‘Wilderness’ 2023 CC Literary Conference workshops start Wednesday
“Wilderness” is the theme for The 37th annual Casper College Literary Conference. Workshops will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 8 and Thursday, Nov. 9, at the Goodstein Foundation Library.
“Wilderness” will look at wilderness as an idea that shapes our daily actions, how wild landscapes inform artists, and … how artists use the natural world as a springboard to explore ideas and create art,” said David Zoby, conference director and English instructor.
Workshops are led by writer and naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield, nonfiction writer Christine Peterson, fiction writer Rich Chiappone, and photojournalist Natalie Behring.
Two workshops will be held from 9:30-10:45 a.m. on Wednesday. Behring will present “Telling a Story with Images.” According to Zoby, Behring has seen the world through a camera lens. Her images have appeared on the front page of some of the most prominent newspapers. “Today, she lives in Driggs with her cattle dog Alonzo. She hikes miles and miles of wilderness to set and retrieve images from her many trail cameras. Come hear how she approaches a story,” said Zoby. Behring’s work frequently appears in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Fiction writer Chiappone will lead the other workshop. The winner of the 2021 Alaska State Foundation for the Arts and Culture Award and grant, an Edible magazine award, and an Alaska Press Club Award, he is the author of three short story collections and the recent novel “The Hunger of Crows.” His stories have appeared in Playboy, The Sun, The Catamaran Literary Review, Missouri Review, ZYZZYVA, and many other magazines and have been featured on BBC radio. His workshop is titled “Some books Make You Want to Write, and Some Make You Want to Quit.”
From noon to 1 p.m., Bradfield will present “Exploring Erasure and Found Poems.” Bradfield, the author of “Toward Antarctica,” “Once Removed,” “Approaching Ice,” and others, is the founder and editor-in-chief of Broadsided Press. Winner of the Audre Lorde Prize from the Publishing Triangle, a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, Bradfield’s honors also include a Stegner Fellowship and a Bread Loaf Scholarship.
Two workshops will run from 2-3:30 p.m. “Creating Your Own Zine” will be led by Behring. According to Behring, Zines are a great way for writers, artists and photographers to share their work. “They are easy and inexpensive to make, and I will share what I know about designing, printing, and distributing them,” she said.
The other workshop, “Finding Meaning in the Story,” will be led by Peterson. As a journalist, Peterson has covered wildlife, the environment, and outdoor recreation in Wyoming and the West for over a decade. She began her writing career at the Casper Star-Tribune and is now a full-time freelancer. Her writings about the wild include stories about grizzly bears, wolves, elk, and insects. Peterson’s words and photos have graced the most widely read outdoor journals and magazines, including National Geographic, Wyoming Wildlife, and Cool Green Science.
Thursday will feature one morning workshop, “How to Tell a Good Story,” and will be led by Peterson from 9:30-10:45. “Every story has a beginning, middle and end, but how you fill those slots is the difference between rapt reader attention and someone wandering off mid-paragraph. From entertaining your friends to selling your first magazine piece, learn what it takes to weave a compelling tale from start to finish,” Peterson said.
Two workshops will run from 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Chiappone will lead “Bring in the Clowns: The Uses of Humor in Writing.” “We’d all like to be a little funnier when we write. Let’s see how some of the masters of humor writing have done it. Let’s look at ridiculous stories, essays, poems. Let’s talk about sarcasm, irony, parody, satire, impertinence, vulgarity, and all-encompassing foolishness,” he said.
The other workshop will be led by Bradfield, who will present “’Othering’ the Nature Poem.” “How might class, race, gender, and sexuality infuse our ‘nature writing’? We will look at ‘socialized nature poems’ that allow identity to hold space with biological and cultural accuracy, explore our own ancestries and linkages to the more-than-human world, and laugh, wince, rejoice, and write,” said Bradfield. “The more-than-human world also holds the human world; how can we examine our own roles and biases poetically?” she asked.
All workshops are free and open to all, and coffee and refreshments will be served. For more information, contact Zoby at 307-268-2379 or dzoby@caspercollege.edu.