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St. Cloud State’s signature creative writing workshop returns with seven experts, including a pair of acclaimed multicultural writers, Alexs Pate and Susan Power.
The two-credit Mississippi River Creative Writing Workshop (ENG 445-545) is June 15-18 in the 51 Building.
In addition to presentations, students will participate in writing exercises and interact informally with the writers.
The workshop focuses on fiction writing and poetry. No writing experience or prerequisites are required.
Meet the presenters
Bill Meissner, course instructor, is the author of seven books. His writing has appeared in more than 200 journals, magazines and anthologies. His awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Loft-McKnight Award in Poetry and five PEN/NEA Syndicated Fiction Awards. Meissner’s “Spirits in the Grass” novel earned a Midwest Book Award.
Visit his website.
Susan Power is the author of “The Grass Dancer,” the 1995 PEN/Hemingway Award winner for Best First Fiction. The novel focuses on four generations of Native Americans, spanning the years 1864 to 1986. A graduate of Harvard Law School and the renowned Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Power is part Lakota and is enrolled at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota.
View a website about Power.
Alexs Pate earned a 1995 Minnesota Book Award for fiction with his debut novel “Losing Absalom.” His other works include novels, a book of poetry, a book about rap music and the New York Times Bestseller “Amistad.” Pate has also taught writing and literature, notably at the University of Minnesota and University of Southern Maine.
Visit his website.
Shannon Olson is the author of the best-selling novels “Welcome To My Planet (Where English is Sometimes Spoken)” and “Children of God Go Bowling.” She is an associate professor of English at St. Cloud State, where she has taught for more than a decade.
Visit Olson’s Amazon author page.
Margaret Hasse is the author of four acclaimed poetry collections, including Minnesota Voices Award winner “Stars Above, Stars Below” and Midwest Book Award winner “Milk and Tides.”
Visit Hasse’s website.
Thomas Maltman is an essayist, poet and fiction writer. His novel “The Night Birds,” won an Alex Award, Spur Award, and Friends of American Writers Literary Award. He is a teacher at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minn.
Visit Maltman’s website.
Lorna Landvik has written more than a dozen novels, including “Patty Jane’s House of Curls,” ” “Tall Pine Polka” and the New York Times Bestseller “Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons.” A humorist, actress, comedian and playwright, Landvik is known locally for her Minneapolis one-woman show “Party in the Rec Room.”
View her website.
