Inlandia’s Fall Creative Writing Workshops Set to Begin by Cati Porter

The Inlandia Institute’s Fall Creative Writing Workshops are set to begin. Led by professional writers and writing instructors, each workshop is designed to meet the needs of writers working in all genres at all levels. Currently there are six different workshop locations:

Ontario, led by Charlotte Davidson [*Closed: Full]; Riverside, led by Jo Scott-Coe; Corona, led by Matthew Nadelson; Idyllwild, co-led by Myra Dutton and Jean Waggoner; Palm Springs, led by Alaina Bixon; and San Bernardino, led by Andrea Fingerson.

Each workshop series is approximately 10 weeks long, meeting every other week unless specified. Workshops are free and open to the public but registration is required.

Please RSVP to cati.porter@inlandiainstitute.org. Registration forms will be emailed prior to and/or distributed during the first session.

And, while these workshops are free and open to the public, in order to keep them that way, we do ask that you consider an optional but suggested donation of $25 for the entire series. Information about why this is necessary is included in the registration packet.

Dates and times vary by location:

Ontario [*Closed: Full]

Led by Charlotte Davidson

6 pm – 8 pm

September 10 & 24, October 8, 22, and November 5

Ovitt Family Community Library

215 E C St

Ontario, CA 91764

Idyllwild

Led jointly by Myra Dutton & Jean Waggoner

2 pm – 4 pm

First Friday of every month

Idyllwild Public Library

54401 Village Ctr Dr

Idyllwild, CA 92549

Corona

Led by Matt Nadelson

7 pm – 8:30 pm

September 9, 23, October, 7, 21, and November 18

Corona Public Library

650 S Main St

Corona, CA 92882

Riverside

Led by Jo Scott-Coe

6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

September 25, October 9, 23, November 6, and 20

Riverside Public Library

3581 Mission Inn Ave

Riverside, CA 92501

Palm Springs

Led by Alaina Bixon

2 pm – 4 pm

October 8, 22, November 5, 19, and December 3

Smoke Tree Racquet Club

1655 E Palm Canyon Dr

Palm Springs, CA 92264

Free parking, accessible from E Palm Canyon or the Citibank lot on the corner of Sunrise/Hwy 111.

San Bernardino

Led by Andrea Jill Fingerson

3:30 pm – 5:30 pm

September 23, October 7, 21, November 4, and 18

Feldheym Library

555 W 6th St

San Bernardino, CA 92410

Alaina Bixon leads writing workshops, including Inlandia’s creative writing workshops in Palm Springs, edits books, and reads for the online journal The Whistling Fire. She is working on an article about women at MIT.

Jo Scott-Coe is the author of Teacher at Point Blank. Her essays can be found in Salon, Memoir, TNB, River Teeth, Hotel Amerika, Fourth Genre, and the Los Angeles Times. Jo is currently an associate professor of English at Riverside City College and the faculty editor of MUSE.

Charlotte Davidson received a Masters in English from Syracuse University followed by an MFA in poetry from UC Irvine. Her first book, Fresh Zebra, appeared in 2012. Charlotte leads Inlandia’s creative writing workshops in Ontario.

Myra Dutton is the author of Healing Ground: A Visionary Union of Earth and Spirit, which was a 2004 Narcissus Book Award finalist and a 2006 selection for “Ten Books We Love” by Inland Empire Magazine.

Andrea Fingerson has taught preschool, reading, and high school English. Currently, she teaches Child Development classes to teen parents. She received her MFA in Fiction from CSUSB. During that time she was a Fiction Editor for Ghost Town and the high school Outreach Coordinator for The Pacific Review. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and is currently in the process of editing a young adult novel.

Matthew Nadelson teaches writing at Norco College and leads a creative writing workshop at the Corona Public Library (every other Tuesday from 6 pm to 8 pm) through the Inlandia Institute. He has lived and worked in Riverside County since 1997 (with the exception of a brief stint in San Diego at SDSU, where he earned his MFA in creative writing, from 2002 to 2005). His writing has been featured in more than 20 journals and anthologies, and he was recently featured on the Moon Tide Press website as their “Poet of the Month” for December 2013. His first poetry collection, American Spirit, was published in August 2011 by Finishing Line Press.

Jean Waggoner, a published fine arts reviewer, poet, essayist and story writer, has taught college English and English as a Second Language in Riverside County for the past thirteen years and co-leads the Idyllwild poetry and creative writing workshops for Inlandia Institute. Jean is an advocate for part time faculty equity and co-author of a book on the part-time professor experience, The Freeway Flier & the Life of the Mind.

