The Brouzils Seminars 2008

Les Brouzils 2008 Memoir Writing Project

A three-session summer program in France for writers of personal, literary non-fiction.

The Brouzils Seminars provide limited-term residency programs for serious students who wish to be mentored by accomplished professionals in a setting well away from the familiar surroundings of everyday life.

The Seminars' Memoir Writing Program is for those who are engaged in telling the stories of their lives not just for themselves, but also for the education, entertainment and enrichment of others. Sessions meet in August in Les Brouzils, a small village in the French Vendée.

Workshops: For 2008, there are three sessions — two weeklong workshop sessions, and one two-week workshop/retreat — each with a distinct purpose. Participants may combine two or more of these sessions. Seminars are conducted in a small, private chateau situated in a park opposite the village church. The 2008 sessions focus on finding the compelling story in your life and learning how to write it well. Workshop meetings and faculty consultations will help participants find a starting-point for their work and a method for developing the work over time.

Location: The Vendée, situated in the west of France just south of Brittany and the Loire, is the most traditional of French regions, with a rich history punctuated by a bloody uprising during the French revolution — an episode that has given the area its own distinctive character. The now-tranquil village of Les Brouzils was once at the center of those events. The place is removed from the noise of urban life, yet it is not remote: A rural railway station is nearby, and from there, it's little more than a half-hour to Nantes (and another two hours to Paris via TGV trains). In the other direction, an hour to the west, the little train takes you to the coastal village of Les Sables d'Olonne, with its long, sandy beaches, its celebrated music school and its collections of art and books housed in the old Abbaye Sainte-Croix. The surf along the Vendean coast is often high and dramatic, but the warm summer weather rivals that in the south.

The Brouzils Memoir Writing Project 2008.

Enrollment in the Brouzils 2008 Memoir Writing Project is limited to 25 students per seminar per session. Participants may combine sessions.

Workshop sessions and calendar.

• Session 1: 3 August to 10 August.
• Retreat session 2: 10 August to 23 August.
• Session 3: 24 August to 31 August.

Each workshop meets at least once daily, except weekends. Limited enrollment. Late registrants will be waitlisted.

Session 1: The first session convenes with an informal opening soirée with aperitifs on August 3. This session is intended for beginners. It follows a fairly intensive schedule: The workshop meets ten times over five days, with an additional day or two devoted to writing and consultation with faculty. By the time the session concludes the morning of August 10, participants will be expected to have defined their projects by finding the story at the center of their lives, discovering how to plot and outline it, and successfully identifying its principal themes.

Session 2: The second session meets for two weeks, beginning with a salon the evening of August 10 and adjourning August 23rd. During that time, the workshops will convene ten times, usually in the mornings. Afternoons will be free for writing and for consultation with faculty. This is primarily a writing retreat session designed to help those who have already successfully defined the scope of their project and who wish direction in engaging the work. By the time the session ends, participants will have learned how to write a professional and entertaining life-story that can be published and/or passed on to their descendants.

Session 3: A final session begins August 24th and is devoted to the practical aspects of publishing a memoir, including meetings devoted to creating a proposal and finding an agent and a publisher. A literary agent will visit the session to meet with participants and answer questions. Additional time will be devoted to an explanation of the relative merits of trade book publishing and personal publishing.

Studio time and individual tutorials in French and German language instruction, piano, voice and drawing may also be arranged.

Faculty:

Joe Kita. The 2008 session is led by Joe Kita. Mr Kita has been a professional journalist for almost three decades. He has authored five popular books (including four memoirs), written for numerous national magazines including Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan, taught writing at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, launched magazines in such diverse places as Korea and Kazakhstan, and appeared on Oprah, Montel, CNN and other American television programs. For the last four years, Mr Kita has been guest-lecturing on ships operated by Crystal Cruises, entertaining audiences with stories of trying out for his high-school basketball team at age 40, challenging 85-year-old Jack La Lanne to a $10,000 fitness challenge (and losing), and spending a year of his life facing his 12 biggest fears. On Crystal’s 2008 World Cruise, Joe is teaching a unique course on Memoir Writing. Joe and his wife, Maria, reside in southeastern Pennsylvania and have two college-age children.

A note to participants from Joe: "One important point to understand is that this is not about how to write an autobiography. Rather, these sessions are about memoir (singular, not plural) writing, about identifying one influential and important part of your life and writing about just that. As I tell my students, you can only ever write one autobiography, but you can write countless memoirs. Or, to put it another way, an autobiography is the story of a life, while a memoir is a story from a life."

Additional faculty from the Brouzils Seminars will also be present:

·         Denis Boyles: The author of two books of poetry, a book of design theory and more than a dozen works of travel, history and commentary, including a 2005 critique of French énarques. As a journalist, he has served on the staffs of publications as diverse as National Lampoon, The New York Times Magazine and Men’s Health. His work has appeared in Esquire, Readers Digest, The Washington Post, The New York Times, National Review Online and in many other newspapers and magazines. In February 2008, Doubleday published his newest book, Superior, Nebraska, a memoir thinly disguised as an informal survey of the American Midwest. His current work-in-progress, for Knopf, is about publishing in Edwardian England. Seminars director. BA, University of Baltimore. MA, The Johns Hopkins University.

