January 31st, 2011
"Authors and uncaptured animals are the only creatures in the world entirely free from routine."
—Eric Linklater
Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the Totally X-Treme Parallel Parking Challenge outside 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.
Assuming we're not headed into another "snowpocalypse" on Wednesday, our staff's going to AWP! The Grub Street offices will have limited staffing on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, and will be closed on Friday, February 4th. We'll be back to help you with all your writing-related needs on Monday, February 7th.
The 8000+ writers planning to descend on Washington, DC this week for the AWP conference have a lot of panels and readings from which to choose. Because we know you love the presenters Grub selects for its programs, we’ve taken the liberty of combing through the many hundreds of panels and plucking out those that feature Grub instructors, guest authors, staff and students. We found that there’s at least one Grubby option for every session, and so this guide may be the only one you need to ensure a varied and high-quality AWP experience.
Also: don’t forget to visit the Grub booth at the Book Fair, which will be manned by staff, students and instructors throughout the day. Come by around 2pm each afternoon for fresh homemade cookies, which are quickly becoming a Grub Street/AWP tradition.
We know: you often find yourself wishing you had a little more Grub in your life. Well, we are happy to announce that as of February 10th, you will—a daily dose, in fact! Grub Street is launching a blog, Grub Street Daily, which will bring you daily writing advice, success stories, fiction, publishing information, and communication and commiseration with fellow writers. Subscribe to receive the Daily in your inbox starting February 10th (you can always opt out later if you want), or add it to your favorite RSS reader now.
Looking to polish your work before an agent sees it at The Muse and the Marketplace? Want to get immediate, one-on-one feedback from a Grub instructor? Throughout this Saturday, various members of our creative writing faculty will be meeting individually for 25 minutes with writers who have submitted 25 pages of their work ahead of time. The 25 page writing sample—usually long enough to include a complete short story, a novel chapter, a substantive personal essay, a short play, a series of poems, or a screenplay excerpt—is often needed when applying to MFA programs, teaching positions, fellowships, residencies, etc. The session includes yummy coffee and doughnuts. Deadline for submissions is 12:00pm on February 18th. See all details, including the list of consultants, here. Each consultation costs $140. It's a total steal—normally it would cost $250! Sign up for as many as you'd like.
Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya, Chris, Chip, and Eve
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.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday-Sunday, February 12-13th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Getting Published in Literary Magazines
In this weekend seminar, students will learn to navigate the literary magazine landscape. We will discuss how you can position your story for the best possible read and common mistakes made by submitters, study examples of “good” and “bad” cover letters, workshop first pages of student manuscripts, discussing what’s likely to engage a reader or dismay them from continuing with the story, and learn how to determine which magazines are appropriate for your work. In addition, students will draft their own cover letters and leave the class with a specific and personalized submission plan.
Instructor: James Scott
$220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, February 12th, 10:00am-5:00pm, The Psychology of Strong Characters
Spend a day creating deeper characters with the help of prompts that will reveal the white-hot core of their fears, desires, and dreams.
Instructor: Jacqueline Sheehan
Sorry, this class is sold out. Please click here to be put on a waiting list.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, February 12th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Flash Fiction Marathon
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.
Instructor: Stace Budzko
*2 spots left* $115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, February 12th, 10:00am-5:00pm, How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book
Whether you're a nonfiction author, memoirist, or novelist, and whether you have a book almost finished or merely a concept for one, this workshop will help you get to know your book--what it is about, how to structure it, how to finish it!
Instructor: Mary Carroll Moore
Sorry, this class is sold out. Please click here to be put on a waiting list.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, February 13th, 10:00am-5:00pm, The Time of Your Life
One of the keys to success in writing is using your time properly. That can be tough when you have a job, family, home or other major commitments – and when occupational hazards like procrastination and writer’s block rear their ugly heads. The good news is that all of these issues can be addressed once you’ve figured out the root causes of your time “issues” and applied some practical strategies to address them. (Hint: it’s not that you’re lazy or uncommitted—so stop blaming yourself! Another hint: it is not so difficult to create and stick to a time “budget” and schedule that will help you achieve your goals.) Author Hillary Rettig (The Lifelong Activist) will help you achieve these goals with two three-hour seminars offered on the same day: “Time Management” first, then a lunch break, then “Stop Procrastinating!” The best news of all is that once a writer actually starts solving his or her procrastination problems or blocks and starts managing his/her time better, change can happen amazingly fast!
