March 8th, 2010
Tina Fey: "We writers dream of a future where actors are mostly computer generated and their performances can be adjusted, by us, on a laptop, alone."
Robert Downey, Jr.: "It's a collaboration. A collaboration between handsome gifted people and sickly little mole people."
Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the sunny side of the clam roll shack (that we wish was) near Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.
We are pleased to announce the two winners of our Grub Gone. . . Blue writing contest: Teresa Baldepenas and Mary Ann Mayer! We had close to eighty submissions to the contest, and it was very hard to choose our winners out of all the great work we received. Congrats to Teresa and Mary Ann, who will be featured at the “Grub Gone…Blue” event this Friday, also featuring visiting author Diana Joseph, Grub instructor KL Pereira, and member Randy Ross. Thank you to everyone who submitted to the contest--it was a pleasure reading your work! More details about the event are below.
Due to the high demand for the Manuscript Mart at the Muse and the Marketplace conference, we have added 3 new literary agents and 3 new editors. The agents are Jill Kneerim, Katherine Fausset and Katharine Sands. The editors are Amy Caldwell and Alexis Rizzuto (both from Beacon Press) and Tim Bartlett (Random House). The new editors focus exclusively on non-fiction; the new agents cover a wide range of fiction and non-fiction. Each of them will read 20 pages of your work ahead of time and meet with you for twenty minutes at the conference.
We at Grub are so pleased to be hosting David Shields this Sunday, March 14th, for a special one-time seminar called "Reality Hunger" after his fantastic new book of the same name. Described as "a guidebook for where literary writing could go in the future" by Time Out, Reality Hunger is well on its way to being required reading for writers of any genre. The book explores our nation's obsession with "reality," and Shields "argues that our culture is obsessed with 'reality' precisely because we experience hardly any." David is flying in all the way from Seattle for this seminar--don't miss this opportunity to take part in one of the most exciting literary conversations going on today. Details below.
Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya, Chris, Chip and Alexis
In addition to our ongoing workshops, Grub Street offers numerous writing-related events around town. See our website for a long-term view of all we do. Ready to sign up? Call us at 617.695.0075 and we'll get you on the list.
PARTY: Friday, March 12th, 7:30 PM, Grub Gone. . . Blue
The “Grub Gone…” series is back! This time, join visiting author Diana Joseph, Grub instructor KL Pereira, member Randy Ross, two "blue" writing contest winners, and host Steve Almond for a night of Grubbies reading work from their “blue” periods. What does that mean? Come and find out. In between and after the readings, there will be music, drinks, food and maybe even some dancing. Around 10PM, we'll open up the mic in the front room to anyone who'd like to read a blue-themed story, essay or poem (for 5 minutes or less). A great way to reconnect with old Grubbie friends or make new ones. Readings begin at 8:30. Limited to 200; tickets sell out quickly! Buy online at http://www.grubstreet.org/index.php?id=28 or call 617.695.0075. With special thanks to our beer sponsor, Boston Beer Company.
In Advance: $8/$5 members; at the Door: $10/$7 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
WEEKEND SEMINAR: Saturday & Sunday, March 13th - 14th, 9am - 4pm, The Hook and the Book
Join agent Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank of Fairbank Literary Representation for a weekend of intensive query and writing critique.
*SOLD OUT*, $220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
WEEKEND SEMINAR: Saturday & Sunday, March 13th - 14th, 9am - 4pm, How To Write A Lot
Instructor: Hillary Rettig
If you feel a lot of fear and ambivalence when you write, or set too-high expectations for productivity or quality, then writing will probably be hard. But if you can avoid those traps, it becomes easier and even a joy. Through workshops and exercises, this weekend workshop will teach you strategies to do just that.
*SOLD OUT*, $220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
WEEKEND SEMINAR: Saturday, March 13th, 9am - 4pm, Writing the Illness Narrative
Instructor: Grace Talusan and Nancy Nichols
The story of an illness often follows a traditional narrative arc. There’s a crisis, a journey or quest, setbacks, and triumphs. Exploring the relationship of the body and mind, especially through the lens of disease, with candor and artfulness is an opportunity to represent a central human experience. Whether you want to write about your own experience with illness, physical or mental, or from the perspective as a witness or caregiver, this one day class will prepare you to write medically-themed personal essays. While this class will focus on narrative nonfiction, fiction writers and poets can also benefit from discussions about what works in writing about health and the body. Through a combination of mini-lectures, discussions of published essays, writing exercises, small group feedback sessions, and a session on publishing plus a list of medically-themed publications, students will leave with many resources to further the writing of their illness narratives. Although not required, you are invited to bring in 3 double spaced pages (maximum) of a draft illness narrative with enough copies for the class. This class will be team-taught by Grace Talusan (published in Best American Medical Writing 2009) and Nancy Nichols (author of Lake Effect).
