A gathering of full- and low-residency Chatham MFA students, local writers, and nationally-known faculty at Chatham University’s beautiful and sustainable Eden Hall Campus.
July 19-29, 2018
Eden Hall Campus
Chatham University
A gathering of full- and low-residency Chatham MFA students, local writers, and nationally-known faculty at Chatham University’s beautiful and sustainable Eden Hall Campus.
July 19-29, 2018
Eden Hall Campus
The Summer Community of Writers brings together an eclectic mix of low- and full-residency MFA students, local writers, and faculty for a 10-day experience that features daily workshops, dynamic craft lectures, faculty and student readings, and field trips to local points of interest. MFA students earn six course credits with attendance, and community members gain the chance to connect with Pittsburgh’s vibrant writing community.
7:30am ▶ Breakfast in dining hall
9:00am ▶ Workshop
12:00pm ▶ Lunch in dining hall
1:30pm ▶ Craft lecture
2:30pm ▶ Open for writing and conferences
5:00pm ▶ Dinner service begins in dining hall
6:00pm ▶ Dessert and cocktail hour @ EHC Lodge
7:30pm ▶ Faculty Reading @ EBC
"Probably one of the only times in my life that someone allows me to have two hours every day to just write."
Summer Community of Writers is an integral part of your time at Chatham. This six-credit course is mandatory for completion of your degree, and offers a chance for full- and low-residency students to connect, network, and collaborate.
You will participate in eight three-hour workshops in your genre of choice every morning under the guidance of our expert and accomplished faculty. In groups of no more than twelve, you will generate drafts, follow prompts, deeply consider your own and each other's work. For full-res Chatham MFA students, SCW is often the perfect bridge between the first and second year, and a space for them to keep their thesis-writing momentum going. For anyone, workshops provide concentrated, personalized attention on your writing in a community of like-minded word-lovers.
Most afternoons, you will attend a conversation or lecture led by one of our faculty members or guests on some relevant aspect of writing craft or writing life. We work to make these talks applicable to any writer in any genre. For instance, you might learn about the lyric impulse in poetry and prose, or how to expertly handle exposition. Or, you might learn from local editors, agents and publishers about the journal or press submission process, or about how to start a creative writing outreach program like Words Without Walls.
"There is this writing community here that doesn't really exist anywhere else."
Reconnect with your work while enjoying the lush setting and collegiate atmosphere of our Eden Hall Campus. Summer Community of Writers serves as a resource to Pittsburgh writers and MFA alumni seeking an affordable, engaging writer’s retreat in a unique setting.
Community members can:
"My relationships with people I already knew have definitely been strengthened, and I made new friendships with people I wouldn't normally have met."
Katie Fallon is the author of the nonfiction books Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird (UPNE, 2017) and Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird (Ruka Press, 2011), which was a Finalist for the Reed Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment. Katie is also the co-author of two books for children, Look, See the Bird! (2017) and Look, See the Farm! (forthcoming 2018), both from Hatherleigh Press. She is currently Guest Faculty at West Virginia Wesleyan College, where she teaches Nonfiction in the Low-Residency MFA Program.
Derek Green is the author of New World Order, a collection of linked stories set in various locations around the globe. He has also published nonfiction on subjects ranging from industrial farming and trauma surgery to national politics and the international war on terror. As a screenwriter, he has written for Warner Bros. and Carousel Productions, and has co-created, written, and presented television projects at many major studios. Derek travels widely as a speaker and has delivered seminars, workshops, and presentations in twenty-two countries on six continents. A member of the Writers Guild of America East and The PEN American Center, he recently completed a novel about the rise of an armed Midwestern militia and a second collection of stories. He lives in Connecticut and teaches at Yale.
Philip Metres is the author of Pictures at an Exhibition (2016), Sand Opera (2015), I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky (2015), To See the Earth (2008), and others. His work has garnered a Lannan fellowship, two NEAs, the Hunt Prize, Arts & Letters, two Arab American Book Awards, the Cleveland Arts Prize and a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant. He is professor of English at John Carroll University in Cleveland.
Paul Hertneky has written stories, essays, and scripts for The Boston Globe, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, NBC News, The Comedy Channel, Gourmet, Eating Well, Bon Appetit, Traveler's Tales, The Exquisite Corpse, NPR, Public Radio International, Adbusters, and many more for more than twenty-five years. Serving in foodservice in the U.S. and Europe as a cook, bartender, waiter, winemaker, and journalist covering the US Culinary Olympic Team, he has won a Solas Award for travel writing and two James Beard Award nominations. His memoir, RUST BELT BOY: Stories of an American Childhood (Bauhan 2016), takes a deep dive into the food of his youth. A graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, he serves on the faculty of Chatham University and lives in Hancock, New Hampshire.
