UNC Asheville's Great Smokies Writing Program Offers Fall Workshops

The Great Smokies Writing Program, a consortium of the Western North Carolina writers' community and UNC Asheville, will offer six fall workshops. Courses qualify for UNC Asheville credit hours in literature and language. Classes will meet from 6-8:30 p.m. and are open to all interested writers.

Tommy Hays will teach "Give Up and Write: An Advanced Creative Prose Workshop." This three-credit hour course will meet for 15 consecutive Tuesday evenings beginning August 31 at the Asheville School. The class is targeted toward advanced prose writers, who have projects they are working on or who want to start something new in either fiction or memoir. Emphasis will be placed on reading and critiquing each other's work. Instructor's permission is required for admittance. Hays is the author of two novels, "Sam's Crossing," and "In the Family Way," which won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. His third novel, "The Pleasure Was Mine," will be published next year. He is the executive director of the Great Smokies Writing Program and is the creative writing chair for the Academy Program at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities.

Hays will also teach "Hanging in There: An Advanced Prose Writing Workshop." This three-credit hour course will meet for 15 consecutive Wednesday evenings beginning September 1 at the Asheville School. The class is for experienced prose writers who find themselves in need of structure, criticism and support. Students will read and discuss each other's work at length. Instructor's permission is required for admittance.

Kathy Sheldon will teach "The Craft of Poetry: A Poetry Workshop." This three-credit course will meet for 15 consecutive Thursday evenings beginning September 2 at the Asbury Memorial United Methodist Church. Poets in this class will receive critiques of their poems in class and in individual conferences with the instructor. Students will read a wide selection of poetry, discuss issues of craft and revision, and use exercises to help generate new poems. A graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Sheldon writes poetry, fiction and gardening books. She has taught at the University of Iowa, Warren Wilson College and the Asheville Poetry Festival. Her poems have appeared in literary journals such as Plainsong and The Florida Review.

Sheldon will also teach "Finding Your Voice: A Poetry Workshop." This class will meet for 10 consecutive Wednesday evenings beginning September 15 at the Asheville School. Students in this workshop will receive critiques of their poems in class and in individual conferences with the instructor. Exercises will be introduced to help writers generate new poems. 

Neal Thompson will teach "Telling the Truth: A Creative Non-fiction and Freelance Writing Workshop." This two-credit hour course will meet for 10 consecutive weeks beginning September 15 at the First Presbyterian Church of Asheville. Students in this class will develop the skills to write book- or magazine-length literary non-fiction. Emphasis will be placed on applying narrative storytelling and fiction techniques to non-fiction writing. Students will also learn how to conduct research; create dramatic narrative, dialogue and scenes; and prepare magazine queries and book proposals. Thompson is a veteran journalist who has written for numerous newspapers and magazine, including Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post Magazine and Outside. He is the author of "Light This Candle: The Life and Times of Alan Shepard, America's First Spaceman." Thompson is currently writing his second book, "White Lightning," about moonshine and the creation of NASCAR.

Jasmine Beach-Ferrara will teach "Getting Started: A Beginning Fiction Workshop." This class will meet for 10 consecutive Thursday evenings beginning September 16 at the First Presbyterian Church of Asheville. The class, which will focus on the basics of fiction and short story writing, is targeted toward new writers or those trying to jumpstart their writing. Students will be doing writing exercises, sharing their work with the class, discussing published stories, and writing the first draft of a short story. Beach-Ferrara is fiction writer who has taught creative writing at Warren Wilson College and in local prisons. Her stories have appeared in The Harvard Review, Puerto del Sol, Bellevue Literary Review and other journals. She is currently working on a short story collection.

Cost is $20 for the visiting student application fee. Tuition and fees for the two-credit- hour courses is $120.28 or $180.72 for three-credit-hour courses for students who meet North Carolina residency requirements. Information on out-of-state tuition or course audit is available upon request. Class size is limited; early registration is suggested.

For more information or to register, call UNC Asheville's Special Academic Programs Office at 828/250-3833 or e-mail lpreston@unca.edu.

Media Contacts:

• Tommy Hays, Great Smokies Writing Program Director, 828/254-1389
• Jill Yarnall, UNCA Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526