*ONE SPOT LEFT*, $115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
WEEKEND SEMINAR: Sunday, March 14th, 9am - 4pm, Reality Hunger
Instructor: David Shields
Seattle-based author David Shields, one of the most prominent (and sometimes controversial) voices in the world of non-fiction, will visit Grub Street for one day only to lead this seminar. David says: “We'll look at several theoretical essays and several personal essays as a way to get at such immemorial questions as: What is art? What is the relation of the artist to his or her material? What is the relation between 'fiction' and 'nonfiction'? What's public, what's private? What's remembered? What's imagined? What's 'true'? What's 'real'? Answers provided at the end of the day.”
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
WEEKEND SEMINAR: Sunday, March 14th, 9am - 4pm, Unruly Fictions
Instructor: Tim Horvath
All successful fiction is somewhat unruly. Any story that sticks its talons into our brains, gets under our skins, making us ponder or sending us sprawling, simply cannot be playing it entirely safe, “hugging the shore,” to use John Updike's expression. In any story with power, something is alive, mysterious, wild; the surface might be deceptively calm, but beneath is an undertow lurking and making its way toward us. In this class, we'll look in particular at works that have been dubbed "experimental," flagrantly challenging the conventions of narrative order and logic, cause and effect, plot and characterization, time and space. In several cases, they don't even look like stories. By trying out the exercises in this class, you will stretch yourself and explore some unconventional narrative modes. But this class is by no means geared exclusively toward those who already find themselves drawn to the literary avantgarde. The guiding assumption is that all writers can benefit from the ways in which such work galvanizes our minds and our pens, uncovering latent potential in whatever work we are already doing. By trying out everything from stream of consciousness to Oulipean games, montage to typology, you'll get fresh vantage points on your characters and storylines already in progress, whether in your mind or on the page. Optional: Bring in a draft of something in progress to which you can apply some of the techniques we'll cover.
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
FREE MEMBER EVENT: Monday, March 15th, 9 - 10am, "No Excuses" Member Mondays in March
Kick start your writing week at Grub Street in Boston! From 9:00 10:00 on Monday mornings this March, find inspiration and connect with other Grub members. Each meeting will include a short period of intentional conversation about a specific topic as well as time to mingle.
March 15th's topic: No excuses.
What keeps you from writing? Do you need more time, or better discipline? Well examine what derails writers and offer pragmatic suggestions to help you make the best of your writing time.
WEEKEND SEMINAR: Saturday March 20th - Sunday March 21st, 9-4pm, Revision Bootcamp
Instructor: Michelle Hoover
A reprise of the hit workshop from Winter '09! Working with Robert Boswell's concept of "transitional drafts," students will receive feedback on their work in small groups before beginning a step-by-step revision process. We will start with the deeper concerns of theme, structure, character, and conflict, and move on to issues in setting, dialogue, pacing, and refining our sentence style. At the end of the weekend, students will have made their way through several revisions and be closer to a completed story. We will spend the majority of our time doing the individual work of revising, so please bring your laptops if you regularly write at a computer and/or a journal if you write by hand. To start us off, please also bring five copies a short story or novel excerpt (first chapter preferred) that you are ready to revise and willing to share.
$220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street.
WEEKEND SEMINAR: Saturday March 20th - Sunday March 21st, 9-4pm, Writing From Real Life
Instructor: Judah Leblang
The full weekend version of a popular one-day workshop: Writers are observers, continually examining our lives and the lives of others. For memoir writers, and for those who write in other genres, our life experiences become the raw material of our creative work. In this seminar, we will focus on the key challenges in our lives today, and other hurdles we’ve overcome – in other words, difficult circumstances that might become the rich “raw material” for new work. We will discuss strategies for developing this material in a way that avoids the sentimental and general, and look at a few short examples of how other writers (i.e. Didion, Ehrenreich, Sedaris) use essays as a way of making meaning of difficult circumstances. By the end of the day, you will have chosen a topic and be on your way to writing about it in a thoughtful and critical way. Limited to 12 students.
$220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street.
WEEKEND SEMINAR: Saturday March 20th, 9-4pm, Publish That Chapbook!
Instructor: Wendy Mnookin
Back by popular demand, the chapbook workshop will continue working on manuscripts to uncover the best arrangement of poems. In class discussion and through peer review, we will consider temporal chronology, interruptions of memory, emotional arc, weaving poems together through image as well as first and last lines, and manuscript and poem titles. Please bring two copies of about 24 poems, along with 11 copies of your first and last poems and Table of Contents. This workshop is open to new as well as returning students. Limited to 10 students.