Instructor: Hillary Rettig
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, February 13th, 10:00am-5:00pm, From Blog Post to Personal Essay
In the blog you write (or the blog you’ve imagined) you already have a record of the ideas you find most interesting. The next step is to develop them into fully realized literary explorations, and in this one-night seminar we’ll discuss how to do just that.
Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, February 13th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Provoking Thought: The Art of Science Writing
One of the most commercially successful science writers is Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers. One of the most intellectually acclaimed science writers is Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, author of Blank Slate. Though both authors write books about ideas, their literary techniques couldn't be more different. In this workshop, we'll discover how Gladwell and Pinker represent two opposing sides of a set of choices that every writer must make when communicating ideas from science, technology, or medicine to a mainstream audience. We'll read and discuss passages from several recent nonfiction books and articles to learn about the benefits and pitfalls of each literary choice. You'll also take a shot at writing pieces in both Gladwell-style and Pinker-style. The goal? To help you find the best approach for your own science writing, whether you want to write articles, blogs, or books.
Instructor: Ogi Ogas
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, February 13th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Writing for Radio: An Introduction
Public radio listeners are often surprised to learn that much of what they hear on air is scripted. Everything from newscasts to commentaries, hard-news stories to soft features; it was all written primarily to be heard, not seen -- a skill that requires knowing which writing rules to follow, and which ones to break. In this 6-hour class you'll learn the basics of how to craft a radio story from pitch to final product.
Read full details.
Instructor: Shannon Mullen
$115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
SIX-WEEK WORKSHOP: 6 Thursdays, 6:30pm-9:30pm, beginning February 17th, Blueprint Your Book
Intelligent planning is not the enemy of creative genius! That is the most important thing to know. In this 6-week class, writers will learn the key concepts of scene, theme, series, and order, while designing the blueprint for their book idea. We will also address the related concepts of revision, voice, links, segmentation and unity. By the end of the session you will have entered your material in a new way, and become aware of how your genuine interests and motives can assist you in developing a project that is as fun and enlivening to work on as it is to read!
The Book Architecture Method has helped New York Times-bestselling authors of fiction and non-fiction alike “tackle my book, not just tinker with it.” When completed sequentially this method can greatly enhance the quality of your finished product and the speed of its creation. The class is open to all writers of fiction and narrative non-fiction, and writers do not need to have one word of their manuscript written. But you’re going to have to start some time!
Instructor: Stuart Horwitz
$305.00/$280.00 members, $115.00/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
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.
--THEATER: January 31st - February 2nd, 8pm each night, Tonya and Nancy: The Rock Opera
HarborSide Films proudly presents the club/party format of Tonya and Nancy: The Rock Opera at Oberon in Cambridge. Written by Arlington writer and one of Grub’s favorite people Elizabeth Searle, the opera is based on the true events leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics and features a collision of tragedy and comedy in a tale of two girls going for the gold. Their story is in a sense beyond satire, since the level of absurdity and melodrama in the "real" events is already so high. Don't miss this one!
Buy Tickets and learn more.
--READING: Tuesday, February 8th, 7pm, Rebecca Skloot
It took science writer Rebecca Skloot more than a decade to research and write The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, her debut book. Skloot’s story of the legacy of a 31-year-old black mother of five who died of cervical cancer in 1951, and whose cancerous cells – taken without her knowledge – launched a biomedical revolution, became an instant New York Times bestseller. It is now being made into an HBO movie produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball. A science writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, O, the Oprah Magazine, Discover and many other publications, Skloot has written about goldfish surgery, race and medicine, tissue ownership rights, and packs of wild dogs in Manhattan. Her essays have been widely anthologized, and she is the guest editor of The Best American Science Writing 2011. She is also a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine, and has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s RadioLab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW.
FREE, Boston College.
--READING: Wednesday, February 9th, 6pm, DeWitt Henry
Founding Editor of Ploughshares and Emerson College professor DeWitt Henry will read from and discuss his new book Sweet Dreams: A Family History. Free Appetizers, cash bar.
FREE,
Stellina Restaurant 47 Main Street, Watertown, Ma.
--CONVERSATION: Friday, February 11th, 6:30pm, Lyrics As Literature: A Conversation With Paul Simon, Paul Muldoon and Bill Flanagan
A special conversation with Paul Muldoon and Paul Simon, moderated by Bill Flanagan.
JFK Library, Columbia Point, Boston. TIckets and info at http://www.pen-ne.org.
Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where like speed dating for meth addicts, we offer you the chance to win a prize. This author kept a pet scorpion on his desk. 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: Samuel Pepys wrote in a private type of shorthand that wasn't deciphered until about a century after his death. Winner: Sepeyeonkqua Myles.