Local award-winning author to lead writing workshop

PSU’s Center for Excellence in Writing will host a four-day writing workshop in June with award-winning author Craig Lesley. The course will help budding writers perfect their fiction writing techniques and improve their chances of getting published.

The workshop, entitled “Gauging the Storm: Writing Fiction with Power” will be led by local fiction author Craig Lesley. Lesley will cover traditional fiction techniques of characterization, scene and setting. In the class students will also learn how to employ mystery, surprise, humor and voice in their writing, which are “techniques that editors find appealing, and help separate your work from the slush pile,” according to a press release. Some time will also be devoted to helping participants market and publish their work.

Craig Lesley is the author of four novels: “The Sky Fisherman,” “Winterkill,” “River Song” and “Storm Riders,” which won the 1999 Oregon Book Award for Fiction. His work has received numerous awards, and “The Sky Fisherman” was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He has been the recipient of four academic fellowships and edited three collections of short stories. Lesley has taught English and creative writing at the college level for 15 years and lives in Portland with his family. In 1991, he received a doctorate of humane letters from Whitman College.

The workshop will run from June 18 through 22 from 1 to 4 p.m. in Neuberger Hall. The cost of the four-day course is $280, and for an additional $70 it may be taken for two undergraduate or graduate credits. The workshop is open to the public, but space is limited and pre-registration is required. For more information on the workshop or to register, contact Tracy Dillon in the Center for Excellence in Writing at (503) 725-3579, [email protected].

PSU’s Center for Excellence in Writing (CEW) offers Portland’s only graduate writing program leading to a master’s degree. It sponsors workshops and seminars in an effort to reach out to budding writers in the fields of creative, nonfiction and technical writing. For more information on the center and upcoming sponsored events, check out their Web site at www.english.pdx.edu/cew/.