Thursday, May 2 to Sunday, May 5, 2013
@ Shoreline Camps on Big Lake in Grand Lake Stream
The MWPA is excited to announce that registration is now OPEN for the 2013 Black Fly Writing Retreat! Join us for an inspiring four-day, three-night weekend of workshops, readings, and writing at the idyllic Shoreline Camps on Big Lake in Grand Lake Stream.
The Retreat
2013 Black Fly Writing Retreat attendees will spend three mornings in workshops of no more than twelve participants working with one instructor. Afternoons will be open for writing and optional thirty-minute individual sessions with the instructors. In addition to the intensive workshops and one-on-one sessions, the weekend will include faculty and participant readings.
→ General Description + Info
→ Registration Form
Shoreline Camps is a cluster of rustic, lakeside cabins. Each cabin will house a varying number of Black Fly Writing Retreat attendees. Each cabin includes an equipped kitchen, fresh linens, blankets, and bath towels. Each cabin includes a wood stove and outdoor fireplace with complementary firewood.
The Workshops
Click the workshop titles to learn more:
Lifting Up Your Reader’s Heart
Fiction with Brock Clarke
A Novelist’s Guide to Memoir
Memoir with Monica Wood
The Classroom of the Poem
Poetry with Wesley McNair
Story, Not Formula
Crime Fiction with Paul Doiron
Writing for Emotional Impact
Children’s and Y/A with Jennifer Jacobson
Dibner Fellowship
In partnership with the Maine Community Foundation, the MWPA is proud to offer the Martin Dibner Memorial Fellowship for Maine Writers.
The Dibner Fellowship will cover the full cost of one attendee to the 2013 Black Fly Writing Retreat. Every applicant must submit an application, statement of need, and work sample.
→ Dibner Guidelines
→ Dibner Application
About the Instructors
Brock Clarke
Brock Clarke is the author of five books of fiction, most recently the novels Exley (which was a Kirkus Book of the Year, a finalist for the Maine Book Award, and a longlist finalist for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award) and An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (which was a national bestseller, and American Library Associate Notable Book of the Year, a #1 Book Sense Pick, a Borders Original Voices in Fiction selection, and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice pick). His books have been reprinted in a dozen international editions, and have been awarded the Mary McCarthy Prize for Fiction, the Prairie Schooner Book Series Prize, a National Endowment for Arts Fellowship, and an Ohio Council for the Arts Fellowship, among others. Clarke’s individual stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Boston Globe, Virginia Quarterly Review, One Story, The Believer, Georgia Review, New England Review, and Southern Review and have appeared in the annual Pushcart Prize and New Stories from the South anthologies and on NPR’s Selected Shorts. He lives in Portland and teaches creative writing at Bowdoin College.
Paul Doiron
Maine native Paul Doiron used to be known primarily as the editor in chief of Down East: The Magazine of Maine. While Paul still holds that position, he’s also become known as the award-winning author of the Mike Bowditch series of crime novels. The Poacher’s Son won the Barry Award and the Strand Critics Award for Best First Novel, and was nominated for an Edgar Award, an Anthony Award, a Macavity Award, and a Thriller Award for Best First Novel, and the Maine Literary Award for Fiction in 2010. PopMatters named it to its Best Fiction of 2010 list. Paul’s second book in the Mike Bowditch series, Trespasser, won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction, was an American Booksellers Association Indie Bestseller and has been called a “masterpiece of high-octane narrative” by Booklist. His third novel in the series, Bad Little Falls, was published in August 2012.
Jennifer Jacobson
Jennifer Jacobson is a writer, teacher, educational consultant, editor, and speaker. She is the author of over a dozen books for children. Her first young adult novel, Stained, was selected as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Publisher’s Weekly Best Children’s Book, a New York Public Library Best Books for the Teen Age, and the Maine Lupine Award for a Juvenile Title. Her second young adult novel, The Complete History of Why I Hate Her (set in Maine) was chosen as an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. Her recent middle-grade novel, Small as an Elephant (also set in Maine) won a Parent’s Choice Gold Award, the Maine Lupine Award for a Juvenile Title, and second place in the Maine Literary Awards (young adult category). Small as an Elephant was also selected for the International Reading Association Young Adult Choices Reading List and nominated for five state reading awards.
Wesley McNair
U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine has called Wesley McNair “one of the great storytellers of contemporary poetry.” The author of nine volumes of poems, including Lovers of the Lost: New and Selected Poems, he has held grants from the Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations, two Rockefeller Fellowships, two NEA fellowships, and four honorary degrees for literary distinction. In 2006 he was selected for a United States Artists Fellowship of $50,000 as one of “America’s finest living artists.” Other honors include the Robert Frost Award, the Theodore Roethke Prize, an Emmy Award, and the Sarah Josepha Hale Medal. He was recently invited for the second time to read his poetry at the Library of Congress, and he has served four times on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. McNair’s latest book, his nineteenth, is The Words I Chose, a memoir telling the story of how he became a poet against the odds of a broken home, poverty, and the hardships of family life. He is the Poet Laureate of Maine.
Monica Wood
Maine native Monica Wood is the author of four works of fiction, most recently the ABA bestseller Any Bitter Thing. Her newest book is When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine. Other fiction includes My Only Story, a finalist for the Kate Chopin Award; Ernie’s Ark, selected by ten towns for “One Book, One Community” programs; and Secret Language, her first novel. Her widely anthologized short stories have won a Pushcart Prize and been featured on public radio, including the NPR program Selected Shorts. She also writes books for writers and teachers, including The Pocket Muse, volumes one and two, and Description. She lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband and a portly, toothless cat named Minnie. She also conducts a writing program for women at the Maine Correctional Center.