Creative Writing

The Shake Rag writing program encompasses workshops and classes in creative writing, nonfiction, and writing for the theater. It was started in 2007 by Guggenheim Fellow and author Dean Bakopoulos, whose first novel was selected by the New York Times as one of 100 Notable Books of 2005. The program has attracted such prominent instructors as Michael Perry, bestselling author of the memoir Population 485, poet Heather Swan Rosenthal, recipient of the 2007 Wisconsin Center for the Book's Bookmark Prize, and Shake Rag’s 2008 artist-in-residence, Danielle Trussoni whose first book, Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir, was named one of the Top Ten Books of 2006 by The New York Times and won the prestigious Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, and whose second book, Angelology, was published in 2010, to avid reviews, with a film version to follow.