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WORD-for-WORDS
A Monthly Newsletter from the Westport Writers' Workshop
with news of the WWW Community,
writing wisdom, prompts,
and announcements of upcoming events
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Good news for writers!
Hurricane's coming, there's a good chance you're going to lose power? Nowhere to go because everything is canceled and shut down?
Perfect opportunity to write!
Lucky for us, here's all we need:
Paper and pencil. No electricity required.
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A new year, a fresh start. |
Saying goodbye to summer is a bit easier when I remind myself that autumn has always been my favorite time of the year. For one thing, my birthday comes right after Labor Day. (Well, this one used to make me happy. Now, not so much.)
But more important, the new season, and new school year, always meant a fresh start. And it still does.
I'm particularly excited about our fall season at the Westport Writers' Workshop. Since we had to disappoint a lot of people last year when almost every workshop and event filled to capacity, I'm delighted that we have been able to increase the number of our usual fiction and nonfiction workshops.
Offering more workshops is actually not as simple as it sounds, because first we have to find really great workshop leaders. That's not so easy.
What's most important to us - what we believe characterizes the Westport Writers' Workshop - is this: exceptional teaching. Sure, there are lots of great writers around, particularly here in arts-loving Fairfield County. Some are even famous. But being a famous writer does not make someone a great teacher.
We insist on workshop leaders who are great teachers because what we are here for, first and foremost, is YOU. Your workshop experience. Your craft. Your development as a writer.
This fall, along with offering some great new events, we've developed workshops in several exciting new areas. For the first time blogging, TV sitcom writing, and screenwriting will join our array of offerings. What they all have in common, however, remains the same: developing the quality of your writing.
If this is the season when you get will get motivated to take your writing to a new level, go to www.westportwritersworkshop.com and sign up.
We look forward to seeing you at our Sept. 15 Open House .
Jessica Bram
Founder/Director
Westport Writers' Workshop
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You Are Cordially Invited to ...
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A Celebration of Our Writers
Thursday, September 15
5 to 7 pm
Please join us at our Open House as we kick off our 2011-12 season. We will gather to applaud our writers who have been published in this last year, as well as those who have done so much great writing.
It will be a purely social gathering in which to reconnect with old writing friends, meet new ones, get to know our workshop leaders, and ask questions about our upcoming programs. The gathering will take place at 3 Sylvan Road South, 2nd floor, Westport.
An RSVP by e-mail to info@westportwritersworkshop.com will be appreciated. We look forward to seeing you!
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Introducing Westport Writers' Workshop's New Workshop Leaders
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We are thrilled to welcome the following talented writing teachers and workshop leaders to the Westport Writers' Workshop "faculty." Stop by at our Sept. 15 Open House to meet them.
Linda Howard Urbach
A published author, playwright and screenwriter, Linda is the author of the novels Madame Bovary's Daughter (Random House Summer/Bantam Trade July, 2011); The Money Honey; and Expecting Miracles (Both Putnam's under the name Linda U. Howard). As a creative writing teacher she has extensive experience in the memoir genre as the creator of MoMoirs - Writing Workshops For & About Moms which she has conducted all over Fairfield county, and which resulted in "MoMoirs: The Umbilical Cord Stops Here!" a theatrical production. She co-authored with Roberto Mitrotti "The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud"produced by 20th Century Fox Specialized Film Division. Her one act play "Scenes from A Cell" was a finalist in the 2002 New England One Act Festival.
Linda will be leading Memoir Writing: Telling Our Stories on Fridays 10 a.m. to noon, beginning Sept. 23.
GiGi New
A lively and captivating speaker as well as a talented screenwriter with two movies currently in development, GiGi kept listeners enthralled at her Can You Write a TV Sitcom? talk at the Westport Writers' Workshop in June.
GiGi first earned her stripes as writer's assistant on Everybody Loves Raymond. She later became a staff writer on shows for Nickelodeon and FOX. Last September she pitched her original TV show to the networks with TV producer/director Walt Becker (Old Dogs, Wild Hogs, Glory Daze on TBS). As a screenwriter, GiGi has also developed and pitched to Hollywood producers numerous movie ideas, two of which are currently in development. GiGi has taught workshops at IFP and The Loft in Minneapolis.
In addition to her workshops, GiGi has a private practice as a script consultant for both TV and feature length film screenplays, which she will also offer through the Westport Writers' Workshop.
GiGi will be leading From Pitch to Pilot: How to Write a TV Sitcom on Thursdays from 7 to 9:30 pm, beginning October 6. She will also hold a full day Screenwriting Immersion workshop on Saturday, November 19.