·         April Reinking: The illustrator of several books, including books for men and women in Doris Pooser’s “Always in Style” series (Crisp) and A Man’s Life (Harper Collins). Her work has also appeared in various publications, including Men’s Journal. She is a former instructor in illustration at Baltimore Community College. BS, University of Maryland.

Additional seminar leaders may be added. In conformity with all Brouzils Seminars, any adjunct faculty will be a working professional with experience appropriate to the workshop. In addition, a visiting writer will also be present during the two-week session to discuss projects with seminars participants.

Fees and enrollment procedures:

Tuition:

Session 1: US$960.00 | Session 2 (a two-week retreat): US$1790.00 | Session 3: US$1050.00.

Discounts: Participants enrolling prior to 15 April 2008 may deduct a further $100.00 from the total tuition fee. Registering for more than one session? Please deduct five percent from the total tuition.

A $400 enrollment fee, applied against tuition, must accompany all applications. The enrollment fee is refundable only if the applicant is not accepted by the Seminars. All remaining fees are payable in advance and due 30 days before the beginning of the first seminar meeting. A fifty percent refund may be made if cancellations are received by the Seminar administrator in writing before 1 April 2008. A ten percent refund may be made for cancellations received by the Seminar administrator in writing before 1 June 2008. Notification address: Brouzils Seminars LLC, US Agent, 118 N. Locust St., Mankato KS 66956 USA. No refunds are possible after 1 June 2008 or for participants who withdraw from the Seminars at any time after a session commences. These fee policies apply to all participants regardless of enrollment date.

Payment of the enrollment fee may be made by personal check or by credit card via PayPal to the following email account: info at brouzils.org.

Tuition fees may also be made through PayPal or by check through the US agent: Brouzils Seminars LLC, 118 N. Locust St., Mankato, KS 66956. For additional information, please email info at brouzils.org.

Tuition includes seminar and small-group courses and evaluations, breakfast and light lunch buffets (on class days), enrollment fees, travel expenses for any required group expeditions, welcoming events for the first and second sessions, and a farewell dinner for the third.

Not included: Air fare, accommodations, insurance, travel document fees (including valid passports), independent excursions, telephone charges, books, any personal items.

Transportation:

London and Brussels are often the most inexpensive destinations in Europe for participants coming from the US. Ryanair operates frequent, low-cost air service between London and Nantes and La Rochelle. Connections from Brussels and from Paris to Nantes by rail are fast and frequent. Car rental is available in Nantes and La Rochelle. SNCF-TER trains provide transportation to Nantes from the neighboring village (l'Hérbergement-les-Brouzils). Trains to and from Nantes run several times daily; travel time is approximately 35 minutes. Travel time to the coast is approximately one hour. The Vendean coast is spectacular.

Accommodation:

We assist all participants in locating suitable lodging. A very limited number of participants may be accommodated at Le Ligny by prior arrangement on a first-come, first-served basis, depending on faculty requirements. Bedrooms are single and double occupancy and rather spartan. En suite bathrooms are not available. Additional accommodation may be found locally, ranging from the spacious quarters at the Manoir de la Thébline to the simple, comfortable, plain rooms at the nearby Chavagnes College, which are reserved for participants only. Also available: local rural gites, hotels and inns. Prices vary widely. An accommodation and information list is available here. Early reservations are encouraged as August is a busy time for local landlords, hoteliers and innkeepers.

Facilities:

The workshops meet in the chateau building, which is wired for ADSL high-speed web access. Wireless cards are suggested. The Seminars can provide a limited number of not-very-new bicycles and will make these available on free loan to participants on a first-come, first-served basis. Bicycles also may be reserved in advance. The facilities (including especially those bicycles!) are used at your own risk (see the note below on insurance). The chateau is not very modern and, while every effort will be made to accommodate every participant, the place is a bit unfriendly to those with special needs. Therefore, some preplanning may be necessary. Write to us at info at brouzils.org if you have a question concerning this. Light lunches and continental-style breakfasts are served informally during specified dining hours. The building and the grounds are smoke-free. The building closes at 9 p.m., although residents may come and go until midnight.

Enrollment procedure:

Please submit by email a current CV, a writing sample and/or a statement of goals. For those who prefer to use our formal application form, one may be downloaded by clicking here. If you have a question or need assistance, please contact the Seminars. The email address: info at brouzils.org.

Insurance:

Applicants are invited to participate solely at their own risk. All participants must be fully insured against illness and injury. The Seminars cannot accept any responsibility of any kind for any injury or illness, including those incurred on the Seminars' premises. Participants will be asked to sign a document acknowledging these points.

Academic credit information:

Our American academic partner, Fort Hays State University, will award undergraduate and graduate credit based on evaluations of participation and accomplishment.

For information on The Brouzils Seminars July 2008 sessions, please click here.

Les Brouzils. The village is largely unchanged since this photograph was taken a century ago.

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