Wild | Home: Writing What Roots and Frees Us
Each Fall, MTSU Write celebrates its mission by hosting the Creative Writing Conference on the MTSU campus. The Conference brings together students, mentors, alumni, and members of the community for learning, networking, and recognizing program graduates.
We are working on our fall conference schedule and will be sharing details here as
they are confirmed. Registration is now OPEN!
Conference Theme
The 2023 conference theme is Wild | Home: Writing What Roots & Frees Us and will feature classes and presentations that will invite you to write both toward solace and freedom, to explore both the familiar and unfamiliar with attention and wonder. This year's conference will take place Friday, October 6 (virtual) and Saturday, October 7 (on MTSU's campus).
Keynote Speaker
We are excited to share that our Fall 2023 Keynote Speaker will be acclaimed writer Janisse Ray!
Janisse Ray is an award-winning American author. Much of her writing explores the borderland between nature and culture: she believes in the power of stories to bring about transformation—in an individual, a community, or a nation.
Ray has published over a dozen books across genres and has won an American Book Award, Pushcart Prize, Southern Booksellers Award, Southern Environmental Law Center Writing Award, Nautilus Award, and Eisenberg Award, among many others. Her collection of essays, Wild Spectacle, received the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence.
Ray lives on an organic farm inland from Savannah, Georgia. She loves dark chocolate, the blues, and anything in flower.
Conference Schedule
Use the following links to jump to:
- Virtual programming (10/6/23)
- Kick-off Celebration & Reading (in-person, Friday 10/6/23)
- In-person programming (10/7/23)
- Registration
VIRTUAL Programming: Friday, October 6 (Noon-3pm CDT)
Noon-1:00pm (CT): Readings from MTSU Write Mentors and Writing Group Participants
Please join us at noon for readings from some of our writing group participants: Kenton Yee (poetry), Angela Joynes (fiction), Rita Martinez (poetry), Marceline White (poetry), and Laura Ring (poetry)! More details on our readers will be available on our socials soon!
1:00pm-3:00pm (CT): For our afternoon virtual programming, you will be able to choose from among the three following sessions:
Inhale, Exhale: The Self in Speculative Spaces with Ruth Joffre
Even as we shape the world, the world shapes us. How might we be different if we breathed another planet's atmosphere? What if we could transform into mountains and rivers? This class will ask students to envision fantastical and futuristic environments and invent selves deeply rooted in landscape. In-class readings and writing exercises will introduce students to examples of contemporary speculative fiction and give them opportunities to invent new worlds.
Ruth Joffre is the author of the story collection Night Beast. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in more than 50 publications, including Lightspeed, Pleiades, Fantasy, khōréō, The Florida Review Online, Kenyon Review, Reckoning,
Wigleaf, and the anthologies Best Microfiction 2021 & 2022. A graduate of Cornell University
and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Ruth served as the 2020-2022 Prose Writer-in-Residence
at Hugo House and as a Visiting Writer at University of Washington Bothell in 2023.
The Language of the Experience: Unlocking Your Voice In Writing YA with Meg Eden Kuyatt
Some writers feel a pressure that to be “a good writer” they need to use elevated, poetic or flowery language. However, the language of our experiences can be the most powerful tool in our writing. In this workshop, we’ll read examples of writing that uses “the language of the experience,” especially for writing YA and getting back into the voice of our teen selves, as well as take part in a “translation” exercise to explore finding our unique voice.
Meg Eden Kuyatt teaches creative writing at colleges and writing centers. She is the author of the
2021 Towson Prize for Literature winning poetry collection Drowning in the Floating World (Press 53, 2020) and children’s novels, most recently Good Different, a JLG Gold Standard selection (Scholastic, 2023). Find her online at https://linktr.ee/medenauthor.
The Notebook As Time Machine: Writing Your Way There with Sally Rosen Kindred
Memory is a profound resource for writers, and some poems can do what time machines do: transform perspective by letting past and present moments meet and speak to each other. In this generative session, we’ll discuss the craft of literary time travel, the devices and approaches poets have used to re-enter personal or public history. Exercises using their poems as models will help us try out our own temporal leaps, and empower us to write the past into something fresh, vivid, and newly meaningful.
Sally Rosen Kindred's third poetry collection is Where the Wolf (Diode Editions), winner of the 2020 Diode Book Prize and Jacar Press's 2021 Julie
Suk Award. Her most recent chapbook is Says the Forest to the Girl (Porkbelly Press). A recipient of two Individual Artist Awards in Poetry from the
Maryland State Arts Council, her poems have appeared in journals including The Gettysburg Review, The Massachusetts Review, Shenandoah, Poetry Northwest, and Kenyon Review Online.
Friday, October 6: Kick-off Gathering & Reading (doors 6:00pm at the Center for the Arts)
Please join us for a kick-off reading at the Center for the Arts (110 W. College Street, Murfreesboro)! This reading, cosponsored by Poetry in the Boro, will feature poet (and conference presenter) Brenda Cárdenas and Craig Freeman and limited open mic slots. Free and open to the public.
