For 42 years, Nimrod has hosted an in-person, all-day writing conference in conjunction with the publication of our fall issue. While we’ve had to cancel this year’s in-person events due to the pandemic, we’re thrilled to host an extended period of virtual creative writing programming this fall. This year’s programming will feature several months of craft talks/writing workshops, Q&As, readings, and more. We will add more offerings to this schedule as they become available, so keep checking back.

To Register

Please register for all events via our Submittable page. Events range in attendee capacity, so we recommend registering early for our smaller events.

All events will take place via Zoom. Please note that the start times are listed in Central Time.

Events will close to new sign-ups 24 hours before their start time.

Free Sessions for Students Enrolled in Tulsa County Schools
We have a limited number of free participation slots available for students currently enrolled in Tulsa County high schools, community colleges/colleges, and vocational schools. To inquire about these free student slots, email us at nimrod@utulsa.edu. Please include your name and the name of your school in your email, along with the name of the session you are interested in attending.

Schedule of Events

September 23rd, 7:00 p.m., CDT

Ask Us Anything: Editing and Publishing Q&A — Cassidy McCants, Eilis O’Neal
Q&A Session (Maximum Participants: 98)

Participation Fee: $5, includes a digital copy of Nimrod’s fall issue, Awards 43

Have questions about getting your work ready to submit or about the publishing industry in general? Want to know what catches an editor’s eye or turns them off your work? Join Nimrod’s Editor-in-Chief, Eilis O’Neal, and Associate Editor, Cassidy McCants, for answers about anything and everything publishing. Editing, revising, the role of literary agents, writing query letters, traditional vs. small press vs. self-publishing, using social media—it’s all on the table in this open Q&A session!

Cassidy McCants received her M.F.A. in fiction writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is an Associate Editor with Nimrod and is the creator/editor of Apple in the Dark. Her work has appeared in The Lascaux Review, Liars’ League NYC, Gravel, and elsewhere. She won the 2020 Innovative Short Fiction Contest from The Conium Review.

Eilis O’Neal has worked at Nimrod for over twenty years and is currently the journal’s Editor-in-Chief. She is also the author of the young adult fantasy novel The False Princess, and her short fantasy has appeared in Strange Horizons, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and other publications.

Sunday, September 26th, 2:00 p.m., CDT

Word by Word— Britton Gildersleeve and Keely Record
Craft Talk/Workshop (Maximum Participants: 30)

Participation Fee: $5, includes a digital copy of Nimrod’s fall issue, Awards 43

Word choice is among the most important aspects of writing poetry. In poetry, every word must carry its weight, so it’s vital that each word be chosen with care. In this workshop, we’ll share techniques to reconsider and liven up your word choice, including exercises to illustrate how word choice can strengthen your writing. We will also go over a few editing practices, such as culling extraneous words that clutter and dilute poems, examining the first and last words in lines, choosing effective line breaks, and more.

Participants should bring a short poem or stanza to use during the exercises.

Britton Gildersleeve was for 12 years the director of Oklahoma State University’s OSU Writing Project, where she also taught writing. Her creative non-fiction and poetry have appeared in Nimrod, New Millennium, Atlas Poetica, Soft Cartel, Oklahoma Humanities Magazine, and many other journals. She also is the author of three poetry chapbooks and is a member of Nimrod’s editorial board.

Keely Record received an M.F.A. from the Red Earth Creative Writing program at Oklahoma City University. Her poetry has appeared in Atlas Poetica and Bamboo Hut. A member ofNimrod’s editorial board, she lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

 

Sunday, October 10th, 2:00 p.m., CDT

End Words Are a Beginning — Francine Ringold
Craft Talk/Workshop (Maximum Participants: 50)

Participation Fee: $5, includes a digital copy of Nimrod’s fall issue, Awards 43

It may sound counterintuitive, but we often do our best work when we don’t know exactly what we are doing or where we are going.  In this participatory workshop, you’ll learn to extend your writing reach into the unknown places that reside in your mind/body. We’ll then introduce exercises that will help us mesh form and content using just a bit of effort and a great deal of awareness. By the end of the workshop, you’ll have created the beginning of a poem or the first paragraph of a prose work.

As part of the exercises, several participants will be asked to volunteer to name and, if you wish, read your favorite poem of one page or less or opening paragraph of a prose work and briefly explain why it is a favorite. Favorite works should be by an author other than yourself. At the conclusion of the workshop, participants may volunteer to read the work they have created during the session. The workshop will also involve some simply physical movement guided by the instructor.

Francine Ringold served two terms as Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and 47 years as Nimrod’s Editor-in-Chief. She is now Nimrod’s Senior Advisory Editor. She has received The Oklahoma Book Award and the Women in Communications Award. Her publications include The Trouble with Voices, Still Dancing, and, most recently, The Way We See Now: A Collaboration of Photography and Poetry, a collaboration with Sam Joyner.

Thursday, October 21st, 7:00 p.m., CDT

Stillness in Fiction — Katy Mullins, Anita Trimbur
Craft Talk/Workshop (Maximum Participants: 25)

Participation Fee: $5, includes a digital copy of Nimrod’s fall issue, Awards 43

Stillness is essential to storytelling. Think about a lingering note in a song or a lull in a film’s action. These moments allow us to breathe, to consider, and to experience relief. But in writing, where words must continue to carry a narrative forward, how can we simulate stillness? This workshop will examine ways to demonstrate stillness in fiction and guide you through a series of prompts to incorporate quiet moments into your own writing.

Katy Mullins’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming from such journals as The Baltimore Review, Brevity, and Hong Kong Review, among others. She serves on the Nimrod editorial board and currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Anita Trimbur holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pittsburgh. Her fiction has been longlisted for the SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction, and she serves on the Nimrod editorial board. Currently, she is working on her novel.

Wednesday, October 27th at 7:00 p.m., CDT

The 2021 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry:
A Reading with Emily Rose Cole, Geffrey Davis, and Julie Marie Wade
Reading and Author Chat (Maximum attendees: 96)

Free and open to the public.

Join us as we celebrate the winners of Nimrod’s 43rd Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry: First Prize-winner Emily Rose Cole and Second Prize-winner Julie Marie Wade. Emily and Julie will read from their winning poems, and then 2021 Pablo Neruda Prize judge Geffrey Davis will join them to discuss poetry, tips for aspiring writer, what’s next for them, and more. The celebration will conclude with a poetry reading by Geffrey.

Emily Rose Cole is the author of Thunderhead, a collection forthcoming from University of Wisconsin Press, and Love & a Loaded Gun, a chapbook of poems in women’s voices from Minerva Rising. Her work has appeared in American Life in Poetry, Best New Poets 2018, and Poet Lore, among other publications. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cincinnati.

Geffrey Davis is the author of Night Angler (BOA Editions, 2019), winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Revising the Storm ​(BOA Editions, 2014), winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, the Dogwood Prize in Poetry, the Porter Fund Literary Prize, and the Wabash Prize for Poetry. He currently teaches with the Program in Creative Writing & Translation at the University of Arkansas and with The Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University’s low-residency M.F.A. program.  Geffrey also serves as Poetry Editor for Iron Horse Literary Review.

Julie Marie Wade is the author of 13 collections of poetry and prose, most recently Skirted: Poems (The Words Works, 2021) and the book-length lyric essay, Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing (The Ohio State University Press, 2020). A winner of the Marie Alexander Poetry Series and the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir, she teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University and makes her home with Angie Griffin in Dania Beach.

