When I returned to eastern Iowa, I looked forward to reconnecting with the Midwest Writing Center, based in Rock Island, Ill. I had enjoyed participating in several events sponsored by the center, especially writing groups, writing events, and their annual David R. Collins Writers’ Conference.
In addition, I learned a lot from those opportunities to network and meet with other writers and professionals. Many of the things I learned about writing from those experiences were put to use, especially when I wrote my first book, The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt.
When I unexpectedly won a drawing for a scholarship to attend this year’s conference running from June 27-29, I was eager to get a chance to return. (I was actually planning on paying my own way to the event before I had the chance for the scholarship.) By the time it was over, I felt like I’d revived myself as a writer once again and gotten some practical knowledge to apply to my work.
The Event
I have to say this is always a well-organized event thanks to the MWC and its staff and volunteers, especially Ryan Collins, Sarah Elgatian, and many others. The keynote reception, open mic night at Rozz-Tox in Rock Island (one of the cooler hangouts in the Quad Cities) and the ending luncheon all worked out great.
Augustana College in Rock Island has been the longtime host of the event, and all of the facilities worked out just fine. There were a whole mess of sponsors for the conference, and it helped to bring in some high quality instructors for our classes.
On another note, the Midwest Writing Center also does a considerable amount of work promoting and developing young writers in the area. I remember during some of my last days with my writing group in Des Moines when we were wondering if there were any young people still interested in writing. I was ecstatic to enter the classes I attended and see at least half the people there were well under thirty. For that reason alone, I’m glad to be a member of the MWC and support its mission.
What I Gained From It
I had the opportunity to attend two classes at the conference – one on poetry and one on fiction revision. Both of them fit my current writing interests.
Sara Lupita Olivares was our poetry instructor. She was knowledgable about the history and structure of poetry, and was quite encouraging about our efforts. I had the chance to hear her read during the open mic night and I came away as a fan of her work as well1.
As someone who had not had much interest in poetry, much less instruction, until very recently, I was glad for any opportunity to broaden my knowledge of the art. I’m hoping I can find some more chances for poetry classes in the future, especially those aimed at creativity and crafting in poetry, as well as practical tips regarding how to look for publishing outlets for this work.
Rebecca McKanna was our instructor2 for the fiction revision workshop3. Several of the tips and concepts she discussed with us I was quite familiar with: in fact, quite a few of these I’ve often discussed with my students whenever I’ve ever taught writing.
However, we also discussed how to look for and develop story structure in our rewrites, how to pace the scenes and how they should relate to each other. These wind up being a very effective way to ensure you have a story that not only draws in readers, but keeps them wanting to move forward.
I plan to review in more detail some of these concepts we talked about at the conference in a later post, whether as part of the main newsletter or as a stand-alone post. However, I will say all this information became immediately useful to me regarding my current main works in progress, including The Yank Striker 2 (working title) and especially my pro wrestling fiction project (currently known here as Untitled Pro Wrestling Drama Project). It caused me to rethink how I’d structured the entire story, how it was paced, and what the motivation of the main character was going forward.
Writing insights and techniques I can use to immediately add to the quality of my work are always the best kind.
The too long, didn’t read version of this piece is the David R. Collins Writers’ Conference has been a great experience both past and present. I’m definitely looking forward to next year’s conference, and I would encourage anyone from the eastern Iowa/western Illinois area that’s interested in writing to check out the MWC’s web site.
Take care, everyone.
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- She is the author of the poetry collections Migratory Sound and Field Things. ↩︎
- Both Olivares and McKanna are also English professors for the University of Illinois Springfield and the University of Indianapolis, respectively. ↩︎
- Her debut book Don’t Forget the Girl, which I got a preview read of during the open mic night, is an intriguing slice of crime fiction concerning best friends driven apart by the death of a high school friend and reunited by renewed interest in the friend’s apparent murderer, a serial killer scheduled for execution. ↩︎
