After 23 years teaching in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts -- and loving it -- I retired in June 2010 'cause my eyes can no longer handle all the work on-line.
I'm still available for teaching and creative writing workshops as I've done at the Orcas Island Writers Festival, Evergreen State College, University of Redlands, Eastern Washington State University and more.
Also: Creative workshops I developed working with high school kids, adjudicated youth in lockup and on probation, and children in the foster-care system aimed at boosting literacy, critical thinking, and articulate self-expression. I led a weeklong series of Spanish-language workshops demonstrating some of these techniques (for getting people to write who think they can't) at the International Theatre Festival for Peace in Barrancabermeja, Colombia in May 2011. It was a great experience as the workshop brought together children, teens and college students, curious adults, and rural teachers.
2011 - here's special programs I've offered on specific subject matter:
"What We [Think We] Know About Torture" - presentation for the Media Literacy course at California Sate University-Fullerton.
Introduction to Political Theatre workshop - Prescott College, Arizona
"The Ecology of War and Peace in Colombia" - Prescott College
Traditional critique workshops for writers of fiction, nonfiction, and plays.
Theatre exercises geared to writers and students of all sorts to open the imagination and explore three-dimensional characters.
Or: "Future-Forward." That's the title of a story I read on Orcas Island (published in The Ampersand, Volume V). The local women's shelter asked for a copy to use to facilitate discussion and reflection. Poet laureate and Renaissance man Al Young suggested I find an actress to learn the piece as a monologue. I decided to learn it myself and premiered it as a performance in April 2010 at Writers with Drinks in San Francisco and at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA. I'm now using the performance to jumpstart creativity for participants in literary or in social service-oriented workshops or, as I did recently for high school and college student activists attending Peace Camp 2010 in the Santa Monica Mountains. Here's a link to my account of the crash course in street theatre I offered at Peace Camp, written for Cynthia Newberry Martin's literary blog, Catching Days. I've just been invited back to offer a new workshop at Peace Camp 2011.
I'm working on a Spanish-language version to perform in Bolivia in February. Ay! Trying to replace my Mexican slang with Bolivian slang!
Editorial and critique services at the rate of $75/hour.
Contact: DianeLefer@gmail.com
I'm still available for teaching and creative writing workshops as I've done at the Orcas Island Writers Festival, Evergreen State College, University of Redlands, Eastern Washington State University and more.
Also: Creative workshops I developed working with high school kids, adjudicated youth in lockup and on probation, and children in the foster-care system aimed at boosting literacy, critical thinking, and articulate self-expression. I led a weeklong series of Spanish-language workshops demonstrating some of these techniques (for getting people to write who think they can't) at the International Theatre Festival for Peace in Barrancabermeja, Colombia in May 2011. It was a great experience as the workshop brought together children, teens and college students, curious adults, and rural teachers.
2011 - here's special programs I've offered on specific subject matter:
"What We [Think We] Know About Torture" - presentation for the Media Literacy course at California Sate University-Fullerton.
Introduction to Political Theatre workshop - Prescott College, Arizona
"The Ecology of War and Peace in Colombia" - Prescott College
Traditional critique workshops for writers of fiction, nonfiction, and plays.
Theatre exercises geared to writers and students of all sorts to open the imagination and explore three-dimensional characters.
Or: "Future-Forward." That's the title of a story I read on Orcas Island (published in The Ampersand, Volume V). The local women's shelter asked for a copy to use to facilitate discussion and reflection. Poet laureate and Renaissance man Al Young suggested I find an actress to learn the piece as a monologue. I decided to learn it myself and premiered it as a performance in April 2010 at Writers with Drinks in San Francisco and at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA. I'm now using the performance to jumpstart creativity for participants in literary or in social service-oriented workshops or, as I did recently for high school and college student activists attending Peace Camp 2010 in the Santa Monica Mountains. Here's a link to my account of the crash course in street theatre I offered at Peace Camp, written for Cynthia Newberry Martin's literary blog, Catching Days. I've just been invited back to offer a new workshop at Peace Camp 2011.
I'm working on a Spanish-language version to perform in Bolivia in February. Ay! Trying to replace my Mexican slang with Bolivian slang!
Editorial and critique services at the rate of $75/hour.
Contact: DianeLefer@gmail.com
Words Overflown by Stars: Creative Writing Instruction and Insight from the Vermont College MFA Program
Reading my colleagues' essays gave me the chance to learn at least a little of what they offer our students. Poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction (which I refuse to call CNF which sounds like a disease in search of a telethon). I'm in here, too.