Saturday, November 6th, 2:00 p.m., CDT

The 2021 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction:
A Reading with Celine Aenlle-Rocha, Rilla Askew, and Paula Closson Buck
Reading and Author Chat (Maximum attendees 96)

Free and open to the public.

Join us as we celebrate the winners of Nimrod’s 43rd Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction: First Prize-winner Celine Aenlle-Rocha and Second Prize-winner Paula Closson Buck. Celine and Paula will read their winning stories and then chat 2021 fiction judge Rilla Askew about fiction, their tips for aspiring writer, what’s next for them, and more. We’ll finish the celebration with a fiction reading by Rilla.

Celine Aenlle-Rocha is a writer based in New York City, where she is a candidate for an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Columbia University. Her work is published or forthcoming in Joyland, Puerto del Sol, Tahoma Literary Review, The Acentos Review, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Columbia University, Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, and Art Farm.

Rilla Askew is the author of four novels, a book of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction. Her novel about the Tulsa Race Massacre, Fire in Beulah, received the American Book Award in 2002. Askew received a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Oklahoma.

Paula Closson Buck was a Fulbright Scholar in Cyprus in 2014, and she is an NEA Fellow in Fiction for 2020-21. Her first novel, Summer on the Cold War Planet, was published in 2015 by Fomite Press. Her short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Ploughshares, and Kenyon Review.

Thursday, November 11th, 7:00 p.m., CT

Windows & Doors & Things: Building Relationships with the Material World in Isolation and Solitude — Kimberly Ann Priest
Craft Talk/Workshop (Maximum Participants: 98)

Participation Fee: $5, includes a digital copy of Nimrod’s fall issue, Awards 43

Last May, at the onset of the pandemic, Time magazine did an entire article on the epidemic of loneliness in the United States. Even as our global society expands, isolation and loneliness increase; and, as the article indicated, it can be difficult for people to talk about. After a year of sheltering, however, we are collectively talking about our loneliness more than ever and it is important to keep this dialogue going. Art can help us do that.

For this workshop, we’ll think about the spaces we have inhabited that testify to times of isolation and loneliness. This is an opportunity to take some time to reflect on some of the stressors carried in solitude over this past year and build a new relationship with those stressors. Rather than imagining those spaces as testament to our aloneness, however, we’ll consider their animation and relational qualities by exploring a few poems and building our own relationships, through writing, with the objects and spaces we lived with over this past year.

Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of The Optimist Shelters in Place (Harbor Editions 2022), Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress 2021), Still Life (PANK, 2020), Parrot Flower (Glass, 2020) and White Goat Black Sheep (FLP, 2018). Winner of the 2019 Heartland Poetry Prize from New American Press, her work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Salamander, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Borderlands, and other journals. Currently a writer in resident at Proximity/Writer’s House in Pittsburgh, she is also an Assistant Professor of First Year Writing at Michigan State University and serves as an associate poetry editor for Nimrod.

Saturday, November 20th, 2:00 p.m., CT

Going In, Reaching Out: The Eternal Search of Ecstatic Poets— Scott Chalupa
Craft Talk/Workshop (Maximum Participants: 98)

Participation Fee: $5, includes a digital copy of Nimrod’s fall issue, Awards 43

Beneath all that we celebrate and lament as human experience is a longing that threads through everything. It’s with us when we feel most transcendent and when we are most brokenly holy. No matter how connected we become through various social and technological means, there remains something unknowable, ineffable, just beyond reach. It may be called God, the divine, the soul, Ātman, serenity, consciousness, and numerous other names. Poet and scholar Brandon Thompson calls it essence. He and others have defined ecstatic poetry as a practice that poets and readers use to channel our longing for that essence. Poet Sheila Packa tells us that an ecstatic poem “is a ladder that the reader climbs.”

This seminar-style workshop will examine several examples from millennia of human strivings for the divine and the intensely human, ranging from such classic poets like Rumi to song lyrics by Leonard Cohen and Lhasa de Sela. We’ll then take a journey inward together and make our own attempts at writing ecstatic poems.

Scott Chalupa is the author of Quarantine (PANK Books 2019), a collection exploring how people loved one another through the early AIDS pandemic. He lives and writes in South Carolina, where he earned an M.F.A. in poetry at the University of South Carolina, and currently teaches at Central Carolina Technical College. His work is primarily concerned with queering stories and experiences not usually seen as queer, as well as reinterpreting cosmology and astrophysics to probe human connections to the mortal and the eternal. His work has appeared in Transition: Poems in the Afterglow, PANK, pacificREVIEW, Nimrod, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other publications.

Cost

Craft Talks/Workshops and Q&As

Craft talks/workshops and Q&As have a $5 participation fee, which includes a digital copy of our fall issue, Awards 43.

Readings

All readings are free and open to the public.

While all readings are free of charge, donations are deeply appreciated and help us offer programs like these. We understand, especially in these times of pandemic, that not all writers can afford to make a donation, and we welcome you to attend whether or not you can donate at this time. But the pandemic has been especially hard on non-profit arts organizations like Nimrod, and if you can make a donation, it will make a big difference to our journal operations and to our ability to offer programs like these.  Our suggested donation is $5-$10, but we are grateful for donations of all sizes, larger or smaller. Donations can be made via Submittable when registering for the readings.

Questions

Please email nimrod@utulsa.edu with any questions. (Please note that the FAQs at the bottom of the page pertain to our in-person Conferences, not our 2021 Virtual Creative Writing Programming.)

2020 Virtual Conference for Readers and Writers

 

Join us for our first-ever Virtual Conference for Readers and Writers!
October 17th – November 18th, 2020

For 41 years, Nimrod has hosted an in-person, all-day writing conference in conjunction with the publication of our fall issue. While we’ve had to cancel this year’s in-person events due to the pandemic, we’re thrilled to host our first-ever all-virtual Conference for Readers and Writers. This year’s Conference will feature a month of virtual panel discussions, craft talks/writing workshops, Q&As, and one-on-one critique sessions with members of our editorial team.

Schedule of Events

 

Saturday, October 17th, 2:00 p.m. CST

Novel and Memoir Writers: Chapter One: Where Do I Start? — Sandra Hunter
Craft Talk/Workshop

[This craft talk/workshop is currently full. To be added to the waitlist in case of any cancellations, please email nimrod@utulsa.edu with your name and the title of this session, along with a brief note saying you would like to be added to the waitlist.]

You know it’s crucial to have a riveting opening and a compelling first chapter, but how do you do this? In this workshop, we’ll look at examples of successful book openings and practice writing our own. By the end of the workshop, you’ll have the tools to generate a strong, engaging start.

Sandra Hunter is the founder of the Writers Festival in Ventura County. She teaches creative writing at Moorpark College, California. Her fiction won the 2018 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, the 2017 Leapfrog Press Fiction Award, and the 2016 Gold Line Press Chapbook Prize. She is a 2018 Hawthornden Fellow and the 2017 Charlotte Sheedy Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. She is also member ofNimrod’s editorial board.

Saturday, October 17th, 5:00 p.m. CST

Awards 42 Book Launch: A Reading with Rebecca Foust and Janine Certo
Reading and Author Chat

Join us as we celebrate the winners of Nimrod’s 42nd Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry: First Prize-winner Rebecca Foust and Second Prize-winner Janine Certo. Rebecca and Janine will read their winning poems, and we’ll chat with them about poetry, their tips for aspiring writer, what’s next for them, and more.

