H-P Museum to host Creative Writing Retreat

PIGGOTT, ARK.-The dates of Nov. 5 through Nov. 9, 2012, have been selected for the Creative Writers' Retreat for adults which will be held at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center and the Hemingway Barn-Studio. According to officials associated with the event, this will offer adults the opportunity to work on personal creative writing under the direction of a professional mentor.

Jo McDougall of Leawood, Kan., will be offering her expertise as mentor for the retreat. A native of DeWitt, Ark., she has published five books of poetry and is a graduate of the University of Arkansas MFA writing program. She also serves as an associate professor emeritus of English at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, where she served as co-director of the creative writing program for 11 years.

Other work in the field also includes working as a visiting writer and workshop director and she also has a mentoring service for poets and writers.

McDougall has also received awards from the DeWitt Wallace/Reader's Digest Foundation and the Academy of American Poetry and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and was recently named to the Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame.

The Creative Writers' Retreats are structured to be interactive with the group activities as well as with private writing time and mentoring.

At the retreats, writers contribute stories, poems, and essays that will be published on-site in a spiral bound souvenir anthology for each participant.

For more information or to receive a brochure, contact adamlong@astate.edu or call the museum at 870-598-3487.

Registration for the event is $150 by Oct. 26. After Oct. 26, the fee will be $175. Lunch and breaks are also included. Teachers who are interested in in-service opportunities associated with the retreat are urged to contact the museum.

HPMEC is an Arkansas State University Heritage Site and is located at 1021 W. Cherry Street in Piggott. Tours are on the hour, 9 a.m., to 3 p.m., Monday-Friday, 1 p.m., to 3 p.m., on Saturdays.

*Information for this article has been sourced from a news release from astate.edu/a/asunews/archive.dot.