Creative Writer Hosts Free Workshop for the Community

By William Miller

George Mason's Creative Writing Program is offering a free, 14-week, fiction-writing workshop starting in January as it inaugurates a new series of seminars for the community called the Heritage Workshops.

The first workshop will be taught by novelist and short story writer Richard Bausch, Heritage Chair in Writing, who conceived the workshop series.

"We've always had people in the community who were interested in developing their skills as writers in general and as creators of fiction and poetry in particular," says Bausch. "Our classes in the writing program are always open to people from the community through the Extended Studies program, but we can't come close, through that avenue, to meeting all the demand that seems to be out there. We thought this would be a good way of trying to do that. And we wanted it to be free, so that anyone who has the talent can work toward devel- oping that talent, whether he or she has the money to pay for a workshop."

"We have this nationally ranked program here, and we wanted to share its capabilities," says Daniele Struppa, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, which is making the workshops available. "It's one way we have of repaying the people of the community for their support, which through the years has been tremendous and has helped Mason grow not only this particular program but numerous others."

Persons interested in taking the first semester-long fiction workshop should submit a fiction manuscript to Bausch in the English Department, Mail Stop 3E4. Manuscripts must be received by Monday, Jan. 4, 1999, to be eligible for the spring workshop, and be a complete short story written in the style of literary fiction. Genre fiction will not be considered.

Bausch, who received his master of fine arts degree from the University of Iowa, is the author of eight novels, including The Last Good Time, Violence, Rebel Powers, Good Evening Mr. and Mrs. America and All the Ships at Sea, and, most recently, In the Night Season. His short stories have been collected in four volumes: The Fireman's Wife and Other Stories, Rare and Endangered Species, Spirits, and a Modern Library Collected Stories edition. Individually, his stories have appeared in the Atlantic, the New Yorker, Esquire, Harpers, Playboy, the Southern Review, Ploughshares, and New Virginia Review. They also have been included in Best American Short Stories, O'Henry Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, and Best Stories from the West. His works have been finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and he has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund.

Each Heritage Workshop will follow the university's spring semester calendar, meeting once a week for 14 weeks. Plans are to follow this spring's workshop with one next spring that will be taught by poet Peter Klappert.