Writing Tips from AWW 2011 Faculty -- Jamey Dunham

As part of our blog series, Antioch Writers' Workshop 2011 Faculty share their tips for writing. You can read complete bios of AWW 2011 Faculty at antiochwritersworkshop.com. Check back regularly for more  writing tips. 

Jamey Dunham - Afternoon Poetry Seminar

Associate Professor of English at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.

Selected Publications: The Best American Poetry 2005 (Scribner, 2005), The Bible of Lost Pets (Salt Modern Poets, 2009)

Selected Awards: Inaugural winner of the Crashaw Prize.

Quick Tips:

1. If you feel you need publication to validate yourself as a writer, you will probably never find the validation you're looking for. Still, anyone can and will be published if they keep at it. It's simple, keep writing and never give up on yourself. If you write good work, it will find a home eventually.

2. Remember that contests, like publishing, are different animals from writing. Writing is art and what truly matters. Success in contests and publishing relies upon others and their own subjective decisions. Do not confuse success with talent.

3. Find your own voice first and foremost; however, if you are unwilling or unable to do so, steal your voice from the very best you can find. There is no excuse for plagiarizing mediocrity, swing for the fences!


UPDATE:  Meet Jamey Dunham this weekend at the Second Sunday Free Writers’ Workshop on Sunday, April 10, 2:00-3:30 p.m. at Books & Co at The Greene. The free workshop brought to you by Antioch Writers’ Workshop and Books & Co will address “Poetry Writing Techniques for Poets, Fiction Writers and All Kinds of Writers!” Read more about the Second Sunday Free Writers' Workshop here.