Rebecca Foust is the author of seven books including Paradise Drive, The Unexploded Ordnance Bin, and ONLY, forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2022. Her recognitions include the C. P. Cavafy and James Hearst poetry prizes, Marin Poet Laureateship, and fellowships from Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Sewanee. The First Prize-winner of Nimrod’s 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, she is poetry editor for Women’s Voices for Change and an assistant editor for Narrative Magazine.

Janine Certo is the author of two full-length poetry collections: Elixir, winner of both the 2020 New American Poetry Prize and the 2020 Lauria/Frasca Poetry Prize (forthcoming, co-published by New American Press and Bordighera Press) and In the Corner of the Living, first runner-up for the 2017 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award (Main Street Rag, 2017). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, New Ohio Review, The Greensboro Review, Nimrod, and other journals. The Second Prize-winner of Nimrod’s 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, she is an associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University.

Sunday, October 18th, 5:00 p.m. CST

Young Writers Under 25: BreakBread Literacy Project — W. David Hall, Sandra Hunter (moderator), Crystal AC Salas, Jamie Lyn Smith
Panel Discussion

BreakBread is dedicated to raising and empowering the voices of young writers. In the first part of the panel, the staff of BreakBread will discuss the project and their plans to develop a new, inclusive platform for young writers. During the second part, two young writers will discuss their experiences with BreakBread. Attendees will learn about the programs offered by BreakBread and how to submit their work, join workshops and readings, and belong to a young writing community. The audience is encouraged to submit questions via chat.

W. David Hall is president and CEO of BreakBread Literacy Project. He teaches English at Valley International Preparatory High School in Chatsworth, California. He was on-site director of the Kenyon Young Writers Program. His work can be seen in The Kenyon Review, Callaloo, and After The Pause, as well as The Best African American Fiction 2010.

Sandra Hunter is the founder of the Writers Festival in Ventura County, CA. She teaches creative writing at Moorpark College. Her fiction won the 2018 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, the 2017 Leapfrog Press Fiction Award, and the 2016 Gold Line Press Chapbook Prize. She is a 2018 Hawthornden Fellow and the 2017 Charlotte Sheedy Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. She is also a member of Nimrod’s Editorial board.

Crystal AC Salas is a Chicanx poet, essayist, educator, and community organizer. Her work has appeared in [PANK] Magazine, PCC Inscape, Chaparral Poetry, The Acentos Review, and other publications. She lives in Los Angeles where she writes about community landscapes of grief, remembrance, and memorialized and un-memorialized spaces. She is currently completing her M.F.A. at the University of California, Riverside, and is working on two manuscripts.

Jamie Lyn Smith is an alumna of Kenyon College, Fordham University, and Ohio State University. Her short story collection Township is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2021. Her work has appeared in The Pinch, The Mississippi Review, American Literary Review, Barely South, Bayou, The Kenyon Review,and other literary magazines. She received a 2020 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for her forthcoming novel, Hometown.

Wednesday, October 21st, 7:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time (8:00 p.m. Eastern / 6:00 p.m. Mountain / 5:00 p.m. Pacific)

Ask Us Anything: Editing and Publishing Q&A — Cassidy McCants, Eilis O’Neal
Q&A Session

Have questions about getting your work ready to submit or about the publishing industry in general? Want to know what catches an editor’s eye or turns them off your work? Join Nimrod’s Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor for answers about anything and everything publishing. Editing, revising, the role of literary agents, writing query letters, traditional vs. small press vs. self-publishing, using social media—it’s all on the table in this open Q&A session!

Cassidy McCants received her M.F.A. in fiction writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is an Associate Editor withNimrod and is the creator/editor of Apple in the Dark. Her work has appeared in The Lascaux Review, Liars’ League NYC, Gravel, and elsewhere. She won the 2020 Innovative Short Fiction Contest from The Conium Review.

Eilis O’Neal has worked at Nimrod for twenty years and is currently the journal’s Editor-in-Chief. She is also the author of the young adult fantasy novel The False Princess, and her short fantasy has appeared in Strange Horizons, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and other publications.

Saturday, October 24th, 1:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time (2:00 p.m. Eastern / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific)

Conceit: The Third Foundation of Fiction — Christopher Murphy
Craft Talk/Workshop

Plot and character form two fundamental driving forces of fiction. There is another, however: conceit. From worldbuilding to metafictional devices to rare points-of-view to extended symbol and metaphor, conceits can enrich and distinguish a work of fiction, and, at times, guide it as much as character and plot. This workshop will define the term, outline some uses, and provide tips and examples that can help you with conceit in your own fiction or in editing the work of others.

Christopher Murphy received his M.F.A. from the University of Arkansas and currently teaches creative writing at Northeastern State University. He also serves on the editorial board for Nimrod. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, This Land, Jellyfish Review, Necessary Fiction, decomP, Spartan, Ghost Parachute, and The Tulsa Voice, among other publications. He has a collection of flash fiction, Burning All the Time, coming soon from Mongrel Empire Press.

Saturday, October 24th, 5:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time (6:00 p.m. Eastern / 4:00 p.m. Mountain / 3:00 p.m. Pacific)

The Sestina Challenge — Francine Ringold
Craft Talk/Workshop

Want to learn how to write a sestina or improve the sestinas you’ve already written? This workshop will show you the way! We’ll combine history, poetry, storytelling, counting, and stretches, involving the mind and the body to learn not only to incorporate sestinas into your poetry, but also to have fun and make discoveries while accomplishing this daring endeavor. In six stanzas of six lines each and a flourishing envoi of three lines, you can do it all!

Francine Ringold, Ph.D., served two terms as Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and 47 years as Nimrod’s Editor-in-Chief. She is now Nimrod’s Senior Advisory Editor. She has received The Oklahoma Book Award and the Women in Communications Award. Her publications include The Trouble with Voices, Still Dancing, and, most recently, The Way We See Now: A Collaboration of Photography and Poetry, a collaboration with Sam Joyner.

Sunday, October 25th, 1:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time (2:00 p.m. Eastern / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific)

Compression & Collaboration: Haiku and Tanka — Britton Gildersleeve and Keely Record
Craft Talk/Workshop

[This craft talk/workshop is currently full. To be added to the waitlist in case of any cancellations, please email nimrod@utulsa.edu with your name and the title of this session, along with a brief note saying you would like to be added to the waitlist.]

Participants will read classic haiku and tanka, learn about these interrelated forms, and engage with other writers collaboratively to create haiku, a collaborative tanka, and an individual tanka. Plan on doing some writing, participating in a breakout session, and leaving with a bibliography of haiku and tanka sources, as well as at least two new poems!

Britton Gildersleeve is a nationally published poet in several forms and media, including haiku and tanka. A former Oklahoma Humanities board member, she is retired from Oklahoma State University, where for 12 years she directed a federal non-profit to teach writing. She holds a Ph.D. in creative writing with emphasis in poetry. She is a member of Nimrod’s editorial board.

Keely Record lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She received an M.F.A. from the Red Earth Creative Writing M.F.A. program at Oklahoma City University. She serves on the editorial board of Nimrod, and her poetry has appeared in Atlas Poetica and Bamboo Hut.