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street.
WEEKEND SEMINAR: Sunday, March 21st, 9-4pm, Fiction Writers' Workout
Spend the day with one of Grub Street’s most popular instructors generating new scenes, characters and descriptions. What you write on this day can either be integrated into current stories and novels or serve as springboards for future narratives. Along the way, you’ll look briefly at some published texts and examine them as writers. By the end of the day, we’ll have made sure that you’ve produced pages of new material ready for revision or development when you get back to them on Monday morning.
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street.
FREE MEMBER EVENT: Monday, March 29th, 9 - 10am, "Writers Groups, Colonies, and Conferences" Member Mondays in March
Kick start your writing week at Grub Street in Boston! From 9:00 – 10:00 on Monday mornings this March, find inspiration and connect with other Grub members. Each meeting will include a short period of intentional conversation about a specific topic as well as time to mingle.
March 29th's topic: Writers Groups, Colonies, and Conferences.
Members are fortunate to have the support of the Grub Street community, and many of you have expressed interest in forming writing groups. Lets mingle with intention to connect with other writers and consider the possibility of sharing work. Well also talk about connecting beyond the Grub St community at colonies and conferences.
Be sure to check out our events calendar for a comprehensive view of upcoming events.
Grub Street wants to promote YOU! Please send events for consideration to whitney@grubstreet.org. Our apologies in advance if we cannot fit you in. Please note that we do the best we can to evaluate requests, and do privilege requests from members, but can not be held responsible for the quality of these events and programs or the legitimacy of contests. We expect that readers will do their own due diligence before sending their work or their money to any individual or organization.
--CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: American Polymath, a new online culture and current events journal
We await your submissions! We are seeking out your finest essays, fiction, and non-fiction: www.americanpolymath.com. Send all submissions to americanpolymath@gmail.com. Please include within the body of your email: your contact information, the title of your piece, the appropriate section of the publication (society, culture, ideas, politics, fiction). Attach the text of your article to the email. We will respond to all submissions within 2-3 weeks.
--CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Level Best Books
Level Best Books is now taking submissions for our 2010 anthology of crime stories by New England authors, Thin Ice. Submissions details are at www.levelbestbooks.com.
--READING: Thursday, March 18th, 7:30pm, Judah Leblang and Deahn Berrini
Grubbie Judah Leblang is a Medford based writer and storyteller, who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. His essays and commentaries have been broadcast on National Public Radio stations around the US, and published in various newspapers and magazines in Boston and Cleveland. His column, "Life in the Slow Lane," appears regularly in Bay Windows. Deahn Berrini has been researching and writing about returning veterans’ issues for over twenty-five years. She lives on the North Shore of Boston, where she writes and teaches.
Free, Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center.
--FUNDRAISER AND READING: Monday, April 26th, 2010, An Evening with Your Favorite Authors to benefit The Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital
Local best-selling author and breast cancer advocate, Alice Hoffman, author of many novels including Practical Magic, The Third Angel, Story Sisters, and soon-to-be-published Green Witch, will host "An Evening with Your Favorite Authors" at the American Repertory Theatre on Monday, April 26, 2010 to benefit The Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital. In addition to Alice, the following authors will read from their latest works: Chris Bohjalian, James Carroll, Drew Gilpin Faust, Elinor Lipman, Jill McCorkle, Richard Russo and Anita Shreve.
$250, The American Repertory Theatre,
Brattle Street,
Cambridge, MA 02138.
Contact Kelly McDade at 617-499-5656 or e-mail kmcdade@mah.harvard.edu for more details.
--CALL FOR INTERNS: Clue Shredding Game Design Spring or Summer Intern(s)
SCVNGT is looking for four driven, creative people to intern (paid) as SCVNGR game writers. (No technical experience required, just a love of words!) The interns will spend the summer writing really cool games that they want to make as well as make some games for our clients! All details about the call for interns, including more information about the company, can be found here: http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/wri/1628470927.html.
Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like nose jobs for aardvarks, we offer you the chance to win a prize. What author, who has written about oranges, canoes, geology, tennis, eighteen-wheelers and more, celebrates his birthday today? First correct respondent wins ice cream from J.P. Licks.
Last week's quiz answer: In Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, one can see “The hot river and the dark trees that bent into it. And the fishermen in their boats. And the fish” through Aleyooty Ammachi’s pierced ears. Winner: Dawn Dorland.
