Tennessee Mountain Writers has scheduled writing workshops at the “January Jumpstart XV” from January 9-11, 2015, at the Best Western Morristown Conference Center in Morristown, and a high school teacher who lives in Oak Ridge will lead the fiction workshop.
By popular demand, Jane Sasser, the teacher, will be leading the fiction workshop, and Bill Brown returns to lead the poetry workshop, a press release said. The event is sponsored by Tennessee Mountain Writers. It will open with an informal social hour on Friday evening; workshop sessions will run from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on Saturday and from 8:30-11:30 a.m. on Sunday.
Sasser was born and raised in Fairview, North Carolina. Following in the footsteps of both parents and numerous other relatives and ancestors, she is a lifelong lover of stories and storytelling. Her poetry has appeared in The Atlanta Review, The North American Review, The Sun, The Lullwater Review, Appalachian Heritage, The National Forum, Sow’s Ear, and numerous other anthologies and publications. She has won first place in fiction contests with the Knoxville Writers’ Guild, The Alabama Writers Conclave, and the Green River Writers. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, “Recollecting the Snow” and “Itinerant,” and two novel manuscripts, “Where You Ought to Be” and “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” A high school teacher of English and creative writing, she currently lives in Oak Ridge.
Brown returns as the poetry leader. His most recent titles are “The News Inside” (Iris Press 2010), “Late Winter” (Iris Press 2008) and “Tatters” (March Street Press 2007). In 1999, Brown wrote and co-produced the Instructional Television Series, Student Centered Learning, for Nashville Public Television. He has been a Scholar in Poetry at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a two-time recipient of Fellowships in poetry from the Tennessee Arts Commission. In 2011, Brown was the recipient of The Writer of the Year Award from the Tennessee Writers Alliance. He lives with his wife, Suzanne, and a tribe of cats in the hills north of Nashville, the press release said.
Participation in January Jumpstart XV will be limited to 20 registrants per workshop. The deadline for registering is January 2. Coffee and tea before the morning sessions and lunch on Saturday are included in the registration fee of $135. Attendees should mention TMW for a special rate when calling Best Western Conference Center (423-587-2400) for reservations. For a registration form or additional information on either workshop, see the Tennessee Mountain Writers website www.tmwi.org, or contact Sue Richardson Orr at theorrs@usit.net.
The Best Western Morristown is at exit 8 off I-81.
Tennessee Mountain Writers is a nonprofit, non-political organization that promotes Tennessee literary arts and supports the work of Tennessee writers. Its goal is to provide opportunities for people interested in the craft of writing to become better writers. Membership is open to all writers interested in furthering these objectives, regardless of geographic location. Tennessee Mountain Writers is an equal opportunity organization. This project is funded in part under an agreement with the Tennessee Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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