How to become a novelist,
a poet, or a playwright
Imagination High is a new writing workshop for
students in grades 9-12. It is modeled on the popular
Imagination Writers Workshop and Conference, now
entering its 17th Year at Cleveland State University.
Where will Imagination High
take place?
Most activities will take place at the Cole Center,
located at 3100 Chester Avenue on the Cleveland
State University campus. The Cole Center is a
conference facility with modern seminar rooms
and computer labs.
When is Imagination High?
Monday, July 21 through Saturday, July 26. The
workshop will run from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Monday through Friday, followed by a full Saturday
of readings and staged performances.
What will I do?
You will write and learn about writing through
activities designed for different learning styles and
for keeping interest and energy high. You will read
some great contemporary work and also hear some
read or performed by faculty artists; then we will
study and discuss what makes it so strong.
Enrichment sessions will take you to other arts
facilities on campus, encounters that will give you
something different to think and write about. You
will do daily new-writing exercises, learning to
innovate and stretch your skills. And then you will
test-market your work, getting reader response
through instructor feedback and peer review in
small manuscript workshops. Over the course of an
intensive week, you will write new poetry, drama,
and fiction, and will get the positive, tough-love
response you will need to help you rewrite and
improve your work as well as your skills. That’s a long day; will I starve?
No! Imagination High will provide lunch and snacks and
water and soft drinks.
Who is teaching the
Writing Workshop?
A team of terrific, working writers and teachers
Jonathan Fairman will lead the workshop. He is Director
of the Literary Arts Program at Cleveland School of the
Arts with 20 years of experience as a multi-award-winning
creative writing instructor, and he will coordinate and
direct activities for the entire week.
Poet Tim Seibles has published five popular collections of
poetry. For 10 years he taught high school English in Texas.
Now he teaches Creative Writing at Old Dominion University
in Virginia. He grew up in Philadelphia, and his poetry often
draws on the deep well of urban adolescence.
Sarah Willis, who grew up and still lives in Cleveland
Heights, is a fiction writer with a focus on adolescence and
with four published novels and a fifth on the way. She has
been a popular teacher in schools and universities across
northeast Ohio and at conferences as far away as Maui.
Sarah Morton is a playwright, actor, and educator whose work has appeared to critical acclaim both here and in New York. She’s been an artist in residence at Cleveland State, the Cleveland School of the Arts, Shaker Heights High, and Hathaway Brown School. She’s long taught Writing at Cleveland Public Theatre and for The Cleveland Play House's Young Playwrights Workshop.
Terrence Spivey, a prize-winning playwright, became the
Artistic Director of Karamu House following two decades of
acting and directing off-Broadway in New York. He understands
the process of drama from conception to performance,
and he inaugurated and oversees the Young Playwrights’
Festival in Karamu’s Arena Fest.
How much will it cost?
Tuition for the six-day workshop is $200.00 How Do I Apply?
Just fill out the reservation
form and send it in. |
