The list of authors featured at the upcoming conference is long and illustrious.
The Annual Nimrod Conferences hits TU on Oct. 19 and 20.
Featuring award-winning authors, the conference gives writers guidance and insight into their craft. Students will receive a largely discounted rate of $10.
This year’s Nimrod Conference for Readers and Writers is sure to be a barn-burner. Spanning two days, the weekend is composed of a collection of workshops and panel discussions lead by award-winning authors. The conference has a unique advantage for its attendees: it gives writers an opportunity to sit down with working editors to analyze their prose or poetry.
The kick-off event, on Oct. 19, is Write Night at the Tulsa Garden Center just south of Woodward Park at 21st and Peoria. It is certain to be a serendipitous occasion featuring distinguished authors Rilla Askew, a TU graduate, and Patricia Smith, a former Guggenheim fellow. The immediate draw is a free light reception and the cash bar opening at 6:30 p.m.; then, it’s time for Smith, a four-time National Poetry Slam champion, and Askew, an inductee of the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. A scheduled authors’ chat, a reading and a trailing book signing will take place starting at 7:00 p.m.. Write Night, co-hosted by Magic City Books and sponsored by TU’s creative writing program, is free to the public.
The conference itself will start at 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 20; the events will be held in the Allen Chapman Student Union. It is an all-day affair, lunch provided, with a expansive workshops and talks to attend including such topics as: “How Do I Know When I’m Done?: Strategies for Revision;” “Making History, Taking Place: Historical Fiction;” “Poetry: Using Emotion Effectively, Bravely, and Responsibly;” “Using Weakness to Build Strong Characters;” “Choose Your Own Disaster: Worldbuilding for Fantasy, Science Fiction, and More;” and “Your Agent, Your Editor, and You: Understanding Publishing’s Gatekeepers.”
These will be intimate sessions where attendees are in direct contact with experienced authors and editors explaining the ins-and-outs of the literary world. Some of the main topics of discussion are investigations and explanations of specific genres, such as magical realism, memoir, historical fiction and fantasy. Others will be more narrow and topical discussions centered around specific fictional elements.
The list of notable authors and editors leading the workshops is long . Jill Bialosky is a New York Times-best selling author of memoir and is currently the executive editor at W.W. Norton & Company. Francine Ringold is a former two-time Oklahoma Poet Laureate. Kaveh Bassiri is an award-winning Iranian-American writer and translator who writes for the Michigan Quarterly Review. Many more remarkable authors will lay bare their wisdom for hungry learners during the weekend’s activities.
Students receive a $40 discount off of the traditional $50 registration fee. For $10, a student can attend all of these workshops, receive one-on-one criticism from professional editors and receive lunch.
The deadline for submitting work for the individual editing sessions and novel-pitch critiques is Oct. 13. Those who wish to submit can send up to two to three pages of poetry or four to five pages of prose. For registration and information, please contact Nimrod by phone at 918-631-3080, e-mail (nimrod@utulsa.edu) or online at www.utulsa.edu/nimrod.
