Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Meacham Writers' Conference, Chattanooga, TN

The Meacham Writers' Conference is held every semester at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Chattanooga State. It is a chance for undergraduate writers to submit fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry in order for their writing to be workshopped by a visiting writer. The conference began on October 24 and ended on October 27, and there are also several public readings each day of the conference. The visting writers included Lee University's Dr. Chad Prevost, Rebecca Cook, Laurel Snyder, Richard Jackson, and Sebastian Matthews, among others.

Because of my busy school and work schedule, my participation in the conference only included the Saturday morning workshop. I submitted a short story, and my piece was group with three creative nonfiction pieces in a workshop by Laurel Snyder. Snyder was a former student and professor at UTC and a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Iowa, one of the nation's leading graduate programs in creative writing. The three other students in my workshop were students at UTC and attended for a nonfiction class requirement, and I know atleast one of the students was an English major with a writing concentration.

As far as the other three pieces go, they had potential, but that was about it. I enjoy reading other writers' work and offering suggestions. Workshopping is really easy for me because even though I am not the best writer, I understand what makes good writing. These workshops gave me an idea of the level the English students of UTC were writing at. I was hoping to find that the writers at UTC were better than I was so I could really learn from the experience. Truthfully, the pieces were either boring, unclear, or completely ridiculous. I was worried that the writers of Lee University were behind the curve, but actually, I think we are ahead (atleast ahead of UTC).

Laurel Snyder was completely helpful as the workshop moderator. She spent plenty of time on each piece (we even ran almost an hour over the scheduled time). The advice and criticism was well-spoken and clear. She did not focus much of positive aspects of the work, just commented enough for the writer to understand and moved on to something that could have been done better.

Disclaimer: Do not attend the Meacham Writers' Conference if you are an introductory writer who cannot take criticism. This workshop was created so writers know what to improve upon, not so they can continue to blindly make the same mistakes. Also, in my workshop, Laurel Snyder used language that might be offensive to sensitive writers.

I would recommend the Meacham Writers' Conference to anyone who enjoys writing, reading, and striving for improvement.

Official website: Meacham Conference
Laurel Snyder's blog: Jewishy Irishy
Laurel Snyder's webzine: Killing the Buddha

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