A report from the Paris Writing Workshop

Above: 2007 Paris American Academy writing students relax in the classroom: (front row) Lexi Apfelbaum, Tess Vella, Catherine Butler, Rea Frey; (middle row) Annalise Proctor, Dawn Turek, Deborah Nyuli, Alethea Brown, Jenna Weber, Gabi Flam, Tyler Mollenkopf; (back row) Joanne Lappas, Razvan Marc, Dulci Pitagora, Cass McGovern, Erik Olsen, Jenny Nauss, Andrea Ronkowski, Anna Rodriguez

My creative writing workshop at the Paris American Academy once again proved to be a great experience earlier this summer. The one-month intensive writing course saw a record turnout of students: 26 aspiring writers showed up from various parts of the United States (and Canada, and Australia, and Romania) to sharpen their skills at travel writing, essays, memoir, fiction, poetry, screenwriting, playwriting, and journaling.

In addition to my own creative nonfiction classes, novelists John Biguenet and Lauren Grodstein once again taught inspiring fiction workshops, and novelists Binnie Kirschenbaum and Thomas Fox Averill (and literary agent Julie Barer) dropped in to share their perspective with students. Many of this year’s students turned out writing of publishable quality — and I’ll make an effort to mention it here whenever those various stories go to press.

Speaking of which, 2003 Paris writing student Patricia Engel’s short story “Lucho” recently appeared in the July/August 2007 issue of the Boston Review, and two of my 2005 students landed stories in Travelers’ Tales’ latest women’s humor anthology, More Sand in My Bra: Beth Martinson, with a Corsica tale entitled “Mommy Nearest,” and Kelly Watton, with a story from South Africa entitled “The Robbery-Free Plan.” Congrats, Patty, Beth and Kelly!

For information on the 2008 Paris American Academy summer writing workshop, click here.