She did it! 
August 2nd, 2010
"No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place."
— Isaac Babel
Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday by the staff that's so lazy we have our students run our marathons for us at 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.
She did it! We never had any doubt in our minds that Cathy would finish her first marathon, and now that she's done it, we couldn't be prouder of her. Cathy spent the bulk of this year training for the race, and as she writes in her beautiful post-run blog post, at the end of her marathon, though every muscle in her body was hurting, she crossed the finish line thinking of "everything running had won for me this year—my health, my renewed confidence in my book, my commitment to Grub Street." Congratulations, Cathy. What a huge acccomplishment. Stay tuned next week for an announcement of the scholarships that Cathy's successful fundraiser has made possible. Hooray!
As always, there's lots to ballyhoo this month. First, Grubbie Tien-Yi Lee's short story, "How I Came To Love You Like A Brother," has been accepted by The Missouri Review. The story was first workshopped in Adam Stumacher's Fiction II class. The wonderfully-named errant parent magazine just published another essay by Grubbie Amy Rodriguez. The essay, "Under A Spell," recounts another one of Amy's parenting snafus: http://www.errantparent.com/essays/under-a-spell.html. Amy first honed her essay-writing skills in Michelle Seaton's "Six Weeks, Six Essays" class. Grub student and volunteer Maria Termini had four poems published in the July issue of Spare Change, a newspaper that is available from street vendors in Boston and Cambridge. The poems celebrate everyday wonder and are: "Pure Enchantment," "To Whom It May Concern," "Opulence," and "Purple Dreams." Grubbie Kitty Beer has a few pieces of good news to share with us. Her op-ed piece, "Five Things to Expect from Climate Change," was published by NewsBlaze in May, and in July her new novel, Human Scale, won Honorable Mention in the Hollywood Book Festival contest. Longtime Grubbie Amy Yelin's essay "Once Upon a Penis" will be published in the anthology Mamas and Papas coming put in the fall via City Works Press. Grub supporter and friend Kathy Handley's flash fiction placed as a finalist in the 2010 Press 53 Open Awards. Inspired by Grub teacher Grace Talusan and fellow classmate Deborah Blicher, Allison Williams has also been published in The Drum audio literary magazine. She recorded her short-short, "Snake," in a disused ballet studio in the National Theatre of Kosovo while performing in Prishtina, the newest national capital in the world. Next up, last summer's Grub Street YAWP Teen Writing Fellowship paid dividends for one recipient (and longtime YAWP attendee). Grace Murray, a sophomore at Medfield High School, won her town's $500 Amy Fiske Poetry Award for a piece entitled "Nightcarry" that she worked on during the 2009 fellowship session. Former Grubbie (now New Yorker, but with us in spirit) Erika Dreifus has a poem, "Pünktlichkeit," in the July-August issue of Moment magazine. Erika says: "Reading the acceptance e-mail from Faye Moskowitz was one of the most validating moments (no pun intended) of my writing life to date, and unquestionably helped boost my confidence in my nascent poetry practice." Susan Lemere, who kindly thanked Grub for our support and guidance, wrote to tell us that she started her low-residency program at Pine Manor Solstice MFA Program this past July. And last but not least, Grubbie Dell Smith has a story out in Fiction issue 56. It's a chapter of a novel he workshopped in Jenna Blum's class, though he describes it as more of an "outtake" than an excerpt. Congratulations to all, and may the good news keep rolling in!
Do you have writing news and want to be featured in the DoC? The first Monday of every month, we shout about Grub Street members who have sent their good news to whitney@grubstreet.org. To be included, please send Whitney an email with information about your publication, award or fellowship. Limit your announcement to 60 words or less. Extra credit if the announcement is written in the third person, which is good practice for your writing anyway.
Each week for the next seven weeks, we're going to be featuring a video from our Muse and the Marketplace conference. This week, Amy Einhorn talks about the eternal optimism of editors.
Amy Einhorn on Vimeo.
Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya, Chris, Chip, and Eve
The Very Important P.S. (V.I.P.S.): Grub Street offices & classrooms will be closed the week of August 9th to get our floors repainted. The Rag will be on holiday that week. Grub Street will reopen for business (and pleasure) on Monday, August 16th. If you are taking a Grub Street summer class, please contact your instructor to find out when and where your class will take place.
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.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, August 7th, 9:00am-4:00pm, The Next JK Rowling: Unleashing the Power of Fairy Tale and Myth
Instructor: KL Pereira
Readers can’t get enough of the fantastical. J.K. Rowling, and most recently Stephanie Meyer, have millions of devoted readers worldwide. So too does Philip Pullman, Margaret Atwood, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and hundreds of others who employ such worlds and characters. Over the course of this one fantastic day, we will delve into the glittering Aladdin’s Cave of myths and fairy tales and help you to find and develop your own fantastical kingdom. Revisiting a varied host of familiar tales from Little Red Riding Hood to The Odyssey, we will look at modern interpretations of these fairy tales and myths and see how you too can carve out your own magical world. We will do a few inspiring creative exercises and prompts designed to inspire you to start “opening the wardrobe door” and creating your own Narnia.
