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ROBERT WOLF: PORTRAIT WRITING WORKSHOP JUNE 17-19, 2011  For the past dozen years Free River Press executive director Robert Wolf has been roaming the American landscape, organizing writing workshops in cities and rural hamlets, in farmhouse dining rooms, church basements, schools, libraries, and colleges. Begun in 1989 with a workshop for the homeless in Nashville, Tennessee, Free River Press has since worked with people from all walks of life. Its goal is to amass a body of writing that someday will resemble a collective autobiography of America. Designed by Robert Wolf, the writing workshop is geared for people of all ages, and while the practiced writer will find it useful, the workshop was designed with the amateur in mind. The workshop can accommodate up to twenty participants, and experience in numerous communities has shown that fifteen to twenty writers can generate enough stories in three days to form a small book. The fee for this three-day workshop is $75. (Needs-based partial scholarships are available... contact Paula Neuhaus at 563-652-9925.) Each workshop begins with the group reading aloud several published stories and discussing what made them effective. Afterwards everyone tells a story about his life or community. Participants are urged to ask questions about each story to help the writer know what needs fleshing out. When everyone's story is discussed, writing begins. To preserve each person's voice, participants are asked to write their stories as closely as possible to the way they told them, and not to worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar. The important thing is to write the first draft as quickly as possible. Syntax and spelling are dealt with later. When first drafts are completed, each story is read aloud. Everyone says what they would like to know more about, including things the writer may have told but omitted from the writing. The process presupposes that we share an intuitive wisdom about storytelling. People within the group find themselves bonding, and people who thought they could not write find themselves writing with facility. WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: The aim of a Portrait Writing Workshop is for each participant to complete at least one portrait of a person or place at the end of three days. The basis for the work is in storytelling, with the storyteller’s emphasis on imagery (visualization) and dialogue. For those participants who want to expand beyond their comfort zone, Wolf encourages experimentation. This may include the use of fragments or employing techniques used by contemporary poets. To capture examples of style and portrait writing techniques the class will explore the readings of Gertrude Stein’s two portraits of Picasso, selections from Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, and the poems of Carl Sandburg and Edgar Lee Masters. Free River Press now produces a weekly half-hour radio program of workshop writings, American Mosaic, that airs in seven states. Stories from the workshop will be considered for the program. Following is a review for Wolf's book Heartland Portrait:
“Robert Wolf has not only
gathered a chorus of unique and powerful voices in these pages, he has
enabled them to sing in a plainspoken poetry that breaks your heart one
minute and makes it soar the next. This book is filled with stories
about people and places most of us barely know and about ways of life
that seem to be vanishing before our eyes. But they come at us with
such forceful pride that we do get to know them and we share their
lives. This is a book of tremendous energy and passion. In these pages,
you can hear America sing.”
—Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune/WGN Radio.Click here to download an registration form for the workshop.  BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION: Robert Wolf, Free River Press director, is the author and editor of numerous books, including An American Mosaic: Prose and Poetry by Everyday Folk and Jump Start: How to Write from Everyday Life, both published by Oxford University Press, and The Triumph of Technique: The Industrialization of Agriculture and the Destruction of Rural America. A co-founder of Free River Press, Wolf devised the Free River Press writing workshop method during six years of teaching college composition. A former Chicago Tribune columnist, Wolf won the 1994 Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for the year's best radio editorial. In addition to leading writing workshops, Wolf directs seminars and regional economic development projects for Free River Press.  |
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