Stephen Most: Screenwriting, History, and the Environment

Documentary Storytelling

How do you apply the arts of storytelling and dramaturgy to the representation of actuality?  Whether your subject is historical, scientific, biographical, political, or anything else that inspires documentary makers, there are time-tested principles that will help you engage, entertain, and educate the public. I will present my version of these principles and discuss them in relation to the media I work in—plays, documentary films, and nonfiction prose—providing specific examples along the way.

Stephen Most is an author, playwright, and documentary scriptwriter.  Films he has written include Oil on Ice, an hour-long documentary about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; The Greatest Good, a history of the U. S. Forest Service; A Land Between Rivers, a documentary history of central California; and The Bridge So Far: A Suspense Story, which won a best documentary Emmy.  Wonders of Nature, which Stephen wrote for the Great Wonders of the World series, also won an Emmy for best special nonfiction program; Promises, on which he worked as Consulting Writer and Researcher, won Emmys for best documentary and outstanding background analysis and research.  Berkeley in the Sixties, which he co-wrote, received an Academy Award nomination.  As a playwright, he is the author of Poe, Medicine Show, Raven's Seed, Watershed, A Free Country, and Forces of Nature.  In addition, Stephen has written plays for and with the Organic Theatre, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the Dell'Arte Players Company.  His book, River of Renewal: Myth and History in the Klamath Basin, was co-published in October 2006 by the University of Washington Press and the Oregon Historical Society.  The documentary film, River of Renewal, which he wrote and produced, will be broadcast on PBS stations around the country beginning in October 2009.

Please follow this link to learn more about Stephen Most.

Daryl Chinn: Poetry

Assembling the Work from a Kit
You Didn't Know You Had

In the morning, I'm going to read some poems based on a theme or themes.  Possible themes include 1) food, 2) relationships, and 3) political themes.  After a period of this, we'll take a quiet activity break which involves the participants / attendees.  Then I'll read again, but we'll stop occasionally to talk.  What does it take to make a collection—study, thought, feeling, time?  When the writer is bored, what about the poems?  What is needed when you've stopped but you know you're not done?  What do we do to make sense or order out of a collection?  When you and the editor disagree, then what?

In the afternoon, we will write.  I'll have ideas for you, but you'll have your own ideas.  We'll start with lists, which we’ll put or trade away.  We'll force write or play around with sharp turns in the writing.  We'll pare and read again.  Depending on the size of the group, we may work on different ways of presenting our work.  People should prepare by taking the time to gather ideas, pictures, clothes, rocks, cooking implements or ingredients, and memorabilia to prompt them when they are writing or stuck in their writing.  We'll work, as always, on listening.

Born in Utah and raised in California, Daryl Ngee Chinn counts parents, music, and grandmother as his strongest influences.  His parents—mother born in Texas and father from Guangdong province, China—and grandparents taught him Chinese; his father and mother encouraged his music, school, food, and reading; and music informs his writing and life.  Married to a mathematician, Daryl has raised chickens and two musical, bilingual children; plays piano; builds furniture; is building a kayak; makes books; cooks banquets and feasts (eight to eight hundred people); flyfishes; and takes Argentinean tango lessons with his wife.  Many of these flavor his poems.  Since 1987, Daryl has taught as an Artist in Residence at various times in California, Nevada, South Dakota, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Massachusetts, and Alaska.  Using music and poetry, he collaborates with dancers.  He has been honored as a Writer on Site from Poets and Writers and the Redwood Coast Writers Center, and he has twice received grants from the North Coast Cultural Trust to work with and publish rural northern California writers and students.  He has coordinated Humboldt County poet teachers for California Poets in the Schools and serves as a board member for California Poets in the Schools and for United States Servas, Inc.  His book of poems, Soft Parts of the Back, is published by the University of Central Florida Press, and his work appears in numerous other books and anthologies.  In recent years, using various old and new techniques and materials, he has created handmade, small editions of his poems.

Please follow this link to learn more about Daryl Chinn.

Jessica Inclan: Fiction

What a Scene:
Writing the Building Blocks of Story

Without scenes, there is no story.  In this presentation, we will work with the building block of what makes a story a story—a scene.  We will talk about how to create this simple but fundamental element and then write one and share with the group.