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, August 7th, 9:00am-4:00pm, Flash Fiction Marathon
Instructor: Cam Terwilliger
The market for flash fiction is booming, and this seminar is perfect for writers ready to crank out some new short-short stories. At the end of the day, you’ll walk away with a brand new assortment of stories, each created through writing exercises designed to unleash your flash fiction genius. The seminar will also feature discussion of published flash fiction—which we’ll draw inspiration from—as well as feedback on your own work.
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, August 7th, 9:00am-4:00pm, Workshop Your Website or Blog
Instructor: Amy Marcott
Do you have a website and/or blog but want to learn ways to enhance the design and content? Looking to broaden your reach or boost your professional appeal? This class will offer a venue for receiving feedback on your online presence. Along the way, you’ll learn strategies for more effective design, navigation, usability, search engine optimization, and content. We’ll also do some writing exercises to help your work stand out. Note: this seminar is only for those who already have a designed website or active blog. Submit the URL(s) of your website and/or blog to chip@grubstreet.org by August 1st. If you have a blog, also submit two of your best posts that could be discussed in class. The instructor will prepare thorough critiques of each site before class so submitting URLs as early as possible is appreciated. Amy Marcott is a web writer and editor at MIT who blogs frequently and assists with web redesigns and incorporating new technologies into online strategies.
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
SEMINAR: Monday, August 23rd, 7:00-10:00pm, Crafting the Villain
Instructor: KL Pereira
Some of the best and most memorable characters in literature are villains, rough and tough monsters, sly and sexy femme fatales, and naughty and deceitful oligarchs. They unnerve and excite us, sending a chill down our spines, and striking fear into our hearts. Yet when creating our own villains we often fail to overtly acknowledge the complexity and moral ambiguity that compels them to cause mayhem, delegating their motivation to a need to cause evil for evil’s sake and resulting in two-dimensional baddies. In this one-day seminar we will discuss traditional and non-traditional villains, why they are an essential part of any juicy tale, and how we can develop truly sinister and captivating characters that will antagonize, needle, and provoke even the bravest reader.
$65.00/$50.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
SEMINAR: Monday, August 23rd, 7:00-10:00pm, Question Every Word: The Art of Micro-Editing
Instructor: Michelle Seaton
Before an editor evaluates your manuscript’s themes, plot, characters, or voice, he or she judges its sentences. The best way to impress any reader is to write clear and efficient prose. Good sentence-level editing can increase the pace, enhance the description, and deepen the mood of your work. In short, it can make your writing more compelling. In this workshop, we will take apart and reassemble sentences and paragraphs from both fiction and nonfiction drafts. You will learn to read like an editor, to question every word and remove abstraction in order to take your writing to the next level.
$65.00/$50.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
SEMINAR: Monday, August 23rd, 7-10pm, Poetry Jam
Instructor: Rebecca Morgan Frank
Do you want to experiment with writing poetry? Are you looking to get back to those poems you wrote a while ago? Are you in a rut with your writing and in need of a jumpstart to find a fresh approach? Or are you a prose writer who needs to cross train by flexing some poetry muscles? Poets of all levels are welcome in this one night workshop in which we'll experiment with various poetry games, collaborations, and exercises. You'll leave with some seeds of poems, and with a toolbox of writing exercises to help you keep writing on your own. Be prepared to write, collaborate, and have fun.
$65.00/$50.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
SEMINAR: Monday, August 23rd, 7:00-10:00pm, He Said/She Said: The Necessity of Feedback and How to Take It
Instructor: Lynne Griffin
Athletes and singers engage in regular practice, receiving ongoing coaching and “notes” to enhance performance. For the writer, positive feedback as well as constructive criticism serve an equally valuable purpose. This workshop will delve into why you need feedback and what to do with it once you get it. We’ll discuss techniques for examining positive, negative, and conflicting feedback—specifically how to incorporate it into a manuscript or story revision. If you want to take your work to the next level, join Lynne for an informative evening aimed at honing this all important skill set. Additional topics will include how to find trusted readers, working with a writers’ group, as well as knowing when it’s time to stop workshopping a piece.
$65.00/$50.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
SEMINAR: Tuesday, August 31st, 7:00-10:00pm, Creating Complex Characters
Instructor: Lisa Borders
Stories often begin with a character the writer loves -- or loves to hate. But characters who come to life on the page are full of contradictions, neither wholly good nor entirely evil. How do we infuse our characters with the complexity that will make them believable? Through a combination of exercises and discussion, this seminar will show you how to create characters whose human contradictions make them vivid and memorable.
