Overview: 2013 WPF In Your Write Mind Workshop at Seton Hill University

I attended the In Your Write Mind Workshop sponsored by Writing Popular Fiction Alumni at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA, held June 27-30, 2013. This is my perspective as an outsider both to Seton Hill and its “Writing Popular Fiction” program.

My General Background with Seton Hill

Neither Jonathan nor I have ever attended Seton Hill. We both have degrees from other private Catholic Liberal Arts schools in the Pittsburgh area. We live about 30-40 minutes away from the campus, depending on traffic. We have both visited infrequently for special events, and Jonathan took both of the photos in this blog entry a few years ago.

Seton Hill first became coeducational in 2002. My Aunt Sue commuted to Seton Hill to earn her undergraduate degree when the school was still all-female, and she worked at the Seton Hill Daycare briefly. During her time as a student, Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA, was all-male. The two schools are ten miles from each other. They held events together and provided buses so that students from one of these two campuses could take classes at the other. Saint Vincent became co-educational before I started to look at colleges, and Aunt Sue strongly encouraged me to apply to Saint Vincent. While I was at Saint Vincent, the Seton Hill course offerings available to Saint Vincent students were significantly reduced, so I did not take any Seton Hill classes.

In Your Write Mind

Seton Hill’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA was advertised on a billboard near my house, but I don’t remember if this is how I first heard about it. I poked around on the program’s website looking for at least one syllabus so that I could do the readings on my own.

I discovered that the program had inspired  the anthology Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction, edited by Michael A. Arnzen and Heidi Ruby Miller. The contributors all have connections to the Seton Hill program. To quote Michael A. Arnzen on page 11, “Many Genres, One Craft is like a graduate writing program housed between the covers of a book.” I paid Amazon about 20 bucks for my copy of Many Genres, One Craft. Guess who just saved thousands of dollars towards a new retaining wall for her yard? I jest. I liked the book so much that I kept going back to the Writing Popular Fiction website.

A few weeks ago, I found the link for the four-day In Your Write Mind Workshop. I almost skipped this event for the following reasons:

1.) The event was geared primarily towards Seton Hill’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA and MA alum, although registration was open to the public. I have never been to graduate school. I have never even applied, anywhere, for anything. I have nothing against advanced degrees. One of my sisters is a librarian and my father-in-law has a PhD in Rhetoric. I have several other close relatives with masters degrees. However, graduate school was never the best option for me, personally. I worried that I would have trouble talking to all of these people who had more formal education than me.

2.) I was afraid to be around real writers. To borrow from Stephen King’s On Writing, I have never paid a utility bill with my art. I have never even held a paying job with the word “writer” in the title. Several years ago, I attended an author reading at a local bookstore, and I was afraid to speak to the author afterwards while she was signing a book for me because she was a real writer and I was not. One time, I wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper just so that I could see something that I wrote in print, and even that was rejected.

3.) I didn’t know anybody who planned to attend In Your Write Mind, nor did I know anybody who had ever enrolled in the Writing Popular Fiction program.

I ended up registering for all four days of this workshop (Thursday through Sunday) because Jonathan talked me into it. I am in the fortunate position of having extra vacation days that I need to use by the end of December (since I am not a real writer, but instead have a non-creative day job). I live close enough to Seton Hill that I did not need to pay for a hotel room or a plane ticket.

I didn’t sleep very well the night before it started, for the reasons listed previously. I also showed up on campus two hours early for two reasons: 1.) So that I could make sure that I found the correct building, and 2.) In case any of the sessions that I really wanted to attend had limited seating – which turned out to not be an issue. (It almost felt like my first day of class when I started college.)

In regards to the workshop itself, I didn’t pick any of the sessions that required one to bring extra copies of the first five pages of a current project. I didn’t sign up for any of the Individual Agent Pitch and Critique Sessions. However, I attended 17 different 50-minute sessions over the course of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. A choice of two different topics were offered for each time slot.  (I skipped Sunday because were only three modules on Sunday, and even though they were all on topics for which I have an interest, I needed a day to rest up and do laundry clean write this blog entry.) Even though I didn’t have enough courage to show my own work to anybody, I participated in the discussions. In retrospect, I know that I said at least one extremely stupid thing, but I can’t gain anything by dwelling on it. Everybody that I spoke to was excessively friendly. I met other conference attendees who were not alum of the Writing Popular Fiction program either. To my surprise, much of the fiction used as examples in the presentations were books that I had read, or else I had at least seen the movie or read other work by the same author.

Many of the sessions were from contributors of Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction. Since I own and read this anthology, I felt as if I already knew the writers on some level. On Saturday, I saw one attendee have each of these authors sign his copy of Many Genres, One Craft. I wish that I had thought to bring my own copy of the book so that I could do likewise. In my opinion, all of the presenters were excellent,

One of my favorite articles in Many Genres, One Craft was “Tomorrow’s Kiss: The Duality of SF Romance” by Heidi Ruby Miller.  For this reason, I chose to attend a session titled “Thirty-Minute Novel” that she was to present. To my delight, Ms. Miller announced at the beginning of her presentation that the title had changed to “Tomorrow’s Kiss,” and she read excerpts from that piece. (I don’t even read much Science Fiction or Romance, and I have not yet tried to write either of these genres.)

At my current situation in life, committing the time and money to an MFA is not my best option. However, were I to consider the Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill, I believe that the In Your Write Mind workshop gave me a feel for the program and the caliber of the instruction.

As an outsider who is not considering an MFA but who still intends to work on developing her own craft, I would consider attending the workshop next year. I have several pages of notes on my insights and ideas. I enjoyed interacting with multiple authors and hearing stories about the business and lifestyle of their craft. Maybe next time I attend an author reading, I won’t be too scared to speak with the author.

Update 07/13/13: Last night, I found the below-linked video for Michael Arnzen’s lecture titled “Wet Cement: Risk and Transgression in Writing Fiction.” Dr. Arnzen was one of the special guests at the workshop and this is a video of the presentation that he gave there on that Sunday. This was one of the events that I wanted to attend but missed because I stayed home and rested on Sunday. Last night I happily watched this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw4xU-koOAU