A 1-Day Creative Nonfiction Workshop
Saturday, August 1, 10:30 AM - 3:30 PM
I love doing research; it might be my favorite step in the writing process. I have a question, a fact that needs confirming, a vague notion that something about something might be important. And then I set out on the treasure hunt. The rise of AI means some kinds of research will be much easier than it used to be (confirming that year xxxx was a Leap Year, for instance). But other kinds will continue to take human skills. Those are the sort we’ll focus on in this workshop, which is open to writers working in any genre.
We’ll begin by discussing the aims of research and some of the methods that can lead to the most productive or illuminating ways to spend your “research time-budget.” We’ll talk about how to work with primary sources (human and otherwise), how to find and use academic literature, and how to use research to re-think what we’re writing and/or our place within our texts. While we won’t have time to act on all our ideas, we’ll spend some of the session imagining possible routes through the deep sea of information and ideas in which we all live and gauging which of those routes are likeliest to be generative.
$120 Members/$175 Nonmembers
Margot Anne Kelley spent her first career in academia. After retiring, she began writing full-time. Her books include A Gardener at the End of the World, which won the Maine Nonfiction Award in 2025, and Foodtopia: Communities in Pursuit of Peace, Love, & Homegrown Food, which was a finalist for the Maine Nonfiction Award in 2023. Earlier books include A Field Guide to Other People’s Trees, Local Treasures: Geocaching Across America, and The Meadow, which was a collaboration with the photographer Barbara Bosworth. While these books are all non-fiction, she has recently tried her hand at writing fiction. Her first novel, Marked for Murder, is an amateur detective story set at an art college in Boston, Massachusetts; it will be released in September.
Kelley lives in Midcocast Maine with her husband, Rob, who is also a writer.
ADVANCE REGISTRATION REQUIRED
All MWPA workshops require advanced registration. We accept registration by phone, mail, and online via our website. We cannot guarantee registration in the final 24-hours before a workshop, and can rarely accommodate day-of registration.
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QUESTIONS
For any questions regarding this workshop, please contact programs@mainewriters.org.
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Call 207-200-7180 and register with your VISA or MasterCard.
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SCHOLARSHIP
The MWPA is proud to offer one partial scholarship to this workshop for members-only. Scholarships are awarded on a combination of need and merit. Application Due two weeks prior to the workshop start date, at 9:00 a.m.
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