Wednesday, October 28th, 7:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time (8:00 p.m. Eastern / 6:00 p.m. Mountain / 5:00 p.m. Pacific)

What Did He Know, and How Did He Know It? — Grant Matthew Jenkins
Craft Talk/Workshop

[This craft talk/workshop is currently full. To be added to the waitlist in case of any cancellations, please email nimrod@utulsa.edu with your name and the title of this session, along with a brief note saying you would like to be added to the waitlist.]

Detective fiction and thrillers inevitably involve plots with protagonists who must learn things in order to solve a crime, avert a disaster, or save a life. But when do they learn, and how do they learn? Focusing mainly on detective fiction, this workshop will explore the various ways in which detectives learn about crimes and where to place those steps in your plot. Participants will leave this workshop with ideas about how to make their stories engaging, thrilling, and believable.

Grant Matthew Jenkins teaches literature and creative writing at The University of Tulsa. His latest book is Ivory Tower, a campus thriller about a film professor who takes down a corrupt university football program. He is also a member of the Nimrod editorial board.

Thursday, October 29th, 7:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time (8:00 p.m. Eastern / 6:00 p.m. Mountain / 5:00 p.m. Pacific)

Character IS Action — Blake Kimzey
Craft Talk/Workshop

Who are your favorite characters from literature, TV, and film? Why do you love them above all others? The characters that stick with us are ones we care deeply about; we want them to survive, to win the heart of their beloved, to conquer and vanquish their foes, real and imagined. To fully understand our favorite characters—and to fall in love with them as readers—we have to know what they want, what will happen if they don’t get it, and why it needs to happen now. Writers must give characters agency, move them to action, and let them drive the story. You’ll leave this workshop with a better understanding of who your characters are, what they want, and what will happen if they don’t get it.

Blake Kimzey founded and directs WritingWorkshops.com and is a co-founder of The Big Texas Read. His fiction has been broadcast on NPR, published by Tin House, McSweeney’s, VICE, The Los Angeles Review, and other publications, and was selected by Robert Olen Butler for inclusion inThe Best Small Fictions 2015. His collection of short stories, Families Among Us, was published by Black Lawrence Press. He has taught in the creative writing programs at Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas-Dallas, and the University of California, Irvine.

Monday, November 2nd, 3:00 p.m. Central Standard Time (4:00 p.m. Eastern / 2:00 p.m. Mountain / 1:00 p.m. Pacific)

13 Ways of Looking Again at Ekphrasis — Catharine Batsios, Steve Bellin-Oka (moderator), Veronica Golos, Courtney Harler, Wayne Johns
Panel Discussion

The ekphrastic tradition in Western poetry is at least as old as Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles in The Iliad. Indeed, some of the most iconic poems in the English language tradition mimetically describe paintings considered masterpieces. Recently, however, poets have begun to write ekphrastic poems that engage with other art forms—jazz and pop music, film, and photography, among others—in an effort to redefine poetry’s relationship to other works of art. Fiction writers have also adapted the ekphrastic tradition to their narratives. In this panel, four poets and a fiction writer will discuss how they are approaching new avenues of this longstanding tradition.

Catharine Batsiosis from Flint, Michigan, and currently lives in Detroit, where she is a poet and teaching artist serving local youth and the literary community. It took her eight years and one dropout to graduate from a state school. She studies with the Daedalus Poets at the Kitchen Table of Diane Wakoski. Her poetry has appeared in Glass Poetry, Flypaper, andLinden Ave Lit, and is forthcoming from Kissing Dynamite’s PUNK Anthology and FlowerSong Press’s Good Cop/Bad Cop: An Anthology.

Steve Bellin-Oka’s first book of poems, Instructions for Seeing a Ghost (University of North Texas Press, 2020) won the Vassar Miller Prize. He is also the author of three chapbooks, most recently Out of the Frame (Walls Divide Press, 2019). His next chapbook, Elegies for the Gasoline Age, is forthcoming in 2021. He is a member of the Nimrod editorial board and a Tulsa Artist Fellow. His other honors include fellowships from Yaddo, the National Parks Arts Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center.

Veronica Golos is the author of four poetry books, including GIRL, awarded the Naji Naaman Honor Prize, 2019 (Beirut, Lebanon); Rootwork:Vocabulary of Silence, winner of the 2011 New Mexico Book Award and translated into Arabic and Persian; and A Bell Buried Deep, winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. She lives in Taos, New Mexico, with her husband David Pérez.

Courtney Harler, a freelance writer, editor, and educator, holds both an M.A. and an M.F.A. She reads and writes literary fiction and currently lends her editorial eye to The Masters Review and Funicular Magazine. Courtney’s creative work has appeared worldwide, and a full list of her publications can be found at courtneyharler.wordpress.com.

Wayne Johns’s first book, Antipsalm, received the Editor’s Choice prize from Unicorn Press. He is also the author of The Exclusion Zone (Rane Arroyo chapbook series, Seven Kitchens Press). His poems have appeared in Best New Poets, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, New England Review, Ploughshares, Image,Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. A former Lambda Literary Fellow, he is currently a poetry editor for The Adroit Journal.

Thursday, November 5th, 7:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (8:30 p.m. Eastern / 6:30 p.m. Mountain / 5:30 p.m. Pacific)

Stillness in Fiction — Katy Mullins, Anita Trimbur
Craft Talk/Workshop

[This craft talk/workshop is currently full. To be added to the waitlist in case of any cancellations, please email nimrod@utulsa.edu with your name and the title of this session, along with a brief note saying you would like to be added to the waitlist.]

Stillness is essential to storytelling. Think about a lingering note in a song or a lull in a film’s action. These moments allow us to breathe, to consider, and to experience relief. But in writing, where words must continue to carry a narrative forward, how can we simulate stillness? This workshop will examine ways to demonstrate stillness in fiction and guide you through a prompt series to incorporate quiet moments into your own writing.

Katy Mullins’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming from such journals as The Baltimore Review, Brevity, and Hong Kong Review, among others. She serves on the Nimrod editorial board and currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Anita Trimbur holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pittsburgh. Her fiction has been longlisted for the SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction. Currently, she is working on late drafts of her novel.

Saturday, November 7th, 10:00 a.m. Central Standard Time (11:00 a.m. Eastern / 9:00 a.m. Mountain / 8:00 a.m. Pacific)

Awards 42 Book Launch: A Reading with Mohit Manohar and Gage Saylor
Reading and Author Chat

Join us as we celebrate the winners of Nimrod’s 42nd Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction: First Prize-winner Mohit Manohar and Second Prize-winner Gage Saylor. Mohit and Gage will read their winning stories, and we’ll chat with them about fiction, their tips for aspiring writers, what’s next for them, and more.

Mohit Manohar was raised in India and came to the U.S. for his higher education. His debut short story appeared last year in Michigan Quarterly Review and received a PEN/Robert J. Dau Prize.  The First Prize-winner of Nimrod’s 2020 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, he is currently a graduate student in art history at Yale and is working on a dissertation set in medieval India and a novel set in contemporary India.

Gage Saylor is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in fiction at Oklahoma State University. He holds an M.A. and M.F.A. from McNeese State University, where he received the Robert Olen Butler Award for Fiction and the Paul-Avee Prize. The Second Prize-winner of Nimrod’s 2020 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, he has work published or forthcoming in Superstition Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Passages North, and elsewhere.

