January 19th, 2011

Grub Street News

Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday (except, you know, when it's Wednesday) by the slush-spattered staff 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.

Curl Up With a Good Fairytale

Despite what Disney would have us believe, fairy tales aren’t just stories of helpless princesses being rescued by gallant princes. From their beginnings as cautionary (and at times quite disturbing) tales told to adults to their more modern incarnations, fairy tales have enjoyed a long and often bloody history, exploring the darkest (and most interesting) corners of the human psyche and imagination. Come explore this dark world and learn what makes a good story last the test of time in our very first Reading Like a Writer course focused on fairytales. The class starts Monday, January 24th, and details and registration info can be found here.

Job Posting: Grub Seeking a Freelance Computer Programmer

Grub Street is seeking a LAMP programmer with strong PHP, XHTML, XML and CSS skills (JavaScript and AJAX preferred but not required) to enhance our new system online registration system to handle Muse and the Marketplace event registrations. Experience working with the MODx content management system strongly preferred. This is a contract position to begin immediately. For questions, more details, or to apply, please send a resume and brief cover letter to Sonya Larson at sonya@grubstreet.org.

Max, The Littlest Bookseller

Huge congratulations to Newtonville Books owners, Jaime Clarke and Mary Cotton, on the birth of their son last Thursday night. John Maxwell Clarke weighed in at 7 lbs, 3 ounces (which is, what, just about the same weight as three hardcover copies of Freedom?) and is already, according to his mother, the "Best. Baby. Ever." We are so happy for you, Jaime and Mary!

Internship Available: Grant-writing and Development

The development and grant-writing intern will assist the Development Director with a variety of tasks, including helping out with all grant-writing work for the entire life cycle of a grant (research, proposal, follow-up and reporting), assisting with direct mail projects, and helping with our annual fall fundraiser. Necessary skills: experience writing grant proposals or willingness to learn, excellent writing and communication skills, ability to work with minimal direction and an enthusiasm for fund-raising and the literary arts. We prefer a 3-6 month commitment for this internship. Please email your resume and a brief letter stating your interest in the internship to whitney@grubstreet.org.

Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya, Chris, Chip, and Eve

Grub Events

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.

TEEN WRITING: Saturday, January 22nd, 10am-12pm or 1pm-3pm, Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP)
Do you like to write poems, lyrics, stories, novels or screenplays? Come to YAWP, a FREE creative writing workshop for Boston-area high schoolers. Our students, age 13-18, come from a wide variety of schools in the Boston area, and enjoy cool writing exercises, mingling with fellow young writers, snacks, and an optional open mic.
FREE, click here to register and view the different genre options.

--GRUB STREET SOUTH AT BUTTONWOOD BOOKS: Tuesday, January 25th, 7pm, Your Story—Our Story: Moving the memoir from the Personal to the Universal…and publishing it.
A compelling memoir is about the human journey. Whether revealing a devastating family secret, reminiscing about a childhood home, or revisiting the summer spent in Paris when you couldn’t speak a word of French, you need to be as focused on the reader as you are on the details of your story. This session will explore how to look inward and outward to make the reader-- the stranger-- care. It will also look at self-publishing and how that can work in today’s tough economy. This is a free event, but reservations are required. Please call Buttonwood at 1-781-383-2665 to reserve a spot.
Instructor: Susan Trausch
FREE, Buttonwood Books & Toys, Shaw's Plaza, Rt.3A, Cohasset, MA 02025

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, January 29th, 10-5pm, Memoir: Behind the Scenes
If you've ever wondered about the perils and pitfalls of writing about your life, here's an overview of the structural, emotional, and legal hurdles to putting your story in print. Participants will leave with an inside perspective on the business side of the memoir craft, along with some funny anecdotes to encourage them as they dive into the powerful experience of writing their own story.
Instructor: Trish Ryan
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday-Sunday, January 29-30th, 10:00am-5:00pm,The Hook and the Book
Most literary agents receive at least one hundred query letters each week, yet respond positively to a very select few - generally less than two percent, and decisions on writing samples are often made within the first five pages. Would yours make the cut? Do you know the secrets to writing a winning query? Join agent Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank of Fairbank Literary Representation for a weekend of intensive query and writing critique, lessons on the basics of a powerful synopsis, help on the first five pages, review of a laundry list of Dos and Don’ts, and group and one-on-one analysis of your submission package.
Please prepare and email to chip@grubstreet.org no later than noon on Friday, January 21st, a query letter of no more than 400 words, and the first five pages of your manuscript (double spaced, single sided, 12pt font, pages numbered) for the instructor, and bring four copies of the query and the first five pages to the first class for group review. Limited to 12 students.
Important: On Day One, bring four copies of your query letter of no more than 400 words. Also bring four copies of the first five pages of your manuscript (double spaced, single sided, 12pt font, pages numbered). Note: you will be reworking your query and first five pages between classes.
For Day Two: Please bring thirteen copies of your reworked query and first five pages. If the class size is smaller than 12, you will be notified on the correct number of copies.
Instructor: Sorche Fairbank
*3 Spots Left* $220.00/$195.00 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday-Sunday, January 29-30th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Revision ClinicYou have a story or stories (or novel) that's not quite working, or that's very good but not quite good enough, or that keeps getting narrowly rejected. Whatever the case, you've lost perspective on it, but you know it needs revision – macro, micro or both. This weekend, get macro revision tips on Saturday, and then come back on Sunday for tips on line-editing and style. Or just pick one workshop or the other.
Saturday: Revision is a process that many writers find frustrating. Once you have a first or second draft of a story, what happens next? How do you follow through on the ideas your workshop suggested? How do you add depth to characters? How do you make the structure more direct? This workshop will teach a few basic concepts of revision that will help you address these issues, in addition to suggesting concrete techniques you can apply to stories at home. IMPORTANT: Students enrolling in this class will be required to bring a draft of a story in progress. Your story will serve as a frame of reference for the seminar's discussion and exercises.
Sunday: You've got the story down--now, it's time to fine-tune the language. Line editing your own work is one of your most difficult tasks, but it's also one of the most important: even a single word can create mood, reveal character, or signal a shift in understanding. In this one-day workshop, we'll step beyond proofreading to the nitty-gritty of language-level revision. Through published examples and exercises, we'll examine word choice, rhythm, and even paragraph breaks to make language work with your story. We'll also learn to identify--and correct--language "glitches" that wake the reader from your vivid and continuous dream. Towards the end of the workshop, you'll turn your newly critical eye on some of your own work, so please bring a copy of a story or essay you'd like to start polishing. Open to both fiction and nonfiction writers.
Instructor: Cam Terwilliger
$220.00/$195.00 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, January 29th, 10am-5pm, Plotting the Novel, Section AStarting with Aristotle and working through three contemporary authors’ ideas about plotting, this course will offer several plot forms to help you rethink your novel’s structure and the vital connection between character and plot.
Instructor: Michelle Hoover
Sorry, this class is sold out. Please click here to be put on a waiting list.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, January 30th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Jumpstart Your Writing Weekend

