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Katey Schultz, whom I met at the Interlochen Writers' Retreat in June, is currently teaching creative writing there to teenagers at the summer camp. She wrote on her blog 'The Writing Life' the other day about trying out the blind contour drawing/writing without rereading activity that Patty and I use in our Journal And Sketchbook class. It worked just as well for these young writers as it did for our older class. Here is one of the pages from her students' work that Katey posted on her blog: In this case, the student wrote on top of the blind contour drawing. Katey provides a good description of the entire process in her blog post:  The Writing Life: Where Lines Meet Words Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Yesterday was the last day of the Writer's Retreat at Interlochen. In the Journal & Sketchbook class, we did final read backs, discussion of which pieces to read at the afternoon students' reading, and then one last activity -- the three-stage drawing, shown in process above. It was also Lynn's birthday today, so Patty and I brought in cup cakes, one with a birthday candle on top. The cup cakes were also adorned with big, coloured plastic rings, which all the girls (including Patty) wore for a final group photo: I will post more pictures and even video from this class. Until next time, here is one of the three-stage drawings created by Jo-Anne: It was another great week, and the work was at least as good as if not better than what came out of the class here last year. Better not just to my eye, but to the participants, each of whom got a lot out of this intensive four days of thinking about their writing in a slightly different way.   Subscribe to Praeterita ...

On day three, we went into the blind contour drawing, using giant wax crayons on big sheets of newsprint. After doing that, we lead the participants straight into 'blind writing', where they move a sheet of paper down as they write in their journals to cover up what they've written as soon as they move to a new line, the idea being that they don't stop to look back at what they've written, but keep moving forward in the moment. The discussion about the process, together with a short read-back from their writing afterwards, made it clear that everyone got a huge amount out of today's class, and were seeing the parallels between the blind contour drawing and their writing. Even on an abbreviated schedule like this, we can see and hear break-throughs beginning to happen in the writing. It would be nice to excerpt from the journal writing, but in lieu of that, here is a blind contour drawing from each person: Joan Lynn Lindsey Viki Linda Jo-Anne   Subscri...

On the second day, we did the cluster drawing/written list activity. Participants make word lists, and then they draw separate or matched drawings of objects that they either see or just want to group together. The idea is that these can be mined for story. (A classic 'list' story would be Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried'.) Here are some of the pages from the journal/sketchbooks, showing lists, cluster drawings, and some combined writing/drawing:   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Here are a couple of pictures of me reading at the Interlochen Writer's Retreat on Monday evening. I projected a slideshow of images from the Lucerne Project , and I read about five pages from the imaginary Lucerne travel diary that I've been writing and posting to that blog. It was the first time that I've really read anything like fiction, which is what those small pieces are, in the setting of a reading before a live audience -- and of real writers, no less. The pieces, and the images from the 100-page accordion book, were quite well received. I was preceded by Anne-Marie Oomen, who read from her published volume of memoir: And I was followed by Patricia Ann McNair (my wife), who read from her forthcoming collection of short stories (available in September from Elephant Rock Books ). As usual, Patty brought the house down:   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

On day 1 of the Journal & Sketchbook class here at the Interlochen Writer's Retreat, we had people out and drawing within 20 minutes of the first class starting: There are lots of flowers around here, by the way: We have 6 participants for this class, which is a nice number. At least 3 have either passed through Columbia College, teach at Columbia College, or both. But the three other participants brought their own experience, professional and personal, to the class, too. Everyone jumped right in when we did the quick drawing activity. Here's a selection of some drawings: Click on any image to embiggen it. Once again, the range of gestural mark-making that comes out of people who say they cannot draw is pretty amazing. We turned immediately from the drawing to the writing, and it was also striking during a short read-back afterwards to hear how the writing was filled with a heightened visual sense.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader