June 15 writers event: One full-day seminar, two Logan poet laureates

The June 15 Summer Symposium, sponsored by USU English and the League of Utah Writers, features a dozen faculty and students from the Department of English, including Star Coulbrooke, left, the current Logan City Poet Laureate, and Shanan Ballam, right, who was named this week by the Logan Council as the city's new poet laureate.

A June day-long workshop for writers shows off the creativity and talent within the Utah State University Department of English.

The June 15 workshop, hosted by USU English and the Utah League of Writers, features more than a dozen English Department professors, lecturers, and students including poet Shanan Ballam, who on in May was named as Logan City’s City Poet Laureate, as well as the city’s first-ever poet laureate, Star Coulbrooke.

The 2019 Summer Symposium is a day-long event Saturday, June 15, in the Eccles Conference Center. It promises authors presentations from authors, creative writing classes and individualized critique sessions – and lunch. Activities begin at 8:30 a.m. and continue with a slate of nearly 30 workshops until 5:25 p.m.

The League of Utah Writers has some 25 chapters across the state, ranging from the Logan-based Fellowship of the Ink and the Brigham City Writers, southward to the Blue Quill Chapter in Ogden, Writer’s Bloc in Tooele, LaSal Legends in Moab and the Canyon Scribblers in Price. The league also offers chapters focusing on such genre writing as non-fiction, teen writing and poetry.

The cadre from USU English represent an array of genres from poetry to speculative fiction and novel writing. Workshops by USU faculty and students include:

• Shanan Ballam (lecturer): “Engaging the Reader through Sense and Senses”
• Russ Beck (lecturer): “The Notebook, sans Ryan Gosling”
• Star Coulbrooke (Writing Center director): “Humor in Poetry Writing: Enlightened by Wit, High Spirits, and Celebration”
• Brock Dethier (English professor, retired): “Rediscovering the Joy of Writing”
• John Engler (senior lecturer): “Building a Better Box: The Framing of Narrative Nonfiction”
• Bun Gunsberg (associate professor): “Tone and the Stakes of Engagement in Poetry”
• Rob Kunz (lecturer): “Reflection and Scene in Creative Nonfiction”
• Anne Stark (lecturer): “When to Choose Magic Realism over Speculative Fiction”
• Emily Wheeler (History alum): “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Commercial Novel Writing”
• Jackson Byland (undergrad student): “Effectively Killing Characters”
• Shaun Anderson (grad student): “Linear vs. Lyric Nonfiction”
• Stephanie Pointer (undergrad student): “Poetry: Freedom in Form”

Additional Resources:

• - 2019 Summer Symposium Registration and Agenda
• Writer:
  • - Janelle Hyatt, Communications Director, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, (435) 797-0289

Share

Related Stories