Creative Writing + Visual Arts Workshop for High School Students
"That was the first time I'd been exposed to other people as interested in writing as myself, and it was truly inspiring. I loved every second."
– Madeline Gobbo, workshop participant
Binford Workshop for Teen Artists + Writers
One-week Workshop
Monday, July 27 to Friday, July 31
Two-week Workshop
Monday, July 27 to Friday, August 7
Students may earn three Marylhurst University credits.
Application
Application Deadline July 1
The workshop accepts applications beginning February 2009. A student is encouraged to apply early, as the workshop fills rapidly. A student receives confirmation within four weeks after receipt of application. Registrations received by July 1, 2009 are given preference.
Creative Writing + Visual Arts Program
The Workshop for Teen Artists + Writers is a two-week seminar in which high school students (ages 14 to 18) receive college-level instruction in creative writing and visual arts.
Located on Marylhurst University's historic campus, the workshop focuses on developing a student's skills as a creative writer, visual artist, critical thinker and observer and a brave performer within a generous, diverse community of learners and writers. The program combines writing and visual arts workshops, broadside/chapbook production and public readings. Seminar-style classes are taught by professional working visual artists and writers of short stories, poetry, fiction and nonfiction.
Workshops
The program includes introductory and advanced workshops in prose and poetry along with introductory workshops in visual arts (photography, graphic design and mixed media).
A student generates material through guided exercises; studies craft through models; and engages in a critical discussion of fellow classmates’ work. By the end of the program, a student produces two complete short stories/memoirs or five to seven poems, along with a small portfolio of photography and design work.
Readings & Shows
Faculty members give public readings and show works of visual art. At open mike night during the first week, a student can share his or her work. The program ends with an all-student art performance to which parents and community members are invited.
Meals
A student brings his or her own lunch, or food can be purchased from the Marylhurst University Bookstore. Pizza and party subs are provided at the early evening readings. The all-student reading and reception on Friday, August 7 is a bring-your-own-food-and-beverage family picnic.
Schedule
Week One
Monday, July 27, 8 am to 3:30 pm
Tuesday, July 28, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Wednesday, July 29, 9 am to 5:30 pm
Thursday, July 30, 9 am to 5:30 pm
Friday, July 31, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Week Two
Monday, August 3, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Tuesday, August 4, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Wednesday, August 5, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Thursday, August 6, 9 am to 5:30 pm
Friday, Augist 7, 9 am to 6 pm
Tuition
Two-week Workshop: $525
One-week Workshop: $375
Scholarships
A limited number of partial and full scholarships are available. Recipients must attend the two-week course. To apply, send registration form (with appropriate box checked) by May 15, 2009. Scholarships are awarded based on need. Students who have financial means to pay for the workshop are asked to not apply for a scholarship.
Faculty
Van Wheeler earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College. He teaches writing and literature seminars at Portland Community College. He has published poems in Southern Poetry Review, Rocky Mountain Review and Forklift.
Hayley Barker is an intermedia artist whose current work consists primarily of drawings and video installations. Her work has been included in shows such as Froelick Gallery, Disjecta and Pacific Switchboard. She teaches at Marylhurst University and PNCA. She earned an MA and MFA in Intermedia from the University of Iowa and an MAT in Art Education from Lewis & Clark College.
Natalie Serber is a recipient of the John Steinbeck Award for Short Fiction, the H.E. Francis Award for Fiction, the San Francisco PEN Women's Fiction Award and the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction. Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, Inkwell Magazine, Bellingham Review, and the anthology Airfare: Poems, Stories and Essays on Flying. She received an MFA from Warren Wilson College.
Gina Colantino, an alumna of Marylhurst University, is currently a student in the MFA program at New Mexico State University. She has published fiction in M Review. She lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Heather Madden is a visiting assistant professor of creative writing at Hampshire College and the managing editor of Salamander. She has taught at Mansfield University, New Mexico State University and Ivy Tech Community College.
Jay Ponteri earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College. An associate professor in the English Literature & Writing Department at Marylhurst University, he teaches seminars in short prose, fiction writing and contemporary literature. He has published prose in Seattle Review, Puerto Del Sol, Clackamas Literary Review, Eye-Rhyme: A Journal of New Literature, Northwest Edge iii, Cimarron Review and Del Sol Review.
Rusty Morrison's the true keeps calm biding its story won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Ahsahta's Sawtooth Prize. Whethering won the Colorado Prize for Poetry. She has received Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay DiCastagnola, Cecil Hemley and Robert H. Winner Memorial Awards. She is co-publisher of Omnidawn Publishing.
Deb Olin Unferth teaches creative writing at the University of Kansas. She is the author of the novel Vacation and the story collection Minor Robberies, both from McSweeney's. Her stories have appeared in Harper's, 3rd Bed and Fence. She is a frequent contributor to McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and NOON.
Zach Plague is the author of the novel Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring. His writing has appeared in M Review, Weird Deer, 55 Words, Take the Handle, THE2NDHAND, Why Vandalism? and Annalemma. His print design includes MAKE Magazine, Hiding Out, No Touching and Bagazine. He was named to Newcity's 2007 list of the top 50 literary figures in Chicago, which is where he lives.
Contact Us
For more information on The Binford Workshop for Teen Artists + Writers, contact Jay Ponteri.