Saturday, November 7th, 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time (2:00 p.m. Eastern / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific)

The World We Want: A Generative Workshop — Aurora Masum-Javed
Craft Talk/Workshop

Resistance requires imagination. It asks us to see beyond what is broken toward what could exist. Often, we create those spaces of change: at the bus stop, in our living rooms, on the dance floor. In this generative workshop, we’ll look to work that explores the power of joy, grief, and listening—the ode that emerges in spite of. We’ll write our gratitude for these everyday liberations. And we’ll mourn the devastation that is. We’ll consider pieces that demand the seemingly impossible—peace, universal outrage—and we’ll create our own poetic visions. Even in this moment of profound loss and isolation, there is community and the possibility of transformation. We will keep dreaming, fighting, reaching for each other. We will create work for what the world should be.

Aurora Masum-Javed is a poet, educator, and writing coach. A former public school teacher, she holds an M.F.A. from Cornell University, where she also lectured. Her work can be found in journals including Nimrod, Black Warrior Review, Aster(ix), and Winter Tangerine. She is a member of Nimrod’s editorial board and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Millay Colony, Caldera Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Kundiman, Callaloo, BOAAT, and elsewhere. A Philip Roth Resident and Hub City Writer in Residence, she is working on her first collection of poems.

Saturday, November 7th, 5:00 p.m. Central Standard Time (6:00 p.m. Eastern / 4:00 p.m. Mountain / 3:00 p.m. Pacific)

Women of Color: Writing with an Authentic Voice — Lisa Horiuchi, Sandra Hunter (moderator), Aurora Masum-Javed, Lynne Thompson, Sholeh Wolpé
Panel Discussion

In this panel we’ll discuss what writing with an authentic voice means. The panelists will discuss their own work and offer ideas for women of color aiming to present original and compelling writing. The audience is encouraged to submit questions via chat.

Lisa Horiuchi’s work appears in Nimrod and Conjunctions, and her novelette, Bones, is anthologized in the Ploughshares Solos series. A former business strategist, she received her M.F.A. in fiction from The University of California, Irvine, and is currently working on a novel. She is also a member of the Nimrod editorial board.

Sandra Hunter is the founder of the Writers Festival in Ventura County. She teaches creative writing at Moorpark College in California. Her fiction won the 2018 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, the 2017 Leapfrog Press Fiction Award, and the 2016 Gold Line Press Chapbook Prize. She is a 2018 Hawthornden Fellow and the 2017 Charlotte Sheedy Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. She is also member of Nimrod’s Editorial board,

Aurora Masum-Javed is a poet, educator, and writing coach. A former public school teacher, she holds an M.F.A. from Cornell University, where she also lectured. Her work can be found in journals including Nimrod, Black Warrior Review, Aster(ix), and Winter Tangerine. She is a member of Nimrod’s editorial board and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Millay Colony, Caldera Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Kundiman, Callaloo, BOAAT, and elsewhere. A Philip Roth Resident and Hub City Writer in Residence, she is working on her first collection of poems.

Lynne Thompson is the author of Start With a Small Guitar, Beg No Pardon, winner of the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award, and Fretwork, selected by Jane Hirshfield for the Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize in 2019. Thompson’s recent work appears in or is forthcoming from Ploughshares, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, december, and Best American Poetry 2020.

Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-born poet and playwright. Her work includes more than twelve collections of poetry, books of translations, and anthologies, as well as several plays. She is the recipient of the 2014 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, the 2013 Midwest Book Award, and the 2010 Lois Roth Persian Translation prize, and her most recent books include Keeping Time With Blue Hyacinth and The Conference of the Birds (W.W. Norton). She is currently the Writer-in-Residence at the University of California, Irvine. Her website is www.sholehwolpe.com.

Sunday, November 8th, 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time (2:00 p.m. Eastern / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific)

Poetry Is but a Dream: Using Dream Analysis for Poetry Revisions — Courtney Spohn
Craft Talk/Workshop

This hands-on workshop is for any writer with a poem that’s goodbut not quite superb. We’ll apply a simple dream analysis technique (see post on the Nimrod blog) to your poem to gain new insight into the work. You’ll be asked to access your intuition and to connect to your body using your non-dominant hand. This method is intended to be both playful and meaningful—with no pressure to go about the technique any certain way. Participants will be welcome but not required to share their revisions and comments on the technique as time permits. Please bring a poem you are interested in revising.

Courtney Spohn lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she has participated in various poetry readings. Her work has appeared, with Sheila E. Black, in Otoliths. She is a member of Nimrod’s editorial board, and she helps others learn to talk to themselves in a kind way through her life coaching at courtneyspohn.com.

Wednesday, November 11th, 7:00 p.m. Central Standard Time (8:00 p.m. Eastern / 6:00 p.m. Mountain / 5:00 p.m. Pacific)

Honoring the Journey: A Poetry Workshop on Creating through Loss and Pain — Kimberly Ann Priest
Craft Talk/Workshop

[This craft talk/workshop is currently full. To be added to the waitlist in case of any cancellations, please email nimrod@utulsa.edu with your name and the title of this session, along with a brief note saying you would like to be added to the waitlist.]

Emotions that arise from loss—such as grief, fear, and depression—can be difficult to process, especially when they’re stigmatized in public spaces or dismissed by those close to us. Psychology has long recognized the value of art in working through these emotions—because the act of creation,making things, is empowering. In this workshop, we’ll use personal objects to stimulate memory and create litany poems memorializing our experiences with loss. Attendees should have chosen an object beforethe workshop begins.

Kimberly Ann Priestis the author of Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress Publications 2021) and the chapbooks Still Life (PANK 2020), Parrot Flower(Glass 2020), and White Goat Black Sheep (FLP 2018). She is currently an assistant professor of first-year writing at Michigan State University, a fiction editor for Nimrod,and an Embody reader for The Maine Review. You can find her work at kimberlyannpriest.com.

Friday, November 13th, 7:00 p.m. Central Standard Time (8:00 p.m. Eastern / 6:00 p.m. Mountain / 5:00 p.m. Pacific)

Re/Genesis: Reinventing Genesis for the 21st Century — Scott Chalupa
Craft Talk/Workshop

[This craft talk/workshop is currently full. To be added to the waitlist in case of any cancellations, please email nimrod@utulsa.edu with your name and the title of this session, along with a brief note saying you would like to be added to the waitlist.]

In Paradise Lost, Milton infused the sparse text of Genesis with cutting-edge biology and astronomy and gave us fleshy characters rounded out with human failures and desires. The writers of the television show Lucifer reinvented Eve as a woman without a self-determined identity (beyond her arranged marriage to Adam and her deep infatuation with Lucifer). In this workshop, we’ll explore how poets have revised and updated Genesis tales to fit contemporary times and trials. We’ll then turn our sights and pens to writing some poetic reinterpretations of our own.

Scott Chalupa is the author of Quarantine (PANK 2019). He lives and writes in South Carolina, where he teaches at Central Carolina Technical College. His current creative obsession is queering Biblical text and history in order to comment on the world today. His work has appeared in PANK, pacificREVIEW, Nimrod, Beloit Poetry Journal, The South Atlantic Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and other venues. He is also a member of Nimrod’s editorial board.

Saturday, November 14th, 5:00 p.m. Central Standard Time (6:00 p.m. Eastern / 4:00 p.m. Mountain / 3:00 p.m. Pacific)

Women of Color: Writing for BLM and Social Justice — Sandra Hunter (moderator), Pat Payne, Adrienne Perry, Yasamin Safarzadeh, Crystal AC Salas
Panel Discussion

Against the apocalyptic backdrop of the pandemic, fires, hurricanes–not to mention the imminent election—we’re witnessing nationwide protests and calls for defunding the police in response to police shootings. How do writers respond to all this? Our panel will discuss the importance of writing to truth and how to approach writing for social justice. The audience is encouraged to submit questions via chat.

