Saturday, October 14th, 9am - 12pm Central, Virtual
why finding your voice?
This elusive quality of good writing is the focus of a three-hour workshop. Voice gives expression to the narrator’s feelings, attitudes, opinions, and interpretations. Voice conveys tone, tempo, slant, style and personality through artful choices. Voice is the embodiment of the point-of-view of the literary artist. What we often don’t realize is that our voice comes through to readers in ways we may not intend or even be conscious of. Yet, working on voice as a writer can feel as awkward and silly as the first time you heard or saw yourself on an electronic recording. It engages a critical self-awareness about how you sound to others that might trigger the inner critic and silence you -- or you can find private studio space where you can have fun with your voice with it and try for the high notes, find the beats, dance to the tempo, and fully express your authentic self. Come play around with the delivery and performance of your voice. You’ll get in touch your “voice of innocence” and your “voice of experience,” the voice of your inner child, your inner critic, the voice of the eating disorder, or the you who you imagine you would be if you hadn’t xyz, your mother’s voice which lives in your head, your voice as a subject-area specialist, the voice of reason, or prophecy. Ultimately it’s about the story only you can tell and you need the reader to place their trust in your voice. Too often we try to write like someone else, the writer we imagine we ought to be. Voice requires the kind of confidence it takes to embrace your own quirky qualities in creative expression and turn what you think might be personal weakness into bedrock asset, The foundation on which to stand in your story. Helping each other recognize the qualities to our voices we may not recognize as strengths is the objective for our workshop in which you will discover more about YOUR voice and its various inflections.
what kind of writer should take this course?
This workshop is open to writers at any level and in any genre. For beginning writers, this session will help you listen to your own voice and learn to harness its power and trust it. For those seeking to improve their craft, explore a wider range for your authentic voice. For writers who may have received (unhelpful) advice that they needed a stronger voice or that they had a hard time connecting with the narrator, then this workshop is intended to help you understand how you can address it head-on.
what are the requirements?
A willingness to play by participating in voice exercises.
Comfort navigating an online learning platform and a computer with a camera and mic and a good internet connection.
how does this remote class work?
We will meet during a live synchronous workshop on Zoom. Participants will be emailed a link a week in advance to join the Mighty Networks platform and login to the workshop virtual space. There you will find the course materials and short readings. You will be invited to introduce yourselves and ask
questions there before our live session.
Please expect to appear on camera and contribute to the seminar-style conversation. We will examine closely the short readings which will include illustrative excerpts from Dorothy Allison, Joan Didion, Mary Karr, Dani Shapiro and others to illustrate the literary concepts, conventions, and practices. Word choices, idiomatic expressions, and phrasings. The selection of which observations, incidents, and details to include. The representations of sensory experiences in text. What you focus on, and the order and pacing of your presentation is another way you express your voice. The overall attitude, tone and style of expression are further indicators of voice. There will be guided exercises to help you find various inflections of your authentic voice. You may be asked to read aloud short passages from the selected readings and to discuss how voice is used by the authors. The seminar style workshop will include short timed writing exercises to be completed during our session with a break built into the three-hour session. You will be asked questions about your experience during the exercise and what you learned about your voice from it. There will be time at the end for questions and conversation..
what will writers take away?
You will gain a new awareness of the qualities to your own “voice” as a writer. Your self-consciousness about the distinctive features and traits to your narrative style will allow you take this self-awareness and use your voice more effectively in your writing.
You will experience writing in various inflections of your voice through guided exercises that can be repurposed for your writing project (or future projects).
The voice lessons will include exploring ways to modulate the timbre, pitch, and range of your voice with illustrative readings and with practice exercises.
who is the teacher?
Jill Swenson is a developmental editor and literary representative in Wisconsin who earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from The University of Chicago and taught journalism at the University of Georgia-Athens and Ithaca College. She has taught writing workshops at The Loft Literary Center, Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, and the Grand Marais Art Colony. In July 2021 she completed a writing residency sponsored by the St. Croix Watershed Research Station (Science Museum of Minnesota) and was the featured writer-in-residence for the Red Shoes Lake of the Woods Writing Retreat in September 2021. She has recently completed a braided nonfiction narrative manuscript, Dispossessed, exploring on Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota the connections between her maternal relations and the Kakaygeesick family over seven generations and why we can never dispossess ourselves of the past, no matter how shameful or tragic or distant.
what is the cost?
Elephant Rock tuition for this workshop is $129**. Under normal circumstances, full payment is due at least 15 days before the workshop begins. Extended payment plans may be available in cases of severe economic hardship. Please send an email to Elephant Rock to inquire.
**Elephant Rock tuition is nonrefundable but may be transferrable upon request.
what have other writers had to say about Jill?
"Jill is writing coach, advocate, and mentor all wrapped in one," Cathryn Prince, author of QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAINEERS
"I learned to create a compelling narrative...Jill Swenson patiently guided me," Elaine Mansfield, author of LEANING INTO LOVE
how do I sign up?
Please click below to complete course registration: