Five summer residencies focused on different writing genres are on the schedule for later this year, according to the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild (CVWG).
The local organization, which aims to support writers and literary enthusiasts in their own back yard, will team up with Cirenaica to host the workshops in June and July. Cirenaica is an artists’s residency facility located on 43 acres of hills, farmland and forest near Fall Creek.
Each three-day session will be led by a writer-in-residence, who will oversee workshops and hold individual conferences with participants. Writers accepted for the residencies may stay overnight at Cirenaica or commute to it for each day’s programming.
This summer’s writers-in-residence will be Nickolas Butler, Max Garland, Allyson Loomis, June Melby and Marsha Qualey. They will serve as resources for the participants and will provide them with personalized feedback.
B. J. Hollars, CVWG director, said in a press release that the residencies are designed to balance creation with instruction, in order to provide both flexibility and structure. This will ensure that all writers can benefit, no matter what their background or experience, he added.
Mornings will be spent writing in one of the many pristine, shared work spaces, and afternoons will be dedicated to workshops, lectures and individual conferences with the writer-in-residence, according to Hollars. In the evenings, writers will network and share fellowship around a campfire.
Participants will also meet with regional writers and prepare for their residency’s public reading, which will be held on the final night of each session.
In 2016, the program’s first year, the residencies filled fast, Hollars said. They brought together 58 writers from throughout the country and 18 of them have published works written during their three days at Cirenaica.
“It’s easy for the world to get in the way of our art,” Hollars said. “Cirenaica’s a chance for us to get away from the static, the noise, and commit ourselves fully to writing.”
He added that all of the participants sought not only to improve their craft, but also to help advance others’ creative work.
This year’s residencies include:
·June 8-11: Nonfiction/memoir residency with Loomis, a UW-Eau Claire faculty member and a noted writer.
·June 22-25: Fiction Residency with Butler, an award winning fiction writer.
·July 6-9: Memoir Residency with Melby, a New York Times bestselling author.
·July 13-16: Poetry Residency with Garland, the Wisconsin Poet Laureate in 2013-2014.
·July 21-24: Young Adult Fiction Residency with Qualey, an author and Hamline University professor.
The CVWG, founded in 2016, is a joint program of the Eau Claire Regional Arts Council and the UW-Eau Claire Foundation. For more information on the 2017 residencies, visit the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild website, or send an email to chippewavalleywritersguild@gmail.com