* Charlotte Davidson’s workshop is now CLOSED due to maximum enrollment; please check back in winter to see if openings are available or join one of our other upcoming workshops that still have seats. San Bernardino and Corona both have openings.

Sonambulant Funambulist: Countenance by Maureen Alsop

Lisa Kiernan cordially invited my response to the following questions:

What are you working on?
I’m presently anticipating the release of my third full poetry collection, Later, Knives & Trees (Negative Capability Press). I’ve also been engaged in a response to poems through image.
Over the summer I started two projects: 30×30, in which I’ve been creating 30 second videos overlaying audio excerpts from Later, Knives & Trees. Also a bodily, organic response to collage: 27/24 which may extend itself. The premise of carrying a collage upon the body for 24 hours. What have you learned from the message, the unattached self before the self. Strange illusion. Mostly. Seeking the ‘cosmic countenance’ inside the countenance, asking or responding to the secreted self, “what do you want to do next?”

How does your work differ from others of its genre?

I’m not sure it does. Maybe it shouldn’t. It just is. I’m human, like a snowflake.

Why do you write what you do?

See Tab: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics: space before text.

From a lecture I gave on Peristaltic Googlism and the Metaphysics of Ephemera and a quote worth repeating:

“Once you’ve heard a Maytag wafuuoom-per, wafuuoom-per throwing its never erring voice across the back yard, you’ll understand a knack for making songs. You’ll understand what Hank Williams’ rhythm section was doing at the laundry mat in Texarkana all night, June 1948; the night Hank knocked up Windy Beauchamp after she auditioned as a dobro player. Birds speak dialects, as people do. Dolphins use sound as a weapon. Crickets won’t answer recordings of their own voices. Even a small fish like an anchovy can hemorrhage, hearing nothing, a silence finally loosing substance.” — Walter Lab

Whether it’s the Maytag’s wafuuoom-per or a hemorrhaging silence, disparate elements endlessly congeal to form the delicate architecture of a poem. Why ask why? Ask, why not.

How does your writing process work?
I’m not much of a cook. I seem to think there is only one heat level: HIGH. I write like I cook. Sporadically, intensely, quickly. I try to enjoy it. Always wish I did it more. I’m probably best around a fire pit. I’m comfortable with both the raw and refined.

For additional responses from incredible thinkers I’ve asked Sarah Maclay, Nikia Chaney, Elena Karina Byrne, Sparky Campanella, Nic Sebastian, Lauren K. Alleyne, Cati Porter, Christina Cook, Marcia LeBeau, Farrah Field, Jared White, Bethany Ides, Linnea Ogden, Cynthia Arrieu-King, Cindy Rinne, Prageeta Sharma, Anna Leahy and others.

Ontario Creative Writing Workshop at the Ovitt Family Community Library

Clockwise left to right, starting with back row: Mike, Samantha, Kate, Marsha, Larry, Elizabyth, Kathryn, Shelby, Janis, Cati (workshop leader), Kelly, and Lauren.

Inlandia Creative Writers Workshops Feature – Ontario Nominated by workshop leader Cati Porter

Usually this space is reserved for a single author, a featured workshop participant nominated by their respective Inlandia workshop leader. However, this issue I am taking the liberty to nominate my whole group. I am very proud of each and every one of them.

This was the beginning of our very first season of workshops at the Ovitt Family Community Library in Ontario. For our first meeting, the room was a packed twenty-four. Over the next ten weeks the number of participants fluctuated but never dipped below twelve as we discussed craft topics designed to help strengthen the works-in-progress and applied strategies for getting around “writer’s block”. By the end of the Fall session, it was time for Inlandia’s annual Creative Writing Workshops Showcase, where each workshop participant from the preceding year has the opportunity to present their work in front of a live audience. It is also the event at which we launch the annual Writing for Inlandia anthology. But because our group was so new we were not eligible for inclusion in the anthology, or as readers for the showcase. While several members did choose to attend, in anticipation of being included next year, we decided that it would be fun to hold our own celebratory end-of-the-session reading. The photo at the top of this post is from that event.

Our new Winter session has now begun with several returning participants. Due to some administrative changes we are now meeting in the library’s very own Page One cafe, rather than in the meeting room; one “perk” to this is that workshop participants have access to a wide variety of coffee beverages and a dessert tray provided by the generosity of the Ovitt Library.

As Inlandia’s newest creative writing workshop leader, it has given me great joy to be able to share my love of literature with an energetic and talented group of like-minded individuals. While not everything went as planned (when does it ever?!) my Ontario workshop has gotten off to a great start and I look forward to continuing for years to come.