Friday, Sept. 25

10 – 10:30 am: Welcome & Faculty Introductions

10:45 – 11:45: Writers Drawing for Discovery | Philip Hartigan

Break

1:00 – 3:30 pm: Workshop Groups

Writing Time

5:30 – 7 pm: Manuscript Consultations [McNair, Rice, Shiflett]

Saturday, Sept. 26

9 am: Manuscript Consultations [McNair, Rice, Shiflett, Hammond, May]

10:00 am – 12:00 pm: Workshop Groups

noon – 1 pm: Participant Open Mic

1:15 – 4:15 pm: Workshop Groups

4:30 – 5:30 pm: Writing About Race | Eric May

6:30 pm: Faculty and Local Author Reading | open to the public

Sunday, Sept. 27

9:30 am: Manuscript Consultation [May]

10 – 11:00 am: Your Inner Child, an exercise in narrative distance | Sarah Hammond

11:15 – 12:15: Alternatives in Publishing Panel Discussion | Patricia McNair, Justin O’Brien, Judith Sutcliffe, Ross K. Tangedal, Christi Craig

12:30 – 1:30 pm:  Participant Open Mic

1:45 – 3:45 pm: Workshop Groups conclude

4 – 4:30 pm: Closing Remarks & Toast

5:30 pm: James Baldwin in Paris | Philip Hartigan | open to the public

Friday, Sept. 25 | 10:45-11:45 am

Philip Hartigan will lead a drawing activity to prime the creative pump for an exciting weekend of writing.

Writing Retreat participants may sign up for a 25-minute one-on-one manuscript consultation with any one of these faculty members:

• Sarah Hammond
• Eric May
• Patricia McNair
• Christine Rice
• Shawn Shiflett

Fifteen manuscript consultation appointments are available. You may submit one piece no longer than 12 pages. Cost is $40 (see below).

Saturday, Sept. 26 | noon-1 pm

Sunday, Sept. 27 | 12:30-1:30 pm

Registered workshop participants are invited to read from their own work. Please limit your selections to under 10 minutes. [DETAILS FOR SIGN UP FORTHCOMING]

Saturday, Sept. 26 | 4:30-5:30 pm

Eric May, Chicago Public Library 21^st Century Author, whose book Bedrock Faith was named a Notable African-American Title by Publishers Weekly, shortlisted for the 2014 Great Lakes Great Reads Prize and declared a top read by: Roxane Gay; Booklist; O, The Oprah Magazine; Chicago Reader; and Chicago Tribune/Printers Row, will give a talk on writing about race.

Saturday, Sept. 26 | 6:30 pm

Writing Retreat faculty and local authors will read from and discuss their work. Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry will be presented by published authors and academic staff from Columbia College, Chicago.

Readers Include Patricia Ann McNair, Christine Maul Rice, Shawn Shiflett, Sarah Hammond, Eric Charles May, Justin O’Brien, Judy Sutcliffe, and Jacquelyn Thomas

FREE & Open to the Public

Sunday, Sept. 27 | 10 am

Sarah Hammond is an international author for young people and has published for both teens and younger readers. For almost a decade she worked as a lawyer in London, UK. Her first teen book The Night Sky in my Head was published by OUP and was shortlisted for the Calderdale Children’s Book of the Year Award, the Leeds Book Award (14-16 category), the James Reckitt Hull Children’s Book Award and the Angus Book Award. Her first picture book, Mine!, was published by Parragon. Sarah runs workshops and competitions, mentors students, and presents at conferences and universities.

Author Website

Sunday, Sept. 27 | 11:15 am

Patricia McNair Booklist calls Patricia Ann McNair “an irresistible personal essayist of refreshing candor, vibrant openheartedness, rueful humor, and unassuming wisdom.” Author of And These Are the Good Times (essays), and The Temple of Air (stories), McNair received the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award, Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award, the Society of Midland Authors Finalist Award, and was named a finalist for the Montaigne Medal for most thought-provoking book of 2017. Her work is published in American Fiction: Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, Superstition Review, Prime Number, River Teeth, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Barrelhouse, and in textbooks
on writing. McNair’s second short story collection, Responsible Adults, is scheduled for release in December 2020. She has received numerous Illinois Arts Council Awards and teaches in the English and Creative Writing Department Graduate and Undergraduate Programs at Columbia College Chicago where she received the Excellence in Teaching Award and was nominated for the Carnegie Foundation’s U.S. Professor of the Year Award. Author Website

Justin O’Brien is a writer and typographer, retired from advertising and now working on his own projects. His writing has appeared in Living Blues, The Voice of the River Valley, Juke Blues, Sing Out!, Irish Music, Chicago Parent, and Elysian Fields. In 2018 he produced his first book, Chicago Yippie! ’68, on his experiences as a teenaged anti-war protester.

Judith Sutcliffe is a multi-faceted artist who enjoys creating and teaching in a variety of media, including concrete/mosaic art, doll-making, primitive weaving, book arts and printmaking, forged jewelry, tile, woodcarving, nonfiction and poetry. A native of Iowa, Judy spent 17 years as a tile muralist in Santa Barbara, CA, before returning to the Midwest in 1996. Her tile paintings grace many Santa Barbara public buildings and private homes. In addition to tile work, Judy, as The Electric Typographer, has designed over 30 typefaces, including calligraphic and image fonts. Judy is co-owner of the Longbranch Gallery, in Mineral Point. Additionally, Judy has long been active in writing groups in Galena, Illinois and is the author of A Collection of Old Men, Blue Eyed Grass, California Poppy, Wild Rose, The Little Mermaid and the Story of Kimballton in Iowa’s ‘Danishland’ and co-author of An Old House in Galena, with Sandy Scott, as well as Grandma’s Cherry Spoon: a Story of Tuberculosis, with Marjorie McVicker Sutcliffe.

Ross K. Tangedal is Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Cornerstone Press at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. He specializes in American print and publishing culture, textual editing, bibliography, and book history, with emphasis in Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the American Midwest. He has been widely published in a number of journals and edited collections, and his first book, The Preface: American Authorship in the Twentieth Century, will be released in 2021 by Palgrave Macmillan. Since taking over the Cornerstone Press in 2016, Tangedal has transformed the program from a single book/single class model to a year-round publishing operation, with multiple courses and internships available to students across campus. It is the only press of its kind in the state of Wisconsin, and one of only four undergraduate student-staffed presses in the United States. The press publishes four to five titles per year, with series dedicated to short fiction, poetry, regional fiction/nonfiction, and regional history. Author Website

Christi Craig lives in Wisconsin, working as a writer, teacher, and editor. Her own stories and essays have appeared in Hippocampus Magazine, Stonecoast Review, The Drum Literary Magazine, and more. She is also the Publisher at Hidden Timber Books, publishing simple but powerful stories rooted in place that offer social, historical, and cultural context, as well as philosophical insight. Through teaching, publishing, and literary citizenship, she works to build a strong community of writers and a genuine connection with readers. Author Website

Sunday, Sept. 27 | 5:30 pm

In celebration of this year’s NEA Big Read of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric, the Writing Retreat is pleased to offer this special event:

Philip Hartigan, Columbia College Chicago adjunct professor for its Creative Writing in Paris course, will give a multi-media talk about James Baldwin in Paris on Sunday evening.