Sandra Hunter is the founder of the Writers Festival in Ventura County, CA. She teaches creative writing at Moorpark College. Her fiction won the 2018 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, the 2017 Leapfrog Press Fiction Award, and the 2016 Gold Line Press Chapbook Prize. She is a 2018 Hawthornden Fellow and the 2017 Charlotte Sheedy Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. She is also a member of Nimrod’s Editorial board.

Pat Payne, aka The Velvet Hammer, is a multifaceted creative being, reluctant shaman, and self-avowed troublemaker. She is the reigning two-time Taos Poetry Circus Heavyweight Champion, a Los Angeles Moth StorySLAM champion, founding member of the NeoSpinsters poetry ensemble, and former member of the Taco Shop Poets. She is also a visual and performance artist and jewelry designer.

Adrienne Perry is a Kimbilio Fellow, Hedgebrook alumna, and a member of the Rabble Collective. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She writes and teaches outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and she is a member of the Nimrod editorial board.

Yasamin Safarzadeh is a recent M.F.A. recipient from the New Hampshire Institute of Art and a current M.B.A .candidate at Southern New Hampshire University. She has moved to New Hampshire from Los Angeles in order to pursue a more natural and diligent lifestyle. She has been published in a handful of periodicals and journals, and is currently fulfilling several commissions for paintings. She works for YWCA New Hampshire and the Currier Museum of Art, creating accessibility to the arts for often underserved populations. Her website is www.surethingyaz.com.

Crystal AC Salas is a Chicanx poet, essayist, educator, and community organizer. Her work has appeared in [PANK] Magazine, PCC Inscape, Chaparral Poetry, The Acentos Review, and other publications. She lives in Los Angeles where she writes about community landscapes of grief, remembrance, and memorialized and un-memorialized spaces. She is currently completing her M.F.A. at the University of California, Riverside and is working on two manuscripts.

Wednesday, November 18th, 7:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (8:30 p.m. Eastern / 6:30 p.m. Mountain / 5:30 p.m. Pacific)

Young Writers under 25: Performing Arts and Playwriting as a Vehicle for Social Change — Kevin Butt, Aliya Hunter, Sandra Hunter (moderator), Arden Siadek, Jillian Yong
Panel Discussion

Theatre for Social Change (TFSC) is a student-run organization at the University of California, Davis. TFSC works to give marginalized students and allies a platform to share their art, ideas, and voices, and the organization is devoted to exploring social issues through performance by producing their own events, including student-written works, and via collaborations with other organizations. In this panel, four board members will answer questions about using theatre and playwriting as a vehicle for exploring complex social issues experienced in our daily lives.

Kevin Butt is a graduate student in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis. He is one of the original founding members of Theatre For Social Change. Kevin is very passionate about education and the intersectionality of social justice, performing arts, and the social sciences. He currently teaches at a charter school in Inglewood, California, and for S.M.A.S.H Academy.

Aliya Hunter is a fourth-year Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies major the University of California, Davis. She is one of the Event Directors of TFSC.

Sandra Hunter is the founder of the Writers Festival in Ventura County. She teaches creative writing at Moorpark College, California. Her fiction won the 2018 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, the 2017 Leapfrog Press Fiction Award, and the 2016 Gold Line Press Chapbook Prize. She is a 2018 Hawthornden Fellow and the 2017 Charlotte Sheedy Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. She is also member of Nimrod’s editorial board.

Nicole (Cole) Wagoner is a UC Davis freshman at UC Davis who has been involved in musical theatre for 11 years. She is a Hxstorian for Theatre for Social Change. She is passionate about writing plays, novels, poetry, and music.

Kaiden Zaldumbide is a a Latinx genderqueer artst, actor, and playwright. They are currently third-year Studio Art and Theater and Dance double major at the University of California, Davis. Kaiden’s work typically focuses on minority struggles, exploration into the human experience and human psychology. Their pronouns are he/they, and they are the Grant Coordinator for Theater for Social Change.

Nimrod Write Night

Friday, October 18th, 2019
Tulsa Historical Society and Museum
2445 S. Peoria Ave.

Author Reception and Chat
with Contest Judges Kim Addonizio and Margot Livesey

Join us for the Conference kick-off at Write Night 2019! At Write Night you can mingle with all our Conference guest authors during our Author Reception, featuring delicious food from Duet, and then join us for a special Author Chat with poet Kim Addonizio and fiction writer Margot Livesey.

Author Reception (Light Bites and Cash Bar): 6:30-7:00 p.m.
Author Chat and Book Signing: 7:00-8:30 p.m.

Write Night is presented in conjunction with Magic City Books and co-sponsored by The University of Tulsa’s Creative Writing Program.

Write Night is FREE and open to the public. 

 

Conference for Readers and Writers

Saturday, October 19th, 2019
The University of Tulsa
Allen Chapman Student Union
440 S. Gary Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74104

Join us for a full day of panel discussions, writing workshops in multiple genres, one-on-one editing sessions, novel-query critiques, and readings led by acclaimed authors, editors, and agents at our 41st annual Conference for Readers and Writers.

 

Registration

Early Bird Registration: Open through Sept. 14th: $50.00
Regular Registration: Open Sept 15th – Oct. 15th: $60.00
Scholarship Applicant Regular Registration: Open through Oct. 15th: $10.00

Late Registration Prices: $70 (regular) and $15 (scholarship) at the door.
Please note that we can accept cash or checks for Late Registration Conference fees, but not credit cards. There is, however, an ATM on the first floor of the Student Union, located on the east side of the building near the Chick-fil-A, and we encourage participants to utilize it if needed before coming upstairs to the Late Registration table, located on the east side of the upper floor.

Register Online for the Conference

Printable Registration Form

Conference Schedule

9:30 a.m.: LATE REGISTRATION 

10:00 a.m.: PANEL DISCUSSIONS (Concurrent Sessions)

Trigger Warning: How We Write the Hard Stuff
Steve Bellin-Oka, Rachel Howzell Hall, Matt W. Miller, Francine Ringold

Writing about traumatic topics—from the actual writing to presenting that work to readers—can be challenging. Our authors will discuss how they write about the hard stuff, how to frame difficult stories to enact empowerment and agency, and more.

Timely vs. Timeless: Balancing Hot Topics and Lasting Literature
Rhys Martin, Anna-Marie McLemore, Katy Mullins, Robert Thomas, Jonathan Wei

We’ve all read work that obviously was timely when it was written but that feels dated or out of touch a few years later. Our authors will discuss how they strike a balance between what’s topical and what’s timeless, techniques they use to make sure their presentation of “hot” subject matter will be relevant in years to come, and more.

Editing and Publishing: Q&A
Kim Addonizio, Margot Livesey, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Eilis O’Neal, Jennifer Udden

Have questions about getting your work ready to submit or about the publishing industry in general? Our authors, editors, and agent will answer audience questions about anything and everything publishing. Editing, revising, the role of literary agents, writing query letters, traditional vs. small press vs. self-publishing, using social media—it’s all on the table in this open Q&A session!

