Take a weekend class with Darnell Arnoult at JCCFS

The John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC is just twenty minutes from my house in Hayesville, NC. We who live in the local area can apply for a discount for classes at JCCFS. Great Deal!!

Darnell Arnoult, author, poet and instructor

The lineup of writing teachers this summer is excellent. My friend, Darnell Arnoult will teach a weekend class on creative nonfiction on September 2 - 4. I would be there if I didn't already have a prior appointment out of town.

Experiment with short memoir or essay, in the tradition of authors such as Dinty Moore, Abigail Thomas, and Sonja Livingston. This form uses the fluidity of prose as its structure and the imagery and compression of poetry as its engine. Explore the power of a well-wrought sentence and the turn of a tale. We will concentrate on pieces from 25 to 2000 words to tell a single, true story. All levels welcome.

Her classes will be similar to the classes I teach on memoir writing. However, Darnell was one of my first teachers years ago. Over the years, I have taken classes with her and even traveled distances to study with her. She is one of my favorite instructors and used to teach workshops for Writers Circle around the Table and for NCWN-West. 

Creative Nonfiction in a Flash

(Local residents, if you live within driving distance each day, get a discount)

 

$389.00

 

Sep

2

 

-

 

Sep

4

Writing

Instructor: Darnell Arnoult

 

Arnoult, former Writer-In-Residence at Lincoln Memorial University, is the author of the novel "Sufficient Grace" and also "What Travels with Us: Poems," winner of the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Literature and SIBA Poetry Book of the Year. Her latest publication is "Galaxie Wagon: Poems" (LSU Press, 2016), which received the Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing and was a finalist for the Judy Gaines Young Book Award. Darnell was also the recipient of the 2009 Mary Francis Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters and was named the 2007 Tennessee Writer of the Year. Her work has appeared in a number of journals. She holds an MFA from the University of Memphis and lives in Mebane, NC.

Skill Level: All Levels

 

Please call (1-800-365-5724) to register for 2022 classes.

https://folkschool.configio.com/pd/442/creative-nonfiction-in-a-flash?st_t=2077&st_ti=2516&cid=2527&returncom=productlist&source=search

TABLE ROCK WRITERS WORKSHOP

My week at Table Rock Writers Workshop held at Wildacres retreat, one of my favorite places, turned out to be an excellent experience. 

This was the first time I had been to a week-long event for writers, and I had trepidation about going. As most of you know, I am a night person, so being at breakfast at 8:00 a.m. upset my internal clock. This did affect my mood all week. Not feeling social, as I am normally, I missed some good fun and networking. But I got downstairs to the class with Darnell Arnoult by 9:00 a.m. every day.

We had the largest number of students of any class held that week, so I met interesting writers from various places in North Carolina but also from as far away as Oregon. Many thanks to Georgann Eubanks, creator of Table Rock Writers, and the Candy Meir Scholarship fund, for making it possible for me to attend the workshop.

Darnell gave us good writing exercises. With one of them, I found the beginning of a story I had planned to tell, but just never knew how to start. Darnell is one of my favorite instructors. Although I have taken her classes in the past, she continues to open my eyes to new and better ways to tell a story. She taught a memoir class, but she admits she reads fiction. I own her novel, Sufficient Grace, and I highly recommend it. 

Darnell Arnoult

Darnell's advice to anyone who wants to write well is to read, read, read. Read good writers, and see what they do that you would like to do. As I tell my students, read like a writer.

I came home with new ideas for my memoir, for teaching and for reading. Three authors Darnell recommends and I plan to read soon are Harry Crews who writes about my native area, more of Rick Bragg whose work I love, and Larry Brown. 

What writers do you recommend? Do you have favorites?