David R. Collins Writers' Conference, June 22 through 24

Thursday, June 22, through Saturday, June 24

Augustana College's F.W. Olin Center for Educational Technology, 733 35th Street, Rock Island IL

Authors of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and more will share their talents and help strengthen the talents of others during the Midwest Writing Center's 2023 David R. Collins Writers Conference at Augustana College's F.W. Olin Center for Educational Technology, a June 22 through 23 celebration of the written word boasting workshops, readings, book pitches, and more, with special events planned at several additional Quad Cities locales.

Four specific, three-day writing courses will be offered during the 2023 David R. Collins Writers' Conference:
Kali White VanBaale's "Where Is the Language Coming From? Point of View in Novels" (8:45 - 10:15 a.m.). This workshop will focus on point of view, tense, and modes of character thought in novels, and the interconnected relationship between the three. Participants will examine all forms of point of view and modes of character thought, their definitions, functions, and nuances, and experiment with targeted, in-class writing exercises to help enhance your own work. VanBaale is the author of the novels The Monsters We Make and The Good Divide & the Space Between, and is the recipient of an American Book Award, an Eric Hoffer Book Award, an Independent Publisher’s silver medal for fiction, and two State of Iowa major artist grants.

Keith Pilapil Lesmeister's "Half-Court Offense, Full-Court Press" (10:30 a.m. - noon). In this generative short-fiction workshop, aspiring authors will warm up with a series of writing prompts, work individually and in small groups, and develop a long-term game plan for a first draft of a short story, learning to blend rhythm and structure (language, point of view, sentence variety, verbs, tense) along with a balance of fundamentals and creativity (character development, conflict, setting, dialogue). Lesmeister is the author of Mississippi River Museum and We Could’ve Been Happy Here, serves as series editor for the EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories: writers of color, and his fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, Gettysburg Review, New Stories from the Midwest, North American Review, Redivider, and SLICE.

Jesus “Chuy” Renteria's "Mapping our Memories for Storytelling” (1:45 - 3:15 p.m.). In this memoir workshop, participants will go over a process for mapping their memories, blending physical landscapes with emotional ones, to find moments that get past the “truth” and arrive at the music of storytelling. A resident of West Liberty, Iowa’s first majority-Hispanic town. Chuy’s writing explores the spaces between cultures, and their memoir We Heard it When We Were Young was released in 2021 via the University of Iowa Press.

Rebecca Wee's “Inside there is this ______: On Finding and Making Poems" (3:30 - 5 p.m.). In this generative poetry workshop," students will work with poems designed to take readers through a range of emotional landscapes and energies, working with some structured forms as well. Wee takes her inspiration for the course from a quote by Spanish poet Antonio Machado: “Walker, there is no path. You make the path by walking.” Wee is a professor at Augustana College who participated in the development of a Creative Writing major within the English curriculum. She is also the author of the award-winning poetry collection Uncertain Grace and the manuscript Instead; she served as the second Quad Cities poet laureate from 2003 to 2005; and she has previously led workshops three times for the David R. Collins Writers Conference.

Additionally scheduled events in the 2023 David R. Collins Writers Conference include: the Community Conversation Keynote featuring Writers’ Conference faculty members on June 22, from 6 - 8 p.m., at Davenport's Figge Art Museum (225 West Second Street); a Conference Faculty Reading and Participant Open Mic on June 23, beginning at 6 p.m., at Rock Island's Rozz-Tox (2108 Third Avenue); a Community Book Fair on June 24, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., in Augustana's Gävle Hall in the Gerber Center for Student Life (3435 Ninth-and-a-Half Avenue); and a Concluding Luncheon in Gävle Hall on June 24 at noon - an event in which conference sponsors will be recognized and the faculty will reflect on their workshops over a catered lunch.

For more information on all of the events in this year's June 22 through 24 David R. Collins Writers' Conference, and to register for conference workshops, call the Midwest Writing Center at (309)732-7330 and visit MWCQC.org.