"I've been consulting with GiGi New on a screenplay which was stalled for years and now is moving. She's a positive critic who identifies strengths in a piece and helps overcome the corrosive self-doubt that writers struggle with. Writing will always be a solitary line of work but GiGi makes it less so. And she laughs a lot, which is good."
~ Garrison Keillor, Author/Host of Prairie Home Companion
Sandra Rodriguez Barron
 Sandra Rodriguez Barron is the author of two novels: Stay With Me (HarperCollins, December, 2010) and The Heiress of Water, winner of 2007 International Latino Book Award for debut fiction. She was born in Puerto Rico and has lived in El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. She is the recipient of grants and/or fellowships from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, The Ford Foundation, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. She holds an Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Florida International University and has taught as an Adjunct Professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University. This June Sandy taught her Writing About Intimacy workshop at the Westport Writers' Workshop which she developed for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
Sandy, who filled the room at her Writing About Intimacy workshop at the WWW in June, will lead an intriguing new workshop called Walking the Line Between Memoir and Fiction. Intended for memoir and/or fiction writers who are not yet committed to one form or the other during the early creative stages of a work, it will take place on alternating Saturdays, 2-4 pm, beginning Sept. 17.
"Writing About Intimacy was probably the best workshop I've ever attended."
~ Laurel Tuohy, Ridgefield
Dan Woog
 There's little need to introduce Dan Woog, who is well known around town for his newspaper columns and wildly popular Westport blog 06880. The blog, whose tagline is "Where Westport meets the world" - gets several thousand hits a day. Dan posts at least once a day, and nearly every story generates intense feedback. Dan also blogs for the Westport News, and has several clients for whom he "ghost blogs."
A graduate of Brown University, Dan's print work has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today and Sports Illustrated. His "Woog's World" column has appeared in the Westport News every Friday since 1986, while his bi-weekly "The OutField" column is distributed nationally by Q Syndicate.
Dan will offer a special Be a Better Blogger workshop on Monday, 21 at 7 pm for anyone who already has a blog and wants to engage more readers. He will also repeat his two-evening Be A Blogger workshop for would-be bloggers on December 5 and 12, 7 to 9 pm.
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SPECIAL EVENT
Now Registering
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WRITER'S BOOT CAMP:
GET SERIOUS. GET AN AGENT. GET PUBLISHED.
Saturday, September 24
9:30 am to 12:30 pm
Have you ever thought, "maybe I've got a book here;" "maybe my story can help others;" or "I've got a great idea for a novel?" This three-hour workshop will help you get your project off the ground.
This special session will feature five distinguished panelists:
- Jessica Bram, nonfiction author of Happily Ever After Divorce: Notes on a Joyful Journey (Health Communications, Inc.)
- Lucy Hedrick, fiction author of Premarital Assets, as well as five-time nonfiction author
- Prill Boyle, nonfiction author of Defying Gravity: A Celebration of Late-blooming Women (Clerisy Press)
- Nina Nelson, author of middle-grade children's book, Bringing the Boy Home (HarperCollins)
- Denise Marcil, President & Founder, Denise Marcil Literary Agency, New York, NY, who has sold almost 1,200 manuscripts which became published books.
Participants will learn: what agents are looking for and what will distinguish you from so many other submissions; requirements for current fiction and memoir; requirements of nonfiction book proposals; the importance of 'platform' and how to build one; how to use an "elevator speech" to interest potential agents, editors and/or readers; how to research and meet agents, how to write a query letter that will get your work requested; and how to keep track of your submissions.
This workshop is intended for writers who would like to see their work published by a mainstream publisher and are not yet ready to go the self-publishing route.
Cost: $125. Registration limited.
Won't you join us for lunch? An optional 'Brown Bag' lunch with the panelists is available for an additional $25 per person and is limited to 12 participants. Call (203)227-3250 to reserve.
Read more ...
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News of Our Writers
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Madame Bovary's Daughter, a novel by workshop leader Linda  Howard Urbach was released this month by Random House. You can meet Linda and hear her discuss her new novel, accompanied by a reading by E. Katherine Kerr, at the Westport Public Library on September 8 at 7:30 pm.
 Mary Ann Cooper's delightful essay "Tiny Tears," that she wrote for Memoir Writing: Telling Our Stories, ran in the coveted front page spot of Open Salon where it was "Editor's Pick" on August 14, 2011. Many readers wrote in to comment how touched they were by Mary Ann's essay.