M.F.A. and M.A. Programs: Are They Right for You?
Traci Brimhall, D. E. Chandler, John Moessner, Colin Pope, Vilune Sestokaite

Though a degree in Creative Writing is by no means necessary to be a “real writer,” it’s a path that can improve your writing, let you learn from the best, and lead to lasting connections between both students and faculty. Our panelists will discuss their experiences with their degree programs, including the types of degrees available, how they chose their schools, how they funded their education, why (and why not) to get a degree in Creative Writing, and more.

10:45 a.m.: MORNING WORKSHOPS (Concurrent Sessions)

Hush, Shut Up, Please Be Quiet: How to Write Better Dialogue — Margot Livesey
Hush. Please be quiet. Put a sock in it. May I kindly have your attention? These all convey the same basic request, but they convey it very differently, with nuances that give us key insights into the speakers via their dialogue. We’ll discuss dialogue, when and how to write it, and how to make it sparkle.

Persona Poems: Speaking in Someone Else’s Voice — Jeanetta Calhoun Mish
Persona poems, in the form of dramatic monologues or “alter-ego” poems, may appear simple on the surface, but creating and maintaining a consistent persona that feels compelling and authentic to the reader can be difficult. We’ll take a look at successful persona poems, talk about why they work, and write some of our own.

Triggering Tulsa: Finding and Honing the Poetry of Place — Matt W. Miller and Robert Thomas
Tyler Malone wrote, “The city is character; it breathes its own life, speaks in its own tongue, moves to its own rhythms.” We’ll explore the ways in which we use image, language, form, and sound to portray our neighborhoods, our towns, and our cities. We’ll look for ways to capture the truth of a place and its people in poetry and how to resist sentimentality while welcoming a place’s own particular mythology.

Unpossessed: Reconsidering the Demonized in YA and Speculative Fiction — Anna-Marie McLemore
The wicked queen. The madwoman in the attic. The Black Swan. The tension in archetypal stories often hinges on the demonization of a particular kind of character. But what do we learn by reconsidering these characters? What do they become when we look past their traditional roles? By reexamining a few archetypal figures, we’ll explore ways to deepen both protagonists and antagonists.

The Way We See Now: Poems and Stories Inspired by Art — Francine Ringold
The tradition of ekphrastics, poems and stories inspired by works of visual art, is an adventure in collaboration. Light, line, color, and form speak of things beyond the subject being photographed or painted, offering a wealth of material to writers. We’ll explore ways to combine art with fiction and poetry in ways that surprise and delight.

Publishing: Contracts 101 — Jennifer Udden
So you’ve sold your story/poem/novel—or hope to sell one in the future. But with a sale comes a contract, and the density of information about rights, territories, options, non-compete clauses, etc., can be daunting to new—and even seasoned—writers. We’ll discuss the basic structure of a publishing contract, aiming to demystify this important aspect of the publishing world.

12:00 p.m.: LUNCH AND 41ST ANNUAL NIMROD LITERARY AWARDS CEREMONY

1:35 p.m.: AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS (Concurrent Sessions)

Revise Your Poem Without Killing It — Kim Addonizio
Okay, sometimes you have to kill it, but there’s a lot you can try before taking your poem off life-support. We’ll talk about obstacles to revision as well as look at some strategies that can make it fun to wade back into a poem. We’ll also take a look at some revisions, large and small, by other writers, to see how their decisions made their work stronger.

Then There Was the Bad Weather: Opening Your Story — Jonathan Wei
A story’s opening is its handshake, a first impression that needs to engage the narrative and engage the reader. What makes an opening work or not? We’ll talk about the many details that come together for a great opening in fiction—point of view, concealment/revelation, characterization, voice, scene, and more—and how to use them to pull the reader into your story.

I’m Not Throwing Away . . . My Plot — Rachel Howzell Hall
We often think about plot as one of the most vital aspects of a good mystery novel. But mysteries are more than plots. They’re also character, setting, and voice. Learn about each element of mystery—and leave with a few writing hacks and a clearer vision of the story you want to tell.

Crowdsourcing Research: Creative Nonfiction — Rhys Martin
Research is one of the bywords of writing creative nonfiction, but what do you do when your pool of traditional resources is shallow? We’ll dig into the research process and the evolving role of social media and other crowdsourcing in popular research and how they can make all sorts of creative nonfiction stronger.

Writing Companions: The Joy of Minds Creating Together — Sara N. Beam and Holly Clay-Buck
Sometimes two minds are better than one. Collaborative writing can open new doors for writers, but writing collaboratively can be a skill all on its own. We’ll share information about working together during the entire writing process, managing time for two, making use of digital tools to work together at a distance, and more. This workshop is suitable for writers of all genres and writers with and without current collaborators. Writers with current collaborators are encouraged to attend with their partner if possible.

Novel-Query Critique Sessions — Jennifer Udden
Meet one on one with literary agent Jennifer Udden for a critique of your one-page query letter for your novel. Pre-registration is required and materials must be received by October 12th. Each session is 5 minutes long. Novels may be in any genre. Sessions are limited—enroll early to ensure a spot.

3:00 p.m.: READINGS AND EDITING SESSIONS

Invitational Readings
Rachel Howzell Hall, Rhys Martin, Anna-Marie McLemore, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Francine Ringold

One-on-One Editing Sessions
Meet one on one with a Nimrod editor who will help you revise your work. Submit 2-3 pages of poetry or 4-5 pages of fiction or nonfiction. Pre-registration is required and materials must be received by October 12th. Each session is 15 minutes long.

4:00 p.m.: BOOK SIGNING

Workshop Leaders

 

Kim Addonizio, judge for Nimrod’s 2019 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently Mortal Trash: Poems, as well as two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and she was a National Book Award Finalist for her collection Tell Me.

Sara N. Beam is on the faculty of English at The University of Tulsa, where she also serves as the Writing Program Director. She is the lead editor of and a contributor to Voices from the Heartland, vol. 2, an anthology of Oklahoma women’s personal stories. She is a member of the Nimrod Editorial Board.

Steve Bellin-Oka is the author of a chapbook of poems, Dead Letter Office at North Atlantic Station. His first book of poems, Instructions for Seeing a Ghost, won the 2019 Vassar Miller Prize from the University of North Texas Press. He is a 2019 Tulsa Artist Fellow in poetry and a member of the Nimrod Editorial Board.

Traci Brimhall is an associate professor and director of creative writing at Kansas State University. She is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Saudade. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Orion, The Nation, Poetry, and Best American Poetry.

D.E. Chandler is in her third semester at the Red Earth Low Residency M.F.A. for Creative Writing at Oklahoma City University. She is the author of Bone Sliver and Nova Wave, and her short works have appeared in the Tulsa Review, Blackbird’s Third Flight, and other publications.

Holly Clay-Buck is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Developmental Studies at Rogers State University. Her focuses in writing are organization, simplification, and emotional provocation.

Rachel Howzell Hall is the author of five mystery novels, including the Detective Elouise Norton series and, most recently, They All Fall Down. She was a contributor to NPR’s Crime in the City series, and she serves on the Board of Directors for the Mystery Writers of America.

Margot Livesey, judge for Nimrod’s 2019 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, is the author of eight novels, most recently Mercury, as well as a short story collection and a book of essays. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others, and she currently teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Rhys Martin is the author of the nonfiction book Lost Restaurants of Tulsa. A travel writer and photographer, he has had work featured in several publications, including Tulsa People Magazine, Route 66 Magazine, Nimrod, Inbound Asia Magazine, The Oklahoman, and the Tulsa World.

