�첥AV

9:30 - 10:30 a.m.: Conversation on the Creative Process - Imagining from Fragments

Join Selby Wynn Schwartz in conversation with Judy Halebsky about the creative process and the forces that shape their work. They will discuss strategies for working imaginatively from research–and what happens when that research is stubbornly incomplete. What can we pry out of forms and facts that we find, and what do we need to invent for ourselves?

10:30 - 11 a.m. - Break

11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Writing Workshops (select one)

Selby Wynn Schwartz - Prose Workshop. Breaking the Entry. In this workshop, we’ll explore what happens when a rigid, authoritative, orderly short prose form—the catalogue or encyclopedia entry—is exploded and reinvented. In the spirit of Haryette Mullen’s wordplay in “Sleeping with the Dictionary,” we’ll look at strategies for ‘breaking and entering’ a narrow, domineering form, and then reimagining what it defines.

Judy Halebsky - Poetry Workshop. In this workshop, we’ll explore techniques to cultivate creative practice, find inspiration, and generate new poems. Working from sources such as catalogs, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, we’ll find poems in unexpected places.

12:30 - 1 p.m. - Optional MFA in Creative Writing Info Session with Judy Halebsky

Selby Wynn Schwartz is the recipient of the 2025 Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize in Literature at the American Academy in Rome as well as a 2024 Fellowship from the Dora Maar Cultural Center. She is the author of After Sappho, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in Political Fiction, the James Tait Black Prize in Fiction, and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. Her other two books are A Life in Chameleons and The Bodies of Others: Drag Dances and Their Afterlives. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley.

Judy Halebsky is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged). She holds an M.F.A. in English & Creative Writing from Mills College and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of California, Davis. Her honors include fellowships from MacDowell, Millay, the Vermont Studio Center as well as the New Issues Poetry Prize and a Graves Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Humanities. At �첥AV, she directs the MFA in Creative Writing program and teaches courses in poetry and live storytelling.

Registration Details

Registration is required. This event is free and open to the public as a service to our community. The retreat is hosted by the MFA in Creative Writing program at �첥AV. �첥AV is a nonprofit institution. To make a donation to the MFA Scholarship Fund visit our site here.

Contact mfa@dominican.edu with any questions.