August 8-14, 2021
WEST BEND, Wis.— Author Lisa Lickel, a core instructor every year since the Novel-In-Progress Bookcamp & Writing Retreat started in 2014, has accepted a new position as Assistant Director, NIP Director Dave Rank announced.
Lickel has assumed her new duties and will continue offering an optional review of manuscripts during the All-Genre NIP, the NIP director said.
“I’m pleased to be able to take on a more administrative role with the NIP. While I enjoyed being an instructor, I felt it was time for me to step back from that. I’m still involved with the Bookcamp and Writing Retreats but now I have a more flexible schedule and can help where needed.”
Lickel is the author of 30 novels and novellas, an editor, and writing mentor. She writes inspiring fiction both short and full-length, including mysteries, romance, family drama, feature articles, and radio theater. “Lisa has been a key member of our staff and Board of Directors for eight years and will be a great help to me managing our growing NIP residential programming,” Rank said.
“Stepping in for Lisa as our All-Genre NIP Editing Clinic Instructor/Writing Retreat Mentor will be Christopher Chambers,” Rank said. The All-Genre NIP is scheduled for August 8-14.
Chambers is a writer, editor, teacher, and former writing program director. He’s taught creative writing for more than twenty-five years, at the University of Alabama, Loyola University New Orleans, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in community centers and at writing retreats. He currently teaches for the Madison Writers Studio and the Oakhill Prison Humanities Project.
“Chris joins Author-in-Residence SJ Rozan, award-winning mystery novelist from New York, and Bookcamp Instructor Kelly Van Sant, a literary agent from Minneapolis, to lead our instructional sessions for the 15 writers enrolled in our Bookcamp workshop,” Rank said. “They’ll also provide one-on-one consultations with each writer.”
Chambers will pull double duty as the Writing Retreat Mentor, the NIP director explained. “He’ll provide guidance and inspiration to our Retreat writers who plan to spend most of their time during the week working on their manuscripts. “I’m excited to be a part of this,” Chambers said, “and look forward to talking with each writer.”
Chambers is the author of Delta 88, a book of flash fiction, and Best Western, a collection of short stories forthcoming in 2022 from Cornerstone Press in 2022. His work has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Writing, and has been published in magazines and anthologies including Best American Mystery Stories, The Southern Review, Washington Square, as well as cited in Best American Essays. He is the editor of Madison, Wisconsin-based Midwest Review and is past editor of Black Warrior Review and New Orleans Review.
Also joining the 2021 All-Genre NIP staff are literary agents Michelle Grajkowski, Sun Prairie, Wis., and Erik Hane, Minneapolis, Minn.,with publisher Shannon Ishizaki, Waukesha, Wis. They will visit during the latter half of the week providing further counsel for the enrolled writers and leading instructional sessions.
The Novel-In-Progress Bookcamps & Writing Retreats, www.novelbookcamp.org, offer two annual, residential writing events, the concurrent All-Genre NIP Bookcamp workshop and Writing Retreat and the new Speculative Fiction NIP Bookcamp and Retreat August 1-7.
NIP Bookcamp – This intensive workshop is designed to aid writers with a booklength work-in-progress in any genre or creative nonfiction, providing classroom instruction, editing clinic, critique sessions, advice specific to your WIP from published novelists, agents, and editors, and information on today’s changing publishing industry during a week-long, writing-focused environment.
NIP Writing Retreat – This writers’ retreat offers six days of personal writing time with opportunities to discuss writing issues with the Retreat Mentor (an award-winning novelist and editor), opportunities to attend certain writing- or publishing-related presentations, all NIP social activities, and chat with fellow writers and publishing professionals in a relaxed group environment.
Members of the Chicago Writers Association, Off Campus Writers’ Workshop, Winnetka, Ill., and the Wisconsin Writers Association receive a $90 discount when enrolling in the six-day, residential Bookcamp workshop while members of those organizations receive a $100 discount when registering for the concurrent residential Writing Retreat. Registration for both small-enrollment programs are limited, so contact NIP Director Dave Rank, director@novelbookcamp.org, as soon as possible to enroll.
Since its 2014 debut, the NIP has been held at the Cedar Valley UCCI, a 100-acre rural retreat center in southeast Wisconsin, about 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee and 95 miles from the Chicago area. https://www.ucci.org/cedar-valley/.
For more information on NIP programs, contact NIP Director Dave Rank, director@novelbookcamp.org or through the NIP’s Facebook page.
The Bookcamp workshop and the Writing Retreat are owned by the Novel-In-Progress Bookcamp & Writing Retreat, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational group.
Supportive friends of the NIP are the Chicago Writers Association, the Off Campus Writers’ Workshop, the Wisconsin Writers Association, and HerStry Literary Magazine, Milwaukee.
Donations are welcomed.