$65.00/$50.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
SEMINAR: Tuesday, August 31st, 7:00-10:00pm, Art of the Scene
Instructor: Amy Marcott
Scenes play important roles in fiction and nonfiction—an opportunity for the reader to experience the action as it unfolds in the real time of the story and for the writer to dramatize crucial encounters and key moments. But combining numerous narrative elements into a successful scene can be a challenge. This class will look at the way scenes work and strategies employed by various authors. We’ll focus on pacing, choreography, dialogue, tension, details, subtext, and more and practice these with in-class writing exercises designed to inspire and elevate your own writing. If time permits, we can workshop a short scene you bring (up to about five pages double spaced) in small groups. Bring 3 copies.
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
SEMINAR: Tuesday, August 31st, 7:00-10:00pm, Crafting the Pitch
Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
In this seminar, you will how to write killer cover letters for submitting essays to literary magazines, non-fiction book proposals to agents, and articles to editors of magazines, newspapers and online publications. We'll look at top mistakes that writers make and examine some pitch letters that actually worked. We'll also see how to leverage your background and expertise to best present yourself, even if you don't have a lot of publishing experience. Bring 15 copies of a draft of any pitch letter for a non-fiction project you are currently working on.
$65.00/$50.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
SEMINAR: Tuesday, August 31st, 7:00-10:00pm, Book Smarts: A Novel Approach to Marketing Your Work
Instructor: Marisa Pagano
Writers receive a lot of bad advice. They are told to submit widely and often, be persistent, and say yes to every opportunity. They are expected to trust their agent as they “shop” their work and believe wholeheartedly in their publisher as they position it. Writers make themselves available for tours and readings post-publication, but no one explains how to act once the public (and the publisher’s) interest winds down. Taught by a ten-year publishing veteran who has worked with the industry’s top talent, this course not only demystifies the process of getting your work into print but also recommends the right approach to a successful publication and career. Strategies discussed include targeting the best agent for your specific work, evaluating the publication options presented to you by your agent, optimizing the promotional plan devised by your publisher, and solidifying the success of your work post-publication. The seminar applies to commercial and noncommercial works in multiple genres and will primarily interest novelists, memoirists, poets, short-story writers, and nonfiction writers.
$65.00/$50.00 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
Be sure to check out our website for a comprehensive view of upcoming events.
Grub Street wants to promote YOU! Please send events for consideration to whitney@grubstreet.org. Bonus points and undying gratitude for submitting your event info in the same format as the events below. 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 cannot 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.
--READING: Tuesday, August 3rd, 7PM, Jonathan Tropper and Ilie Ruby
Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You, and Ilie Ruby, author of The Language of Trees, read together at the wonderful Newtonville Books.
FREE, Newtonville Books.
--RETREAT: October 15-17, 2010, Plot Intensive Weekend Retreat on Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire
Gather at the lakeside cottage of Hemlock Harbor for a weekend of plotting. Develop scenes, generate new pages, and learn what it really means to antagonize your protagonist. The writing sessions will focus on cause and effect, dramatic action, conflict and tension, character emotional development, and deeper meaning of story. Guest speaker, Joni Cole, author of Toxic Feedback (www.toxicfeedback.com) will be available for free half-hour manuscript consultations. All inclusive (accommodations, meals, workshops) weekend package $425.
*$25 Discount* for Grub Street members. For full brochure and registration form, go to www.wordsinplay.net/retreats/lake-retreats/hemlock-harbor/.
--READING: Wednesday, August 11th, 5:30-7pm, Anita Diamant
Best-selling author Anita Diamant will read & discuss her new paperback Day After Night. This event is FREE and open to the public. Stellina Restauran will provide light antipasti, cash bar, free parking.
FREE, Stellina Restaurant, 47 Main Street, Watertown, Ma.
--Call for submissions: Union Park Press
At Union Park Press, we believe that you don't have to be a published author to be a serious writer; however, you do have to be a serious writer to become a published author. If you're on the same page, we'd like to hear from you. Union Park Press is pleased to announce that we are currently accepting submissions for non-fiction book proposals. (Please, please, do not send us any fiction or collections of poetry. We love a good novel and verse, but we are not able to publish either genre at this time.) Our interests currently veer toward topics such as literary heritage of Boston/New England, biography of (in)famous New Englanders, (scandalous) political history, and the like. We are also open to proposals that blend the rich history of Boston/New England with contemporary cultural resources. A familiarity with the standards of our publishing program is greatly appreciated; as is a thorough and complete book proposal as outlined on our website, www.unionparkpress.com. All submissions must be submitted to editor@unionparkpress.com.
Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like building sandcastles for sand crabs, we offer you the chance to win a prize. What writer claimed sitting in a tub and munching on apples was a helpful activity for plotting books? Email your answer and your postal address to whitney@grubstreet.org. First correct respondent wins a J.P. Licks gift card.
Last week's answer: Author Ron Carlson wrote "The Governor's Ball," a short story that revolves around a mattress and a highway overpass. Winner: Liza Katz.
