The Setting

The workshops will be held at the Marconi Conference Center in Marshall, California, on the eastern shore of Tomales Bay. The conference center, located on a California State Historic Park, sits on a wooded hillside that overlooks serene water and the mountains beyond. Inviting hiking trails offer a chance to see white fallow deer among the foliage or venture down to the coastline where locals harvest oysters.

Accommodations

The Marconi Conference Center provides comfortable lodging nestled in the pine trees. Double or triple rooms are available. Each smoke-free room has a private bath, study desk and wireless Internet access. Rooms are filled on a first-come, first-served basis. There are a limited number of single rooms available for a supplemental fee of $800. Disability-accessible and equipped rooms are available. Please let us know ahead of time if you require these accommodations. For additional information, visit http://www.marconiconference.org/index.htm.

Participants should bring comfortable walking shoes, as many Marconi Center walkways are not paved and run over small hills. Also, please bring warm clothes, in case the fog rolls in.

Frequently asked questions

Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation Fellowships

Three Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation Fellowships will be awarded to workshop participants (one each for poetry, fiction and nonfiction/personal essay). Fellowships cover the cost of tuition, room and board, but do not cover transportation or the $150 application fee. To apply for a fellowship, you must fill out the conference application form, pay the application fee and include a cover letter and writing sample (10 pages of fiction or nonfiction/personal essay, or five poems). Indicate that you want fellowship consideration on the top left of the cover letter and on the application form. Please apply in one genre only. Deadline for fellowship consideration is April 20, and awards will be announced by mid May.

Professional Consultations

Participants will have the opportunity to confer privately with publishing industry professionals. Acceptance for these sessions will be determined on a first-come, first-served basis and space is limited. There is a $100 fee for each half-hour consultation.  Accepted participants may sign up for one or more publishing consultation(s) when they submit the required fees and enrollment documents; these documents will contain detailed sign-up and submission instructions.

This year’s consultants are Jonathan Bohr Heinen, senior editor of Iron Horse Literary Review; Jay Schaefer, editor at large for Workman Publishing; and Elizabeth Wales of Wales Literary Agency in Seattle. Consultants' bios.

Requirements

Acceptance to the program is based upon review of a writing sample (10 pages of fiction or nonfiction/personal essay, or five poems). Applications are reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis, and you will be notified of acceptance. Please note: Those who have attended the Tomales Bay Writers' Workshops during a prior year do not need to submit a writing sample.

Fees

Enrollment in the Tomales Bay Workshops is $1,550 ($1,400 tuition + $150 application fee) and covers one four-day workshop, admittance to all panels and readings, opening and closing banquets, all meals (dinner on Wednesday; three meals Thursday through Sunday; breakfast on Monday) and lodging for five nights. Vegetarian meals are available upon request.

The application fee of $150 must be submitted with your application and writing sample. If you are not accepted, your application fee will be returned. If you are accepted, you will be notified of your workshop placement and asked to confirm your intention to attend by submitting a minimum deposit of $700. The remaining balance of $700 is due July 15.

Supplemental fees are due July 15. These include:

• The single room supplement ($800)
• A private session with publishing professional ($100)
• The optional UC Davis fee for 3.5 units of academic credit ($180)

Please note: There are a limited number of consultation sessions and single rooms available, and they will be reserved on a first-come, first-served basis. Please submit any optional fees as early as possible after acceptance into the program to guarantee your request. Full participation in the Tomales Bay Workshops and events is expected. No discounts are available for lodging or meals on your own.

If space is still available after August 1, applications must include the full payment of $1,550, which includes the $150 application fee. All fees will be fully refunded if applicant is not accepted.

Cancellation Policy

If you cancel by August 15, 2009, your tuition will be refunded minus a $30 processing fee and the $150 application fee. Once you have enrolled, the $150 application fee is not refundable. Refunds for cancellations made after August 15 are contingent upon filling your place and will be made only if your place is filled. In the unlikely event that we must cancel a workshop and you do not wish to transfer to another workshop, you will receive a full refund.

For more information, email us at tomales.bay.workshops@gmail.com

Getting to the Marconi Center

For driving directions and a map, visit http://www.marconiconference.org/maps.htm.

This course is not currently scheduled.
Please notify me the next time this course is offered.