Announcing a great opportunity for writers this summer, available to University of Iowa undergrads, graduate students and nondegree students alike! The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) is offering a unique summer workshop, on location at the Lakeside Laboratory in Okoboji IA, called The Environmental Imagination in Creative Writing: A Multi-Genre Workshop. The course will be in session May 16 – May 27, 2016, and will offer students incredible on-site opportunities to write while immersed in nature, involving field-work, exploration and intensive workshops!
In this class, we will explore the many ways that one might write about the environment—through an interest in place and landscape studies; through ecopoetics, sustainable agriculture, or rural development; through a study of urban ecologies, built environments, and natural resource ecology management.
The phrase, “the environmental imagination,” allows us, as writers, to consider the environmental underpinnings and ecological
considerations of the texts we create. Poems, stories, and essays are not written in a vacuum; they arise from the imaginations of writers who are imprinted by place, landscape, history, biology, and ecology, to name a few.
Course Objectives:
Learn elements of craft used in creative writing including the use of sensory detail, scene, characterization, dynamic tension, development of theme, use of symbols, images, dialogue, and the management of temporality in a piece of writing.
• Learn the best practices of working writers.
• Discover a variety of authors whose work engages issues of the environment, place, and ecology.
• Write critically about the work of published authors.
• Learn techniques and strategies for revision of work to a polished state.
• Explore the subject of publication including discussion of publication outlets.
Environmental Writing IALL:3034:0EX3
2 s.h.
May 16 – May 27, 2016
Lakeside Laboratory, Okoboji IA
This section is offered through the Division of Continuing Education (DCE).
More information about the course can be viewed on the University of Iowa course listing page.
Contact DCE at 319-335-2575 or dce-registration@uiowa.edu for assistance if you are a nondegree seeking students wanting to enroll in this class.