DAVID R. COLLINS WRITERS’ CONFERENCE
20th Anniversary
June 26-28, 2025
David R. Collins Writers’ Conference
Augustana College – Rock Island, IL
June 26, 27, and 28, 2025
(all times Central)
The Quad City’s Longest Running Writing Event Returns to Augustana College!
MWC and The David R. Collins Writers’ Conference (formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Writers’ Conference) are thrilled return to the campus of Augustana College this summer, June 26-28 as we celebrate 20 year of the Conference in its current format. Featuring our stellar Conference Faculty leading three-day workshops, an anniversary party, holding a public reading, a concluding luncheon, and more.
Click here for online registration for the 2025 David R. Collins Writers’ Conference!
We will continue to offer scholarships to students, veterans/active duty service members, and those with financial need. Download a scholarship application for the DRC Writers’ Conference here. We offer scholarships to students, veterans/active duty service members, and those with financial need.
Lodging Information: MWC has a hold on a block of rooms at the Holiday Inn Rock Island, approx. 2 miles from Augustana College. Please follow this link to book your reservation, or please call the hotel directly at 309-794-1212 and ask for the “Midwest Writing Center” Block.
*Please note: there are a limited number of rooms available, and the cutoff date to make reservations is June 6th, 2025.
For more information please email MWC, or to register via phone,
please call MWC at 309-732-7330.
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2025 David R. Collins Writers’ Conference
Course Descriptions, Faculty Bios, and Schedule
Writing Place: Geography in Short Fiction
Sorensen Hall, June 26-28, 8:45 – 10:15 a.m. each day
Whether it’s the name of the most popular local grocery chain or the physical features of the land, geography deeply impacts all of us. Everything from the way we speak to the foods we eat to the things we do for is influenced by where we were born and where we live. And all fiction is set somewhere. This workshop will feature readings and prompts about the role of geography in short stories and offer ideas about how to better make the words on the page represent a layered and authentic reality, whether it be outer space or Jupiter, Florida.
Instructor Bio:
Brett Biebel is the author of 48 Blitz (Split/Lip Press, 2020), A Companion to Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon (University of Georgia Press, 2023-2024), and Gridlock (Cornerstone Press, 2024). His short fiction has been anthologized in Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction and featured in Wigleaf’s Top 50 Very Short Stories (2021). He writes and teaches in Illinois at Augustana College.
Writing For Your Life: Creative Nonfiction, Historical Narratives & Memoir
Sorensen Hall, June 26-28, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. each day
Goals:
-To develop craft and technical aspects of Creative Non-Fiction, Historical Narratives and Memoir.
-To generate new work, and approaches for revision.
Course Description:
In this generative workshop, we will explore the concepts of lyrical prose, and the practice of writing in both linear and hybrid forms. We will engage actively with the processes of writing as living in the world, and as a way to interact with ourselves, and our communities. Through writing multiple drafts, we will use revision as a means of deepening our writing and self-expression.
We will consider: What does it mean to write prose? Do we write of, and about ourselves, even when that is not the intention? When it is our goal to write about ourselves, how does that deepen our fears, and propel us forward? When we write outside of ourselves, what closeness and distances are created? How can we bend genres in order to allow our writing to flourish?
Instructor Bio:
Marguerite L. Harrold s a poet and writer from Chicago. Her first book, Chicago House Music: Culture and Community (Belt/Arcadia, 2024,) was short listed for Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year, 2024 by Chicago Review of Books (CHIrby award) and was nominated for Outstanding Book on the History of Chicago 2025, by the Union League Club of Chicago. She is the Educational Promotions Manager for African Poetry Book Fund, and an Associate Editor of Prairie Schooner. Marguerite is a PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work focuses on African American and African Diasporic poetry, ecology, folklore, culture, social justice.
Beyond! Rethinking Form, Structure & the Limits of the Page – Poetry Workshop
Sorensen Hall, June 26-28, 1:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. each day
How can thinking like a designer change the way we write? In what ways can space, structure, and visual form shape the meaning of and elevate a written work? In this workshop, we’ll study masters of breaking conventions and use them as our guides as we push beyond the margins and reimagine our own work. Through a series of writing prompts and design experiments, we’ll generate new writing and reshape existing pieces, pushing our writing to the margins—and beyond!
