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Meet New Member Jeanice Eagan Davis from District 5

5/1/2024

Jeanice lives outside Clearwater, KS. She has this to say about herself and her writing:

I have had works published, mostly poetry, and I am currently attempting to get a poetry collection (or maybe two) published. I write pieces of creative nonfiction in addition to poetry. I also have the bones of a book about modern dying, death, grief, and eulogy, but it has been a bit side-tracked by life and work. I inherited my small family farm a couple of years ago and my husband and I are building a small home on the property.

I teach composition, creative nonfiction, and poetry writing at a small regional university in Claremore, Oklahoma (and yes, it is a long commute). I am also working on creating a website, but that will have to be added later! Thank you so much for making me feel welcome!

Welcome, Jeanice - we're glad to have you!

Save the Date for the Next State Program: Ryan Dennis on How to Write Emotion

5/1/2024

Members will receive the link to attend this program via zoom in their monthly email newsletters. The link is also available on the Member Pages of this website, sign-in required.

Please plan to sign on to Zoom a few minutes early. We start our programs right on time!

Purple Doesn't Look Good on Anyone:
How to Write Emotion

Presentation Category:
Nonfiction, Fiction, Craft (skills and techiniques), Writing, Editing

Readers come to a story wanting to feel something. It’s our task as writers to remind them that they’re human and prone to all the complexities of joy and sorrow that comes with that. For better or worse, that doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not enough to simply write about something sad.

This workshop will break down techniques essential for delivering emotion within fiction and nonfiction that avoid cliché, melodrama or disengaging the reader. It will focus on preventing pitfalls that are common among beginning and experienced writers, as well as how to deliver prose that are original and stay with the reader once they leave the story. We’ll look at how the whole scene can be used to create emotion, as well as an examination of how to best use interior monologue.

Ryan Dennis is the author of The Beasts They Turned Away, published by époque press. The Irish Times described the novel as “a demanding debut, dense and dark, but ultimately rewarding in its strange beauty.” His work has appeared in various literary journals and he is a syndicated columnist for agricultural print periodicals in four countries and two languages. He is also a Fulbright alumnus and PhD in creative writing, and has taught at the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd, the National University of Ireland Galway and Maynooth University.

In addition to exploring the dynamics of rural life in literature, Ryan also seeks to serve those communities more directly. In 2020 he founded The Milk House, an initiative to showcase the work of those writing on rural subjects in order to help them find greater audiences. Born on a farm in New York State but now living in the West of Ireland, he has been featured in numerous rural publications and programs, such as The Irish Farmers Journal and RTE’s Countrywide, addressing agricultural policy concerns. In 2021-2022 Ryan was selected as a Writer-in-Residence at Maynooth University. As part of the residency, he created and edited Voices from the Land, a collection of short stories, essays and poems by Irish farmers.

Ryan Dennis Website

The Milk House

Writing Classes with Ryan Dennis

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Meet New Member Jeanice Eagan Davis from District 5

Save the Date for the Next State Program: Ryan Dennis on How to Write Emotion

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