I had very high expectations when I came here and the conference exceeded them. The other writers were great and the teachers--Chris Abani and Rebecca Walker--challenging, encouraging and gentle. Carol Dussere

Master workshop with Robert Olen Butler
	You will be given an assignment before you leave, this assignment is crucial. First you must read Robert Olen Butler's book, "From Where You Dream", so you'll be able to get the most out of your workshop. Having read the book prior to arrival will free the class to a rigorous and very productive week. Every night you will be assigned to write a two page exercise.

Russell Celyn Jones

This will be a fiction only workshop. Students will bring at the beginning of the week either a couple of short stories or a section of a novel of no more than 10,000 words in total. This will form the body of students' submissions throughout the whole week. The class, led by the tutor, will offer constructive criticism and advice to each student on a rota basis, and they will be expected to revise in their own time their work and produce the revisions for later workshops. By the end of the week each student should have had two sessions at least devoted to their writing in class, and one tutorial with the tutor and gained some sense of development in their writing."

Participants comments about author/instructor Rebecca Walker

"I feel very, very blessed to have had an opportunity to work with Rebecca Walker. After the first day of the workshop I turned to my oneof my peers and said, "I think my life as a writer will change after this week's workshop." She responded, "I think mine already has." I'm not trying to be melodramatic, but Rebecca set a tone during the week that allowed us to reveal our depths as memoirists. She taught us toconsider the "I" in the piece--to consider how we as writers relate tothe people, places and situations we write about. We discussed technique and craft as it applied to our work. She led us in writing exercises that illuminated our workshop pieces and provided new ideas for future work. I feel like I take myself and the material I amworking on much more seriously after a week in her workshop." --Beth Newberry