This one-day weekend version of one of our most popular courses has a very clear mission: spend the day writing. Through a series of fun directed writing exercises, we will explore the terrain of fiction and some non-fiction: mining for material, constructing characters and settings, shaping vivid dialogue, understanding point of view, and finding your voice. We will discuss the process of writing and the strengths and weaknesses of the work we produce in class. We will read and discuss published stories in regards to craft, then write exercises inspired by the stories. A supportive and generative experience for both new and practicing writers.
Instructor: Grace Talusan
*4 Spots Left* $115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, January 30th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Revising Poems
How do we know when a poem is finished? How do we know what should change and what should remain? In the first half of this seminar we'll take a hard look at some revisions of sonnets by Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Robert Frost to articulate a working definition of revision, to observe the choices involved in the making of great poems, and to begin developing a list of principles by which to revise our poems. In the seminar's second half we'll apply these principles to our work. Participants are expected to bring a poem that excites them as a work-in-progress, which they'll work on and have the opportunity to share at the seminar's end. Participants can also expect to leave the seminar with more contemporary examples of revision to examine on their own.
Instructor: Scott Challener
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, January 30th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Bed Me With Roses: Writing Erotic Romance
Have you ever been swept away by Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, or lost yourself in a Harlequin romance? If so, why not try writing this exciting genre? With its feet firmly planted in both e-book and traditional markets, erotic romance is popular and demand for stories is high. The genre also provides us with a great way of sharpening our storytelling craft - after all, nothing raises the stakes like love and passion! Taught by an author who publishes erotic romance under a pen name, this course will allow you to specialize in the literary and/or popular genres. The focus will be on short stories, though novelists are also invited. Expect to leave with either a complete draft of a short short story or an opening with a firm plan for completion. We will also consider possible markets and guidelines for submission. All sexualities warmly welcomed.
Instructor: Sue Williams
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ.

Be sure to check out our website for a comprehensive view of upcoming events.

Spreading the Love

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.

--PARTY: Sunday, January 23rd, 2-5pm, National Writers Union--Boston Chapter Annual Book Party
Celebrating 24 books published Jan 2010-2011!
Featured Speaker: Andre Dubus III Readings by Writers Union Members Leslie Brunetta, Edith Pearlman, Kitty Beer, Leslie Wheeler, Maria Termini and Mark Schafer.
Good books, good eats, good conversation! Book display table is for everyone, and street and city lot parking is free on Sundays. For info or to volunteer: 617-868-3143, beckwithb@aol.com.
FREE, Durrell Theater, Cambridge Family YMCA 820 Mass Ave., Central Square, Cambridge.

--READING: Tuesday, February 1st, 4:30pm, Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis, who recently published a widely acclaimed new translation of Madame Bovary, will be the first featured speaker at the Newhouse Center for the Humanities Spring 2011 Distinguished Writers Series. The Boston Globe says: “Lydia Davis is the sort of fiction writer that other serious practitioners -- Jonathan Franzen and Zadie Smith, for instance -- admire and champion. Her famously short stories (some are only a paragraph long, or even a sentence) defy classification, which makes them blessedly refreshing to read but maddeningly difficult to describe.” Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis was published in 2009 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Ms. Davis is the recipient of a MacArthur fellowship and was named a Chevalier of the Order of the Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and her translations of modern writers, including Maurice Blanchot, Michel Leiris, and Marcel Proust.
For more information www.newhouse-center.org or call 781-283-2698.  

--VIRTUAL TOUR: Through February 18, Erika Dreifus on tour for Quiet Americans: Stories
Here's an event you can "attend" from the comfort of your own computer screen. Starting the week of January 17, Erika Dreifus (a Grubbie back when she lived in Cambridge and a Friend-of-Grub ever since) will be on tour, online, for her new book of short stories. Follow along as Erika visits with the Jewish Book Council, Beatrice.com, and several other notable blogs. Content will include guest posts, author Q&As, and book reviews. (It won't be boring!) The book's stories are inspired largely the experiences of Erika's paternal grandparents, German Jews who immigrated to the United States in 1930s. Whether you're drawn in by the subject matter or you just want to see how a "virtual tour" works--maybe for your own authorial purposes--you're invited to stop by. Absolutely free: Winter">Winter Blog Tour for Quiet Americans.