ON THE WRITE PATH
Piper studio workshops bring literary lessons to community members
By Cecile Duhnke

It's 5:59 p.m. on a Thursday night at the north Scottsdale home of ASU Emeritus College Dean Len Gordon. Part of a gated community of upscale home stair-stepping in the south side of the McDowell Mountains, Gordon's home showcased the rocky granite hillside with floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, providing a panoramic stage for an evening of truth, criticism, and literary adventuring.

Instructor Robert Blair Kaiser and his eight students for the session crowd around a rectangular table in the front room and plunge into the work for the evening. Their goal, as participants in the Piper Writer's Studio workshop on Creative Non-Fiction, was to sharpen their non-fiction writing skills with tools used in the fiction genre, such as characterization, plot, theme, point of view, conflict and dialogue in a writing workshop setting.

The workshop session on this particular Thursday night centered around Scottsdale resident Don D'Avignon's story about his escape from corporate America and subsequent travels to Europe. This was D'Avignon's second Piper workshop: the first one focused on fiction writing.

"I write almost every day on the Internet for public consumption, so I want to become a better writer," says D'Avignon, who holds a master's degree in technology management.

At this session, D'Avignon is getting plenty of advice toward that goal. Kaiser, author of 10 books and contributing editor for Newsweek, took no time removing his gloves before delivering his comments.

"As a writer, you don't tell the readers you made a wish but you can't tell them what it is," he insisted about a section of D'Avignon's article, face flushed with intensity. "We want to give our readers pictures."

"Show, don't tell," he echoed.

LITERARY OUTREACH
The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU developed the Piper Writer's Studio in 2005 as a vehicle to reach the Phoenix-area writing community at large, says Pipe Center Artistic Director Jewell parker Rhodes. The program was designed to target writers who might not have access to the center's well-regarded annual writing conference, "Desert Nights, Rising Stars."

"We recognized a community need — based on the response to our annual writers conference — that writers out in the community needed a place to grow (and) wanted to study with distinguished writers, but had less time or mobility than traditional ASU students might," Rhodes said.

Charles Jensen, Piper Studio Program Manager, said that the center offered three eight-week workshops, as well as occasional one-day workshops, in the spring, summer and fall. the writing workshops can be used for continuing education credits in education and other fields.

"We really wanted to give people in the community an opportunity to work on their writing in a workshop setting similar to our (ASU Writer's Conference), but throughout the year," Jensen said.

The eight-week workshops cover a range writing topics including fiction, poetry, children's literature and spiritual writing. Intensive workshops such as Gordon's Thursday night group, designed for more experienced writers who've attended previous Writers Studio workshops, are limited to eight people, whereas general workshops can have up to 16.

The workshop classes meet in bookstores, libraries, or in this case, in someone's home. "We make sure these workshops take place near their homes, out in the community," says Rhodes of the workshops, which range in price from $75 for a one-day workshop to $550 for an intensive eight-week workshop.

The workshops are one piece of a portfolio of educational options the center offers to local writers. In addition to the annual conference, the organization also offers a distinguished visiting writers series, an online book club, a resource library at the center's Tempe campus location and two publications, the literary magazine Hayden's Ferry review and Marginalia, which covers news of the center itself.

EXPERIENCE FROM THE TRENCHES
Piper Writer's Studio selects its instructors based on how actively they write, says Piper Writer's Studio Program Coordinator Roxane Barwick. She mentions Jana Bommersbach, local book author, Phoenix magazine columnist and Arizona Republic editorial page contributor, as an example of the kind of writer they're looking for. Instructors must work in the trenches, with at least one book published or extensive publication credits in literary journals.

That selection process ensures an enthusiastic, devoted core of class participant. Jensen notes that it's not necessarily the topic that motivates people to register for a workshop; it is often the people behind the workshops.

"People really get excited about one instructor," Jensen said, and that instructor will tend to sell out workshops repeatedly.

Over the two years of its existence, the response to the Piper Writer's Studio workshops has been very encouraging, says Rhodes, with many people taking multiple workshops or continuing to work with an instructor over time. The Studio programs also feed interested participants into the other segments of the center's organization, she said.

"Many of (the participants) also develop an interest in our other programs, like the annual writers conference and the Online Book club. To me, it means we're doing something right, and it's our passion here to serve those writers in the community who would otherwise not have access to our vibrant literary community."

Back at the Thursday night workshop, the session is over and the margins of D'Avignon's are jammed full of notes. For those considering attending a Piper Writer's Workshop, D'Avignon advises plunging in and learning from the constructive criticism that is often touted as the hallmark of the workshopping process.

"Don't be afraid to do new work and turn it in," he suggests. "It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks as long as you can grow from it and become a better writer. Use it as a motivating force."

For more information about the Piper Writer's Studio, call the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at (480) 965-6018 or go to http://www.asu.edu/piper/workshops/index.html.

- Cecile Duhnke is a Scottsdale-based freelance writer.