Brenda Cárdenas is the author of Trace (Red Hen Press), Boomerang (Bilingual Press) and three chapbooks. She also co-edited Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance and Between the Heart and
the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest. Her poems and essays have appeared in Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry; Poetry; TAB: Journal of Poetry and Poetics;
Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations; Grabbed: Poets and Writers on Sexual Assault,
Empowerment, and Healing; Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Anthology; and many others. Cárdenas has served as the Milwaukee Poet Laureate and teaches
at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Craig Freeman is a creative storyteller who weaves personal experiences into rhythmic poetry and
bite-sized essays. He immerses himself in market data, uncovering valuable insights
to enhance job seeker marketing strategies throughout the week. But when the weekend
rolls around, he effortlessly transitions into the roles of a devoted boyfriend, a
caring son, and a supportive brother.
IN-PERSON Saturday, October 7, 8:00am-4:00pm, Academic Classroom Building (MTSU)
8:00am-9:00am: Continental Breakfast, Registration, & Welcome from MTSU Write Director Amie Whittemore
Session 1 Options: 9:00am-10:30am
Crushing Writing Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, and Creative Blocks with Jen Chesak (ACB 110)
Maybe you're battling writer's block or stress and anxiety related to your writing and putting it out into the world. This workshop will teach you the brain science of creativity and the strategies and exercises for harnessing your creative skills, while minimizing stress and anxiety associated with deadlines, imposter syndrome, and getting stuck.
Jennifer Chesak is the author of The Psilocybin Handbook for Women. She an award-winning freelance science and medical journalist, editor, and fact-checker,
with her work appearing in several national publications, including the Washington
Post. Chesak earned her master of science in journalism from Northwestern University’s
Medill. She currently teaches in the journalism and publishing programs at Belmont
University, leads various workshops at the literary nonprofit The Porch, and serves
as the managing editor for MTSU’s literary magazine SHIFT. Find her work at jenniferchesak.com
and follow her on socials @jenchesak.
Following Golden Strands: Writing from the Mysterium with Janisse Ray (ACB Room 111)
At work in every piece of good writing is something beyond craft and mechanics. It can't be codified. It can't be seen. It can't be proven. But it's there, moving about. The thing is spirit. We see magic at work in good writing and we want to know where it comes from. How do we engage the unconscious? Do psychedelics work? Can the ancestors assist us? Does wildness help? In this talk we will examine deep sources of power, routes to tap that power, and ways to transfer it to the page--strategies to rewild our stories and ourselves.
Janisse Ray is an award-winning American author. Much of her writing explores the borderland
between nature and culture: she believes in the power of stories to bring about transformation—in
an individual, a community, or a nation. Ray has published over a dozen books across
genres and has won an American Book Award, Pushcart Prize, Southern Booksellers Award,
Southern Environmental Law Center Writing Award, Nautilus Award, and Eisenberg Award,
among many others. Her collection of essays, Wild Spectacle, received the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence. Ray lives on an organic
farm inland from Savannah, Georgia. She loves dark chocolate, the blues, and anything
in flower.
“That Poem Is Dope, Muy Chido, Cracking, Merveilleux, Y’All”: Home Languages that Root and Free Us with Brenda Cárdenas (ACB 112)
In this workshop, we will practice mixing our “home” languages with standard English in poems. A “home” language might be a mother tongue other than English, a regional dialect of English, a particular register of English (perhaps generational), and/or special family/community expressions that we feel root us and express where we come from. Together we will read and discuss a few published poems that employ language in this way. Then we will create a community word bank and write using words we’ve contributed and, if we wish, words that others have contributed as well.
Brenda Cárdenas is the author of Trace (Red Hen Press), Boomerang (Bilingual Press) and three chapbooks. She also co-edited Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance and Between the Heart and
the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest. Her poems and essays have appeared in Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry; Poetry; TAB: Journal of Poetry and Poetics;
Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations; Grabbed: Poets and Writers on Sexual Assault,
Empowerment, and Healing; Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Anthology; and many others. Cárdenas has served as the Milwaukee Poet Laureate and teaches
at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Session 2: 10:45am-12:15pm
Poetry and Place with Denton Loving (ACB Room 110)
Our emotions and histories are intimately connected to the places where we live and work. In this workshop, we’ll examine poems that are primarily driven by a relationship to place. We’ll also generate our own place poems, using the physical locations that mean the most to us as symbols of our emotions and to reveal our true characters.
Denton Loving is the author of the poetry collections Crimes Against Birds (Main Street Rag) and Tamp (Mercer University Press). He is a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its
literary journal Cutleaf. His writing has appeared in numerous publications including Iron Horse Literary Review, Kenyon Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Harvard Divinity Bulletin,
The Threepenny Review, and Ecotone.