Sherrie Flick is a fiction writer, food writer, and freelance writer and copy editor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her book publications include the flash fiction chapbook I Call This Flirting, Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel, and the short story collection Whiskey, Etc. (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2016.) Her food writing appears in The Wall Street Journal, Ploughshares, Pittsburgh Quarterly and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as well as the anthology Fried Walleye and Cherry Pie: Midwestern Writers on Food.
Creative Nonfiction magazine is true stories, well told. Each issue demonstrates the depth and versatility of narrative nonfiction and proves that smart, engaging narratives can make any subject fascinating and meaningful. Recent issues have tackled themes ranging from dangerous creations to science & religion, and from adaptation to how we teach.
This workshop course will explore the exciting and diverse genre of creative nonfiction. Each student will have an essay workshopped by the class and the instructor, and we will work on in-class writing exercises designed to help you generate new essays. Additionally, we will read and discuss examples of contemporary nonfiction from recent Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Science & Nature Writing anthologies. We will also discuss (and attempt to answer) questions about publishing your creative nonfiction: Where should you submit your work? What about contests? What about publishing a book? Each student will be asked to informally introduce the class to a literary journal.
This workshop is designed for writers of all levels who are interested in demystifying the process of writing and publishing dramatic narrative fictio . To do this, we approach the creation of a short story, a collection of stories, or a novel as a series of manageable steps—a process—that any writer can master.
C.D. Wright once wrote that "Some of us do not read or write particularly for pleasure or instruction, but to be changed, healed, charged." This workshop proceeds from the idea that poetry is an invitation to transformation (Rilke: "you must change your life."). It will introduce traditional lyric modes and forms (the ode, elegy, sonnet, pantoum) alongside some more recent experimental modes (erasure, documentary poetics) with the goal of writing a poetry that listens to the margins of our society and our souls, offering comfort for the afflicted and affliction for the comfortable.
July 20-23
Scarce or abundant, pungent, putrid, or perfect, food brings us in touch with the world. Whether we cross the street or a continent, our encounters with farms and markets, cooking and eating on the road change our minds and shape our lives. In this workshop, we will explore the literature, the language, the rich ingredients and recipes for writing that arrests readers and hijacks them into unfamiliar lands and new sensory territory, scenes that make their mouths water and their imaginations dance through the night.
July 25-28
This four-day workshop goes deep into tiny stories. We'll read, write, revise, and discuss all manner of compressed worlds in order to understand the importance of brevity in our own work and to gain further insight the significance of flash fiction in contemporary literature. Plan to write many new stories using prompts, props, and the natural world around you as inspiration.
Eden Hall Campus isn't just sustainable: it’s beautiful. Nestled in the rolling hills of Gibsonia, just 20 miles from Pittsburgh, Eden Hall offers plenty of inspiration for nature and place-based writing with hiking trails, gardens, farm-fresh food and more.
Amenities for those staying at Eden Hall Campus during SCW include:
Dining Hall Prices:
"Beautiful place! A much needed oasis."
SCW fulfills English 710 in the MFA course list. Full-residency students must take it once during their program of study; low-residency students must take it twice.
| Tuition | Room | Board | Total | |
| MFA Student Residency | $5,418 | $250 | $250 | $5,918 |
Flexible registration allows you to choose the program that best suits your needs.
| Tuition | Room (optional) |
Board (optional) |
Total | |
| Session A: Food & Travel (July 20-23) | $300 | $100 | $112 | $512 |
| Alumni discount | $240 | $100 | $112 | $452 |
| Session B: Flash Fiction (July 25-28) | $300 | $100 | $112 | $512 |
| Alumni discount | $240 | $100 | $112 | $452 |
| Sessions A+B | $600 | $225 | $252 | $1,077 |
| Alumni discount | $480 | $225 | $252 | $957 |
Note: a $100 non-refundable deposit will be due at registration. Workshop availability is contingent upon enrollment.
For-credit and non-credit options available. ACT 48 available for-credit only.
For more information or registration questions, e-mail Kelly Kepner at k.kepner@chatham.edu or call (412) 365-1685. For alumni discount, please contact Kelly Kepner.
Photo credit: Brittany Hailer; Sheila Squillante; Rachel Kaufman; Karen Smith Linehan; Juliana Farrington; Dakota Lueck; Melissa DiGiovannantonio.