Springfield Regional Arts Council

Creamery Writers Workshop To Feature Talk on Writing Self-Help Books

Monday, June 23, 2008

This Thursday, June 26, at the Creamery Writers Workshop held from 7pm to 8:30pm in the Creamery Arts Center, featured speaker will be Karen Buzzard, Ph.D, head of MSU's Media, Journalism & Film Dept. She received her Ph.D from University of Wisconsin-Madison and has taught in the area of interpersonal communication for a number of years. She is the author of three books, including Holding Pattern: How Communication Prevents Intimacy in Adults (Mischigan State Univ. Press, 2001).Buzzard will discuss the challenges of writing the self-help communication genre, specifically selecting a case study method and means of analysis.

Buzzard's book, Holding Pattern, examines the chronically single -- the mid-life adult -- who has failed to find the intimacy he or she seeks. A noted communication scholar, Buzzard illuminates how human communication styles influence our capacity for intimacy as she traces the roots of adult miscommunications through three critical stages of development crucial in shaping our ability to communicate intimately. Using psychological theories of life history analysis, Buzzard arrives at a novel picture of how our intimacy styles are shaped. Her case studies are considered by many as remarkable in demonstrating how the achievement of intimacy involves a crucial shift of direction as we progress from childhood to adulthood.

The Creamery Writers Workshop, a literary outreach program of the Springfield Regional Arts Council, funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education and the Missouri Arts Council, is free and open to all writers regardless of age or genre. For more information, contact the SRAC, 417-862-ARTS(2787).