Instructor Bio:
Skylar Alexander wears many hats: she is an English teacher in an online private school; a book designer working with small presses, nonprofits, and individual clients; and a writer of poetry, creative nonfiction, and flash fiction. Her debut collection, Searching for Petco, was published by Forklift Books in 2022, and other work of hers has appeared in numerous places. She earned degrees in English and Entrepreneurial Management from the University of Iowa in 2015 and a Master’s in Secondary Education from NYU Steinhardt in 2022. She is a part-time digital nomad, splitting her time between her native Midwest, the East Coast, and abroad.
Novel Workshop: Planning for the Long Haul
Sorensen Hall, June 26-28, 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. each day
Every writer has good days and bad days, and the long-term project of a novel will include frustrating periods of blank pages. How can you stay the course with a process that could take years?
This workshop will provide a variety of strategies for writing through the fallow periods: approaches to getting started and plotting; writing prompts for any stage of the process; and short- and long-term planning tools. This workshop will be generative, with many opportunities to share your work. You’ll leave the workshop with new pages as well as tools to get you through the rest of your long haul.
Writers at any stage are welcome: those with full or partial drafts as well as those just looking to get started.
Instructor Bio:
Rebecca Entel is the author of a novel, Fingerprints of Previous Owners; stories and essays in such journals as Guernica and Literary Hub; and flash in Jellyfish Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing, including a novel-writing course patterned after National Novel Writing Month; U.S. and Caribbean literature; and the literature of social justice at Cornell College. As director of Cornell’s Center for the Literary Arts, she oversees a Visiting Writer Series, workshops and events, a literary and art magazine, and an internship program. She also mentors in the PEN America Prison and Justice Writing program.
20th Anniversary Celebration, Faculty Reading & Open Mic, Manuscript Critiques,
MWC Press Pitches
20th Anniversary Celebration: Thursday, June 26, 6:00 p.m. – Hauberg Estate, Rock Island, IL
The DRC Writers’ Conference is celebrating 20 years this summer – so we’re having a party…and everyone’s invited! Stayed to for more info…
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Conference Faculty Reading and Participant Open Mic
Friday, June 27 at Rozz-Tox (2108 3rd Ave. Rock Island, IL)
Social at 6pm, Faculty Reading at 7pm, Participant Open Mic at 8pm – free and open to the public
Join us at Rozz-Tox to hear Conference faculty reading their work. Followed by an open mic for Conference participants. Free and open to the public.
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Manuscript Critiques from CWC Faculty
Dates and times will be scheduled during the Conference
Augustana College
-Marguerite L. Harrold:
Manuscripts must be emailed two weeks prior to consultation. 10-15 pages of prose or poetry.
10 people max. $100 per student 30 minutes per person.
-Skylar Alexander:
$50 | 10 pages poetry; 45 minute meeting in person during conference for up to 5 people on first-come, first-serve basis; additional slots can be accommodate online over Zoom at a later date
$50 | 10 pages prose, double-spaced; 45 minute meeting in person during conference for up to 3 people on first-come, first-serve basis; additional slots can be accommodate online over Zoom at a later date
-Rebecca Entel:
- Manuscripts must be emailed by June 15th
- 20 pages of prose
- 8 people max
- 45 minutes per person
- $125 per student
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Book Pitches – Times will be scheduled during the Conference
Dates and times will be scheduled during the Conference
Sorensen Hall, Augustana College
Ten minutes to pitch your book to a panel from MWC Press. Pitch times will be scheduled with authors in advance of the Conference. Cost is $15, and pre-registration is required.
MWC Press: The panel requests each author bring a one-page summary of their pitch—brief synopsis of the manuscript, brief author bio/other publications, brief outline of marketing ideas/strategy, etc. The panel will take these summaries and their input from the pitch sessions back to the MWC Board of Directors and related committees to make a final decision. Authors whose work advances through this process may be asked to provide more detailed information.
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Concluding Luncheon
Saturday, June 28, 12-1 p.m. at Wilson Center, Augustana College
Conference sponsors will be recognized, and the faculty will reflect on their workshops over a catered lunch. Cost is included with your Conference Registration fee, or $15 for MWC members without paid registration fee, and $20 for non-MWC members without paid registration fee. Please confirm or register on or before June 20
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Please call Ryan Collins at (309) 732-7330 to register over the phone today, or email him at mwc@midwestwritingcenter.org for more information.
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Conference Sponsors:
Modern Woodman of America,
Founding Sponsor of the David R. Collins Writers’ Conference
The Figge Art Museum
Augustana College
Illinois Arts Council
Rock Island Public Library
Rozz-Tox