Would you like to take part in an intensive workshop with Marge Piercy in Wellfleet?


UPDATE ON INTENSIVE WORKSHOP
The response on this has been terrific. But so has the demand on Marge's time. She simply has too many gigs (and two new books coming out this fall and winter) to pull this off in Summer 2006. Please continue to e-mail us with your interest and we'll do our best to schedule something here on Cape Cod in Summer 2007.
--Donna

For a few years now, workshop participants, poets, writers, fans of Marge's fiction and poetry, have asked if it was possible to study with Marge in a more intensive environment than workshops at conference centers and summer arts centers usually allow. In our attempts to figure out how to make this happen we keep coming back to the idea of running our own workshop in Wellfleet, the fishing village/artists community in which Marge makes her home.

By the way, Wellfleet has become tres chic. Check out these two articles, about Wellfleet's literary history in BOOK Magazine and in the July, 2005 New York Times.

The workshop would not be in high summer, when the lodging prices are highest -- if you can book a room at all -- but in what we call the "shoulder season," probably June, after the colleges let out and before the summer people arrive. We would then be able to lease a comfortable workshop space in town.

We envision a program that includes two daily sessions for five days, morning and afternoon, with conferences scheduled to go over work privately. The class size would be held to a maximum of twelve, to facilitate intimacy and serious critiquing of people's writing. Since this would be a workshop designed for more advanced writers who want to work with and get feedback from Marge and other serious participants, Marge would not spend time lecturing or giving out-of-class assignments, but on helping people evaluate and improve their work. We also envision a public reading and reception.

Particpants would be on their own in the evening . . . no problem with all the great restaurants, theater, readings, beaches and ponds, and nature walks, in this world famous (and still funky) little arts community, and with glorious, notorious Provincetown just seventeen miles up Route Six.

To ensure a high quality of participants,entrance to the class would have to be juried. And to make a small class work financially, participants would have to be responsible not only for their tuition but their own housing and meals. (We'd supply an honest appraisal of local motels and b&b's, and restaurants that the locals actually eat in).

Since we have no notion if this idea would fly, whether we'd have enough participants who would be willing to pay more than the usual arts center tuition to work with Marge Piercy on the Outer Cape -- writers who are looking for an intensive and intimate appraisal of their work -- we're going to invite you to e-mail us and let us know. Once you do, you'll be on the list, and we'll keep you informed about our progress in setting something up.

If this seems like something you'd like to be a part of, please email Marge's assistant, Donna and let her know if:

1. You would be interested in a Poetry or a Fiction/Memoir Class,

2. If June would be a good month for you,

3. And of course, your contact information should we start making a call for juried submissions and begin creating a waiting list

Once again, address your e-mail to Donna at donna@leapfrogpress.com.

Maybe together we can make this happen.