Writing in Your Profession: New Summer Workshops Debut

GAMBIER, Ohio (October 16, 2012)

Do you see yourself in this picture?

You're a medical or science graduate student, ready to write your first scientific journal article. Or you're a practicing physician, faced with the same challenge. Imagine working with physicians and researchers from the Weill-Cornell Medical College, Penn State, and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Kenyon faculty members to bring your idea to publishable form - in a weekend.

You're a playwright, or want to be one. Imagine working with the literary managers of Steppenwolf Theatre, Atlantic Theater Company, and Hampstead Theatre and Kenyon faculty to learn the fundamentals of playwriting - or develop your script in process.

You're an art critic in the making, or an art history professor, hoping to bring new insights and style to your writing. Imagine working with the Wall Street Journal's art critic and an eminent author on everything from writing long and short exhibition reviews to blogs, digital media, and more.

You're a high school teacher, hungry take your talented students to new levels in writing. Imagine spending a week with Kenyon College faculty to enrich your classroom for the coming year.

That's the picture at Kenyon in June 2013, when the Kenyon Institute - a new program for adult writers - premieres on the Kenyon campus. The intensive workshops, led by a combination of Kenyon faculty and distinguished partners, are designed to offer creative, current instruction in writing by discipline, all based on participants' creation of new work every day. Four courses will be offered:

The Kenyon Playwrights Conference, June 16-22. A unique opportunity combining playwriting workshops and a partnership with three renowned theater companies - the Atlantic Theater Company of New York, Steppenwolf Theatre of Chicago, and Hampstead Theatre of London. Workshop participants will learn from Kenyon professors and the theater companies' senior artistic and literary staff. Three distinguished playwrights, commissioned by each company, will be in residence developing their plays, which will be showcased at the end of the workshop. James E. Michael Playwright in Residence Wendy MacLeod and Kenyon drama faculty will lead the program

The Gund Gallery Critical Writing Workshop, June 16-22. An intensive workshop for graduate students, scholars, and journalists engaged in writing about art. Instructors include noted critics Peter Plagens, art critic for the Wall Street Journal, and Terry Barrett, Ohio State University professor emeritus and author of Criticizing Art, Interpreting Art, Criticizing Photographs, Why Is That Art?, Talking about Student Art, and Making Art.

The Kenyon Institute in Biomedical and Scientific Writing, June 13-16. A "boot camp" in writing for scientific publication, for doctoral students, M.D./Ph.D. candidates, and postdoctoral biomedical researchers. Instructors include Donald Fischman, M.D., emeritus professor of cell and developmental biology, Weill Medical College-Cornell University; orthopedic surgeon Pierce E. Scranton Jr., M.D., contributing editor to the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, orthopedic consultant to the Seattle Seahawks, and author of Playing Hurt: Treating the Warriors of the NFL; Barbara Lohse, Ph.D., R.D., L.D.N., associate professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Health and Human Development, Penn State University; and James D. Cox, M.D., division head and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston

The Kenyon Summer Teaching Institute, June 9-15. For high school teachers, a workshop focusing on ways to get students to write college-level essays, led by Kenyon assistant professor of English Yvonne Garcia and Randolph-Macon College assistant professor of English Marissa Cull.

The Kenyon Institute was inspired in part by the success of the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and the idea that the College could further draw on its strengths - especially in teaching and in writing - to build a bustling intellectual community of adult learners on campus during the summer. Programs are designed to overlap, so that writers from various disciplines can confer and learn from one another, and from those participating in the concurrent Kenyon Review programs. The recent construction of modern, air-conditioned townhouse apartments in the north campus gave the college housing that was ideally suited to adult programs.

Sarah Kahrl, director of the Kenyon Institute and vice president for college relations, developed plans for the Kenyon Institute after conducting an extensive feasibility study, and the College's trustees endorsed the idea and provided some initial funding. The feasibility study envisions the Institute supporting itself, and indeed returning significant profits to Kenyon. Additional programs in new writing disciplines are planned for future summers.

"The vision here is a community of and for writers, of and for adult learners," said Kahrl, "a community that brings together people of diverse backgrounds and interests for a week full of writing, studying, readings, lectures, performances, and stimulating conversation - all on one of the country's most stunning college campuses."

Registration for the summer programs is open as of October 1 and applications will be accepted in order of submission. For more information, see the Kenyon Institute Web site at www.kenyoninstitute.org, or contact Barbara Kakiris, marketing manager, for a full brochure and more information at kakirisb@kenyon.edu or (740) 427-5101.