Camp draws writers from around the world

Monday, July 12, 2010

For the past 25 years, writers from all over the world have come together for two weeks in the summer to evaluate, edit and rewrite their work.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel Writer’s Workshop is a camp held at the University every July. KU professors coach and guide writers who can be University students or come from as far away as Japan, Denmark or Argentina.

“It brings writers from all over to Lawrence for two intensive weeks of writing and trying to develop their skills,” said James Gunn, a fiction writing professor and coach at the camp.

The writers submit three stories to be considered for admission. The goal for the camp is to improve one of those stories in the first week and discuss it the second week.

“I think several of them are publishable,” Gunn said.

Gunn said one of the problems that writers have is writer’s block — when they can’t think of what to write. He said professor Kij Johnson, who also helps lead at the camp, uses sock puppets as a way of trying to break through it when she teaches the writers at the camp.

Gunn said last year, one of the students who revised his story at the camp had it published this summer.

Gunn has had 41 books published, including 11 novels and some short stories. He has been teaching fiction writing since 1960. Also leading the writers is professor Chris McKitterick.

Writers stay in Lewis Hall for the duration of the camp and meet for three hours to discuss their writing every day.

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