Anna-Marie McLemore is the author of four young adult fantasy novels, most recently Blanca and Roja. Her first novel, The Weight of Feathers, was a William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist, and When the Moon Was Ours was longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature.

Matt W. Miller is the 2019 Second Prize winner of Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. He is the author of The Wounded for the Water, Club Icarus, and Cameo Diner.

Jeanetta Calhoun Mish is the author of three books of poetry, most recently What I Learned at the War. She was a winner of the Oklahoma Book Award for her collection Work Is Love Made Visible, was appointed Oklahoma’s Poet Laureate in 2017, and is the founding editor of Mongrel Empire Press.

John Moessner received his M.F.A. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2018 and served as the Writers for Readers Fellow at Literacy KC from 2017 to 2018. His poems have appeared or will appear in American Chordata, Natural Bridge, I-70 Review, River Styx, and The Main Street Rag.

Katy Mullins’s short fiction has been published in journals such as Bayou Magazine, Crack the Spine, Inscape Magazine, and South Dakota Review. She is a member of the Nimrod Editorial Board.

Eilis O’Neal, Nimrod’s Editor-in-Chief, is the author of the young adult fantasy novel The False Princess. Her short fantasy has appeared in Strange Horizons, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and other publications.

Colin Pope holds an M.F.A. from Texas State University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Oklahoma State. His debut poetry collection, Why I Didn’t Go to Your Funeral, was a finalist for the Press 53 Award. He is a member of the Nimrod Editorial Board.

Francine Ringold, Nimrod’s Senior Advisory Editor, completed two terms as Oklahoma’s Poet Laureate. She is a two-time winner of the Oklahoma Book Award. Her latest books are From Birth to Birth: My Memoir—and a Guide for Yours and The Way We See Now, a collaboration of art and poetry.

Vilune Sestokaite is a candidate for her M.A. in English with a focus in Creative Writing at Kansas State University. Her preferred genre is creative non-fiction, where she enjoys exploring her Lithuanian-American and first-generation identity.

Robert Thomas is the 2019 First Prize winner of Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. He is the author of two books of poetry, most recently Dragging the Lake, and the lyrical novella Bridge.

Jennifer Udden is an agent with New Leaf Literary. She previously worked as an agent with Barry Goldblatt Literary and Donald Maas Literary Agency, and she is the co-host (with Bridget Smith of Dunham Literary) of the podcast Shipping & Handling.

Jonathan Wei is the 2019 First Prize Winner of Nimrod’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. His work has appeared in the Village Voice, Iowa Review, North American Review, Glimmer Train, and other publications.

A supplement to the biographical notes will be available at the conference and will introduce our one-on-one editors in more detail.

Additional Information

Saturday Conference registration includes workshops, panel discussions, readings, lunch (including vegetarian options), query sessions, and one-on-one editing sessions.

Pre-registration is required for participation in one-on-one editing sessions and novel-query critique sessions and must be received along with your work by Oct. 12th. One-on-one sessions and novel-query critique sessions are limited, so register early to ensure a spot. All panel discussions and group classes are open on a first-come, first-served basis. Registrants may attend one morning panel discussion, one morning masterclass, and one afternoon masterclass, as well as the entire reading from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. and the book signing afterward.  Afternoon one-on-one editing participants may move from their sessions to the Invitational Readings as time permits.

Scholarships to attend are available, particularly for students. For scholarship information, call 918-631-3080 or email nimrod@utulsa.edu.

Professional development credit is available for Tulsa Public Schools teachers.

 

Hotel Information

The Hyatt Regency at 100 E. 2nd St. in downtown Tulsa is the official Conference hotel. Conference attendees can receive a discounted hotel rate of $101 per night. To make a booking with this special rate, please use the following link. Rooms must be reserved by September 30th to receive this special rate.

After that time, we recommend any downtown hotel, most of which are a five-minute drive to campus, or the Campbell Hotel for those who wish to be within walking distance of campus.

 

Parking

Conference guests can park in any lot at TU. Nearby parking lots include the Union Lot, the McFarlin Library Lot, and the LPC lot (all circled in red in the FAQ question below), followed by the 4th and College South Lot, and the Keplinger/Law School Lot at Florence and 4th Pl. (Please note that the Union Lot is small, and we request that those who are able to walk farther allow those with less mobility to park there.) For a map of TU’s campus and parking options, please see our FAQ below.

 

Yes. We offer a vegetarian sandwich, as well as vegetarian sides and cookies. If you have special dietary needs beyond this, please email our staff at nimrod@utulsa.edu with your specific needs.

Conference guests can park in any lot at TU. Nearby parking lots include the Union Lot, the McFarlin Library Lot and the LPC Lot, followed by the 4th and College South Lot, and the Keplinger/Law School Lot at Florence and 4th Pl. (Please note that the Union Lot is small, and we request that those who are able to walk farther allow those with less mobility to park there.) You can view a map of TU below, with the nearest lots circled in red, or view parking options here.

 

 

Hotel information for 2020 TBA.

Part of our commitment to the discovery and promotion of new writers is to make sure that all writers who wish to attend the Conference can, regardless of income. Scholarship registration is open to writers of all ages. Our only request is that, if you are able to pay the standard registration fee, you do so, knowing that these fees allow us to host the Conference and are part of what allow us to offer scholarships to other writers. If, however, the standard registration fee would pose a financial burden for you, we encourage you to register as a scholarship student.

 

Pre-registration for scholarship recipients is $10, and Late Registration is $15. If you register online, there will be a box to select this option and a form to briefly explain your reason for seeking a scholarship. If you are registering by mail, please select the scholarship payment option and include a short note briefly explaining your reason for seeking a scholarship, In either case, if you are a student, please also include your school’s name.

We recommend that you bring a notebook and a writing utensil, as many workshops will offer writing exercises. We will have water and coffee available throughout the day; feel free to bring your own cup/thermos to reduce waste.

Yes. Our conference is designed to accommodate writers from all backgrounds and publication histories, including those who are just starting out.

Yes. Our conference is designed to accommodate writers from all backgrounds and publication histories. While we offer workshops and classes that are accessible to beginning writers, our workshop leaders and guests work to meet writers at any stage in their careers. Some workshops might appeal more to beginners than to experienced writers, and vice versa, but all workshops are designed with diversity and accessibility in mind. And the conference is a great place for networking, too!

Yes. We have participants of all ages at the conference, from high school students to senior citizens and everyone in between.

Registration and some classes/events will take place on the second floor of the Allen Chapman Student Union, but some classes will take place in an adjacent building. If you require special assistance to reach classes outside the main building, or have any other special needs, please let us know so we can make arrangements to assist you, or speak to a volunteer at the registration table if you are attending Late Registration. The Student Union elevator is located on the west side of the building, across from Subway.

TU does have a guest wifi network that Conference participants may connect to: TUGuest. Please note, though, that is can be a little spotty in the Student Union, so we can’t guarantee access at any given time.

Don’t be nervous. Really! Our conference is a relaxed, informal, and just plain fun day. We don’t stand on ceremony here, and there will be writers of all ages, experience levels, and publishing histories joining us. We often hear from attendees that they’ve met new writing friends and partners at the conference, but you can also fly solo if that’s more your style. So come out and give the conference a try–we think you’ll like it. And if there are any questions that we can answer to make you feel more comfortable, please email or call us and we’ll happily chat with you.