By Melissa Leavitt

Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier

Would-be writers and poets convened at Foothill College last week to pick up some tips from guest authors and faculty writers speaking at the 25th Annual Writers’ Conference.

Participants at the six-day conference paid a registration fee of $75 to choose from more than 60 workshops and readings, presented by noted novelists, essayists and poets, as well as members of Foothill’s creative writing faculty.

Students could attend two workshops a day.

Course topics featured theme-based classes, such as “Writing Spiritual Autobiography and Fiction;” “Geography of Home: California Poetry of Place;” and “Fiction Writer as Film Maker;” and courses in technique, including “Poetic Form;” “Narrative structure and Plot Elements;” and fiction and poetry manuscript workshops.

Floyd Salas, a Foothill faculty member, threw his students into the art of writing with their first workshop last Thursday, “Spontaneous Poetry.”

He ran around the classroom, talking about “stream of consciousness” and what he calls “writing across the page,” telling his students to write down the first thoughts that came to their minds without stopping for punctuation or line breaks.

“Everything has to come from the top of your head,” he said. “Follow your own mood.”

He read a poem aloud for his students and asked them to write down what they were thinking.

“You might hear a phrase you like,” he said.

“Then write it down and go. You write all of the time when you’re listening.”

After he finished, the students read their poems aloud, and Salas taught them how to break them down into poetic structures.

The same day, Jessica Barksdale Inclan schooled her students in structure with her workshop, “Beginnings and Endings.”

Inclan, who has edited a women’s studies reader and published her poems, essays and short stories in various periodicals, told her students, “You can’t really teach an ending, you can only hear it in revision.”

She had each of her students read aloud their beginnings and endings, offering positive feedback and tips along the way.

“It takes a village to have a good ending,” Inclan said, describing the contributions her editors and publishers have made to her work.

She told her students of her own difficulty writing endings.

“I think we hate to let go,” she said. “I like my characters, I like my story. That’s why you start writing a new novel immediately - then you can make new friends.”

The instructors spread their enthusiasm to their students, most of whom had previous writing experience.

Valerie Kockelman, who has attended the workshop several years in a row, finds that the courses inspire her to branch out in her writing.

She originally attended the conference to develop a story she had in mind, but then became interested in other ideas while she was there.

“I’ve been coming here for several years trying to write a story,” she said. “Each year I find my antennae are up. Each year I get transformed into a writer, and I get inspired.”