UC Student Veterans Summer Writing Workshop

FAIN: AH-256391-17

University of California, Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA 93106-0001)
Susan Derwin (Project Director: January 2017 to November 2019)

Professor Susan Derwin, Director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara, requests a Chairman’s Grant of $30,000 to support the convening of the 2017 University of California Student Veterans Summer Writing Workshop, which will bring twenty-four undergraduate and graduate student veterans and reservists from all ten campuses of the University of California to the Santa Barbara campus.  The inaugural UC Veterans Summer Writing Workshop took place in June 2015, and also brought twenty-four student veterans to Santa Barbara from most of the UC branches.  The second Workshop was supported by the NEH and brought twenty-three participants together in the summer of 2016.  


The UC Student Veterans Summer Writing Workshops provide their participants five full days of instruction in creative nonfiction, from humanities instructors with extensive experience working with military service members.  The program of study comprises morning sessions of reading and discussion of published texts by veterans, study of the craft of creative nonfiction, afternoon sessions spent completing writing assignments, an evening film screening and discussion, and a public reading of the workshop participants’ writings, as well as selected networking activities.  In addition, the IHC hosts a publicly accessible digital journal of military experience, Instant Separation, which includes the writings of past workshop participants. (http://www.instantseparation.org/ )