Alan's Psychedelic Setting: Using Music to Write Setting and Develop Character with RS Deeren (ACB ROOM 111)
This generative writing workshop will pair music with guided writing prompts to help writers craft new settings. Writers will also be guided through a lesson on how setting informs character development. Attendees can expect to have a fully fleshed-out setting and new characters by the end of the workshop.
RS Deeren is the author of the short story collection Enough to Lose. His work appears in The Great Lakes Review, Joyland, Midwestern Gothic, and more. He earned an MFA from Columbia College Chicago and a PhD from the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is an assistant professor of creative writing at Austin
Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.
Workshop with Marc Fitten (ACB 112)
Description coming soon!
Marc Fitten is the author of two novels: Valeria’s Last Stand and Elza’s Kitchen. He has been published in half a dozen languages. He’s written for The New York Times and his books and selections have been published by Bloomsbury, DTV, Flammarion, Neri Pozza and Beacon Press. He is currently working on a third novel and a travelogue. He is a restless fellow who likes to travel, but you can keep up with him on Instagram.
12:15-2:30pm: Lunch & Keynote Address from Janisse Ray
We will have lunch in ACB 106, followed by readings from MTSU Write mentees who have earned their certificates and a keynote address from Janisse Ray. There will be time to buy books (and get them signed) after the keynote!
Session 3: 2:30pm-4:00pm
If Home Is Where the Heart Is Then We’re All Just [ ] with Tyler Friend (ACB Room 110)
In this generative workshop, we’ll look at poems that grapple with the complicated experience of loving a home that doesn’t always love you back, whether that’s because of disinterested parents, an abusive partner, or a state that doesn’t accept your identity. We’ll use poems from contemporary poets like Hanif Abdurraqib, Fanny Howe, Mary Ruefle, and Ocean Vuong as jumping off points for our own writing. We'll think about the definition of home broadly as anywhere we spend our time and energy, whether that's a ballpark or a basement bar, and we'll focus on the physicality of these spaces—the things we can feel, taste, touch, see, and hear.
Tyler Friend was grown—and is still growing—in Tennessee, much to everyone’s chagrin. Tyler is
the author of Him or Her or Whatever (Alternating Current Press, 2022) and the chapbook The Bunker, which is available in Third Man’s “Literarium” book vending machine. They co-edit
and design for Eulalia Books, teach, work at a library, and befriend all the cats.
The Forest and The Path: Navigating the Worlds of Our Stories with Emily Choate (ACB Room 111)
The worlds that surround our stories are the richest forests we can imagine. We breathe deeper when we visit them, and as we search for the best paths through them, we listen closer and adjust our vision. In this craft workshop, we’ll discuss numerous methods for exploring the rich ecosystems of our story-worlds and for identifying the paths running through them. We’ll try out a few of these methods ourselves.
Emily Choate is the Fiction Editor of Peauxdunque Review. Her fiction appears in Mississippi Review, storySouth, Shenandoah, The Florida Review, Rappahannock Review,
Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. She writes reviews, features, and interviews for Chapter 16, and other
nonfiction appears in Atticus Review, Longridge Review, and Nashville Scene, among
others. Emily holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a Tennessee Williams
Scholar at Sewanee Writers Conference. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart
Prize and Best of the Net. She lives near Nashville.
What You Learn When You Leave Home with Yurina Yoshikawa (ACB Room 112)
Many writers have wrestled with the idea of home, and all the questions that come with it. Is home synonymous with family? What happens when you've been away from home for a long time, and come back to find it unrecognizable? How, and when, does a person decide whether or not to call a new place their home? Should a place automatically make a person feel "at home," or should people strive to change a place to make them feel that way? We'll look at examples from both fiction and nonfiction, and try various in-class writing exercises to wrestle with these questions ourselves.
Yurina Yoshikawa is the Director of Education at The Porch Writers’ Collective, a nonprofit literary
organization. She holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University, and her writing has appeared
in The Atlantic, NPR, Lit Hub, The Japan Times, and elsewhere. She was the winner of the 2020 Tennessee True Stories Contest and
a 2021 recipient of the Tennessee Arts Commission. She has lived in Tokyo, Palo Alto,
and New York before settling down in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives with her
husband and two sons. For more information, visit www.yurinayoshikawa.com.
Registration:
Conference Registration is OPEN and early bird pricing will be available until August
31, 2023. Registration is FREE for MTSU Write mentees and mentors. Limited free registration
will be offered to MTSU students through 9/11/23.
Registration Prices and links to register for community members and MTSU students:
- Virtual Programming (10/6/23): $75 for community members | $15 for MTSU Students
- In-Person Programming (10/7/23): $125 for community members | $25 for MTSU Students
- or register for BOTH for $150 for community members | $30 for MTSU Students
Questions? Email mtsuwrite@mtsu.edu.