We accidentally gave you the wrong link last month for Rebecca Martin's sensitive essay "A Gift to Remember: One Stepdaughter's Mission to Pay Forward a Kindness From Her Past," published in the July issue of StepMom magazine. Read it on pages 18-21. Breaking news from Hollywood! Bryan Cranston of AMC's critically acclaimed Breaking Bad will write and direct a mystery drama which he adapted from the novel Home Again by Westport Writers' Workshop leader David Wiltse. David, who teaches our popular Playwriting workshop, is a Drama Desk Award-winning playwright of numerous plays produced at Lincoln Center, on Broadway, and New Haven's Long Wharf Theater, among others; 12 published novels; and 50 theatrical screenplays, television screenplays and television pilots. Playwriting, which is limited to 6 participants, always fills quickly. A few spaces are currently available in the Fall session that begins September 19. |
Go ahead ... enter a contest. (What do you have to lose???) | |
Admit it. You like that short story or essay of yours that's been sitting in a drawer. Now is the time to dust it off and get it in the mail:
Gemini Magazine seeks short-short story submissions. Submit up to 1,000 words. The winner will receive $1,000 and publication. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $4. For complete details, visit www.gemini-magazine.com.
The Fearless Poetry Series seeks submissions of poems and prose poems for its third anthology, Turning the Page: Poems of Trauma, Healing, and Transcendence. If your work is chosen you will receive two copies of Turning the Page and a 30 percent discount on additional copies. Reading fee: $10. Submit online at www.fearlessbooks.com/Poetry.htm.
Amoskeag, a national literary journal, seeks submissions for its spring 2012 Identity issue. Submit poetry, essays, or fiction that highlights individual, place, group, or cultural identity. Deadline: November 1. For complete details, visit www.amoskeagjournal.com.
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What We're Reading
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 This month, a contribution from Westport Writers' Workshop's Director of Communications Emily Hamilton Laux:
About a year ago, a friend gave me Zeitoun, the 2009 nonfiction narrative American Book Award winner by Dave Eggers. And for a year, I avoided reading it, assuming it would be an exercise in anguish, another Katrina story that would break my heart.
Then one gloomy Saturday a few weeks ago I plucked it off my bookshelf and read it cover to cover, stopping only to make dinner for my son.
Zeitoun is a masterpiece.
Eggers tells the story of one man, Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his family before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. This is not a "Katrina story," but rather a thorough and sensitive account of one individual's experience of a natural disaster, featuring the horrific reality of our national response to the flooding of New Orleans. Despite its complex layers--the logistics of living through the rising floodwaters, the debacle of the Bush response, Islamic identity and racial profiling, the struggle of a small business owner and his family--Eggers's story is powerful and written in beautifully clean prose. At its heart, Zeitoun is the story of one man's unwavering integrity and belief in the goodness of man.
I was transformed by this book: it made me cry, it made me angry, it made me hopeful. And I am still thinking about it.
What are you reading? Please share your book raves or thoughts with us at info@westportwritersworkshop.com.
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Well Said
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"You will have to write and put away or burn a lot of material before you are comfortable in this medium. You might as well start now and get the necessary work done. For I believe that eventually quantity will make for quality."
Ray Bradbury
"... there are days when the result is so bad that no fewer than five revisions are required. In contrast, when I'm greatly inspired, only four revisions are needed."
John Kenneth Galbraith
"You've got to spin a lot of chaff to come up some gold."
Tom Chapin (Songwriter)
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Coming This Fall
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Tuesday, September 20, 7 to 9 p.m,eChook Digital LAUNCH PARTY & NETWORKING EVENT, Barnes and Noble, Westport. Learn about Tessa Smith McGovern's eChook Digital Publishing : Ten Minute Escapes in the Palm of Your Hand which accepts submissions year-round of up to 2,500 word published and unpublished works of fiction, memoir or essay, which are downloaded on mobile apps by thousands of readers in 90 countries worldwide. Free to attend.
Saturday, September 24, 9 am to noon, WRITER'S BOOT CAMP: GET SERIOUS, GET AN AGENT, GET PUBLISHED, a special panel workshop with Lucy Hedrick, Jessica Bram, Prill Boyle, N.A. Nelson, and Denise Marcil.
Saturday, October 22, 9 am to noon GET PUBLISHED NOW! HOW TO GET YOUR SHORT WORK PUBLISHED with Marcelle Soviero.
Saturday, November 5, 2-4:30 pm ESSENTIALS FOR THE FICTION WRITER: ALL ABOUT SCENE with Suzanne Hoover, Ph.D.
Saturday, November 19, 10 am to 4 pm SCREENWRITING IMMERSION WORKSHOP with GiGi New.
Saturday, December 10, 10 am to 4 pm PLOTTING AND PLANNING YOUR MEMOIR: THE STORYBOARD METHOD with Jessica Bram.
For more information or to register go to
www.westportwritersworkshop.com
or call (203)227-3250.
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Westport Writers' Workshop
3 Sylvan Road South
Westport, CT 06880
203-227-3250
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