Writers Complete 2014 Fall Retreat at Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum & Educational Center
PIGGOTT – Thirteen talented writers from five states came together at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center for the 2014 Fall Writers’ Retreat. The participants came to hone their writing skills and to form a community in Northeast Arkansas at the site where Ernest Hemingway penned much of his iconic novel A Farewell to Arms.
Fall Writers’ Retreat participants, Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum, (from left) Jim Spring (Denham Springs, La.), Jane Gatewood (Rector), Glenda Gabhart (Scottsville, Ky.), Mary Lester (Little Rock), Ann Hall (Bryant), Alison Taylor-Brown (Ozark), Pat Carr, mentor (Fayetteville), Fay Guinn (Jonesboro), Eva Whittle (Scottsville, Ky.), Linda Wyss (Piggott), Ruth Roberts (Little Rock), Talya Tate Boerner (Fayetteville), Martha Pedersen (Gaithersburg, Md.), Dixie King (Bakersfield, Calif.)
Writers began each day with group activities designed to inspire and encourage creative thought followed by a time to write. They enjoyed lunch together at the educational center and ended the afternoon with a group meeting to reflect, share and discuss the products and processes used by each writer. The format allowed writers time to focus on their own creative interests, to receive feedback on their work, and to form relationships with other writers.
Pat Carr of Fayetteville, served as mentor for the retreat. She has a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from Rice University, a Ph.D. from Tulane University, and has taught writing and literature in universities and workshops across the country. She has published 16 books, including The Women in the Mirror, winner of the prestigious Iowa Fiction Award, and Death of a Confederate Colonel, winner of both the PEN Southwest Fiction Award and John Estes Cooke Civil War Fiction Award. She has written more than 100 short stories published in The Southern Review and Best American Short Stories.
Her most recent books are a memoir, One Page at a Time (2010); a how-to text, Writing Fiction with Pat Carr (2010); and a novella, The Radiance of Fossils (2012).
Writers’ Retreats are held twice annually in Piggott at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center. The next retreat is scheduled for June 1-5, 2015, with Garry Craig Powell of Conway serving as mentor. Contact Dr. Adam Long, director of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center, through email at adamlong@astate.edu or call (870) 598-3487.
