Writing Matters
Within the frame of the event series with the telling name “Writing Matters”, the Writing Center invites widely renowned, international writers and journalists to Würzburg. The guiding theme “Writing Matters” works on two levels. On the one hand, it aims at the process of writing: the individual steps, the manifold activities and considerations included in planning and composing (demanding) texts are as much of interest as the finished product. On the other hand, “Writing Matters” advocates that writing is a significant, crucial and impactful cultural activity and that texts influence the world we live in to a substantial degree. This holds true for scientific contributions, fiction or journalistic texts on socially relevant viewpoints alike.
Here you will find creative student writings, which have been produced in various Writing Center events.
Winter Term 2023/24
On November 23rd 2023, from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm, the Environmental Humanities Class at the Graduate School of the Humanities warmly invites you to the online creative writing workshop "Small Carbon Stories: Re-writing the Climate Crisis." Please register via eh@uni-wuerzburg.de. By clicking on the image you will find a higher-resolution version.
Winter Term 2022/23
During the 2021 summer semester, the award-winning Irish author Jan Carson convened short story writing workshops for students at the JMU Würzburg. Carson emphasized developing structure, characterization, and narratology, but also community. When writing together, she observed, you find “a whole community of other people who see the world a little bit the same as you and suddenly it doesn’t feel as lonely anymore.” Please join us for an evening with Jan Carson and JMU authors who will be sharing their short stories and their experiences of writing together with us.
The event will take place on December 1, 2022, 18.00-20.00 (CET), via ZOOM.
Please see the section "Sommersemester 2021" on this page for information on the Schreibzentrum I Writing Center’s past events with Jan Carson.
Please see https://www.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/irish-studies/video-podcasts/podcasts/ for a podcast about the Writing Matters workshop and a preliminary publication of one of the short stories written by a participant of the workshop.
Please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg_qugXM2oQ for the ISWÜ kick-off event featuring Jan Carson.
Registration
If you are interested in participating in this online event, please sign up by sending an email with the subject line “WRITING MATTERS” to irishstudies@uni-wuerzburg.de by November 30, 2022. Please include your full name and affiliation or address.
A collaboration of the Schreibzentrum I Writing Center (Prof. Dr. MaryAnn Snyder-Körber) and Irish Studies Würzburg (ISWÜ) (Prof. Dr. Ina Bergmann & Prof. Dr. Maria Eisenmann).
Summer Term 2022
Dr. Rebecca Schuman is a professor pro tempore of literature at the University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College as well as an instructor of creative writing in the Stanford Continuing Studies program. She received her Ph.D. in German from the University of California at Irvine in 2010 and is the author of the academic monograph Kafka and Wittgenstein: The Case for an Analytic Modernism (Northwestern University Press 2015). She has been an academic-writing coach and productivity specialist since 2013. Her advice column for the Chronicle of Higher Education “Are You Writing?” has been guiding scholars through the academic writing process since 2018. Read more about Dr. Schuman on her website nihilismforoptimists.com.
A three-day online workshop particularly aimed at graduate and doctoral students writing in English is planned for Friday, 9 September 2022; Friday, 23 September 2022; and Friday, 30 September 2022 from 17:00 - 19:45 (Central European Time). Please find more information here.
Summer Term 2021
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her publications include a novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears, a short story collection, Children’s Children, (Liberties Press), two micro-fiction collections, Postcard Stories 1 and 2 (Emma Press) and a short story collection, The Last Resort (Doubleday).
Her novel The Fire Starters (Doubleday) won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019, the Kitschies Prize for Speculative Fiction 2020 and was shortlisted for the Dalkey Book Prize 2020. Jan won the Harper’s Bazaar short story competition in 2016 and has been shortlisted for the BBC National Story Prize and Sean O’Faolain Short Story Prize. She was the inaugural Irish Writers Centre Roaming Writer in Residence on the trains of Ireland in 2019 and the Open Book Scotland Writer in Lockdown during 2020.
She is currently writer in residence on an AHRC-funded research project at Queen’s University Belfast exploring the depiction of dementia in contemporary fiction. Jan’s third novel, The Raptures, is forthcoming from Doubleday in Spring 2022.
This reading and discussion will be conducted together with author Colette Bryce as part of the virtual Irish Studies Würzburg (ISWÜ) Kick-off Event.
- Friday, April 16th 2021, 7 – 9pm (via Zoom)
Open to all.
For more information on the event and on how to register, please visit the ISWÜ website
Over the course of four weeks, these interactive online workshops will focus on key elements of short story writing such as character, plot, pacing, editing, dialogue, endings and beginnings. Each two-hour session will involve an element of teaching, plenty of room for structured discussion and an opportunity to take part in specially crafted writing exercises.
The course will be fun, full of practical help and really accessible for absolute beginners. Bring a pen and paper, lots of enthusiasm and a lively imagination. No previous experience required.
- Friday, April 23rd 2021, 2 – 4pm
- Friday, April 30th 2021, 2 – 4pm
- Friday, May 7th 2021, 2 – 4pm
- Friday, May 14th 2021, 2 – 4pm
Limited to 15 student participants.
Please register via WueStudy
Join us for an open conversation with writer Jan Carson.
- NEW TIME: Friday, May 14th 2021, 6:15 – 7:45 pm (via Zoom)
Limited number of participants.
Please register via email to the Writing Center: schreibzentrum@uni-wuerzburg.de
Writer in Residence
The Writer-in-Residence Program brings highly qualified and prominent professional writers to Würzburg for a short creative residency combined with teaching and public speaking events.
The aim of the program is threefold.
- First, the program emphasizes writing as a craft and professional skill in keeping with the profile of the Schreibzentrum | Writing Center der JMU Würzburg and the guiding frameworks of the "Qualitätspakt Lehre."
- Second, the program allows for networking between the JMU Würzburg and further academic as well as creative communities.
- Third, the program contributes to the international profile and visibility of the JMU Würzburg as an education innovator.
Anna Winger was Writer in Residence at the University of Wuerzburg during the winter term 2019/20.
For a look back at the events, click here.
From July 2nd to July 12th 2019, the Ghanaian-American writer Yaa Gyasi was Writer in Residence at the University of Wuerzburg.
For a look back at the events, clickhere.
Thomas Chatterton Williams was the first Writer in Residence at the University of Wuerzburg during the winter term 2018/19.
For a look back at the events, clickhere.