Jessica Barksdale Inclán's debut, Her Daughter's Eyes, was the premier novel published under New American Library's new imprint, Accent.  Her Daughter's Eyes was a final nominee for the YALSA Award for the best books of 2001 and best paperbacks for 2001, and it has been published in both Dutch and Spanish.  Subsequent novels have included The Matter of Grace, When You Go Away, One Small Thing (also translated into in Dutch and Spanish), Walking with Her Daughter, The Instant when Everything Is Perfect, and two fictional trilogies.  She is a recipient of the CAC Artist’s Fellowship in Literature.  Inclán teaches composition, creative writing, mythology, and women’s literature at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California, and online and on-land creative writing courses for UCLA extension.  She has studied with Sharon Olds, Anne Lamott, Kate Braverman, Grace Paley, Marjorie Sandor, and Cristina Garcia.  Her short stories and poems have appeared in many journals and newspapers.  Her short story, "Open Eyes," was given first prize by Sandra Cisneros for El Andar magazine's 2000 writing contest.  She co-edited a women’s literature/studies textbook, Diverse Voices of Women.  Ms. Inclán has degrees in sociology and English literature from CSU Stanislaus and a Master’s degree in English literature from SFSU.  Ms. Inclán lives in Oakland, California, and is currently at work on a contemporary novel, a book of essays, and another romance. 

Please follow this link to learn more about Jessica Inclan.

Noelle Oxenhandler:
Nonfiction

Personal Writing that Transcends the Personal
 

The great challenge in writing personal nonfiction—whether in the form of a personal essay, a memoir, or a full-length autobiography—is to convey the intensity and immediacy of personal experience . . . in a way that transcends the “merely personal.”  How do we write about an experience that was very meaningful and intense for us in a way that engages someone who has never met us?  How do we write about our own families, our travels, our love stories, our bodies . . . in a way that is more than a private record or a personal scrapbook? 

These are the questions we’ll be exploring in this workshop, through some very specific exercises and examples that are designed to make your writing soar to a more universal (but still wonderfully quirky and idiosyncratic) level!

Noelle Oxenhandler believes that her true form is the poetic essay.  However, she has written three full-length books of nonfiction: A Grief out of Season; The Eros of Parenthood; and her recent memoir, The Wishing Year: A House, A Man, My Soul.  Her essays have been published in many national and literary magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Vogue, Parabola, Tricycle, and O: The Oprah Magazine.  They have been frequently anthologized and have been listed or included in such collections as The Best American Essays and The Best American Spiritual Writing.  Noelle lives in northern California and is a full-time member of the English Department at Sonoma State University, where she teaches Creative Writing: Nonfiction.

Please follow this link to learn more about Noelle Oxenhandler.

Also Scheduled to Appear

Jeff DeMark: Storytelling
 

Jeff DeMark, who has been called the definitive nexus of Humboldt County culture, is a native of Racine, Wisconsin, home of Johnson Wax, the place where the In-sink-er-ator garbage disposal was invented, the place where Danish Kringle is often the breakfast of choice, and also the home of some fabulous thin-crust pizza (Wells Brothers) and Italian food (Totero's Restaurant).  DeMark began his performing career doing readings in Madison, WI, in the mid '70s and quickly added music to the mix.  Eventually the shows moved more towards narrative and stories.  After moving to far northern California in 1990, DeMark debuted his first solo show, Writing My Way out of Adolescence, at Dell'Arte International Threater's annual Mad River Festival.  Four other shows have followed.  DeMark has performed the shows in many venues, including New York City's Knitting Factory; The Marsh in San Francisco; Theatre X in Milwaukee; theaters in Minneapolis and Madison; the Writers-on-the-Edge Series in Newport, OR; in addition to numerous schools, cafes, and nightclubs.  Alternately humorous and serious, the partly biographical journeys take the audience both to plateaus of hysterics and still pools of reflective inquiry.  Said Karin Glinden—a camper at the Lost Coast Writers Retreat—after one of Jeff's visits, "Everyone needs a shot of Jeff DeMark.  He is a tonic that makes me love people again."  He lives in Blue Lake, California, with his wife and two children and is available to tour.

Please follow this link to learn more about Jeff DeMark.