| Words Away
Writing & Editing: the inside
story
presented by the Aspen Writers’ Foundation
and Anderson Ranch Arts Center
Good Hope Plantation, Jamaica
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In November 2004, the Aspen Writers’ Foundation
was pleased to partner with Anderson Ranch Arts Center
to present a one-week fiction workshop at Jamaica’s
Good
Hope Plantation.
Jamaica
The field expeditions to Jamaica have become increasingly
popular since Anderson Ranch first offered a ceramics
workshop here eight years ago. Participants in these special
trips — now featuring workshops in creative writing,
photography, painting, and more — find the lush
environment and cultural stimulation of this amazing country
to be a true inspiration for their artmaking.
Jamaica workshops are based at the Good Hope Great House.
Built in the classic Georgian style in 1755, this mansion
was headquarters of one of Jamaica’s largest and
most prosperous sugar plantations. The 2,000-acre estate
is still active in growing fruits and flowers, and raising
horses and cattle.
The writing workshop is held in the open-air yoga studio
adjacent to the Great House. Rooms, furnished with antique
furniture and canopied beds, look out over the Queen of
Spain Valley and the meandering Martha Brae River.
Course description
The workshop will focus on structure, metaphor, image,
voice, plot possibilities and, always, on the sentence
itself, each and every word. The workshop will begin with
exercises that will address these issues specifically
and also open the door to longer pieces that the writers
will work on outside of class.
We will talk about the why and how of writing, about
ways to get ourselves to jump past all the self-imposed
hurdles. We will talk about a few stories we'll read together,
and their strengths and weaknesses. We'll take a good
long look at the commons sense and high-flown purpose
of LeGuin and Gardner. We will move from there into the
manuscripts you bring with you, and end the week with
a student reading.
Information
970.925.3122 tel
970.920.5700 fax
info@aspenwriters.org
Jamaica photography courtesy Susan Beckman
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