June 20th, 2011
"I get a fine warm feeling when I'm doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let's face it, writing is hell."
—William Styron
Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene brought to you every Monday from the double decker desks 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.
It's boot camp time for teen writers! Grub Street is offering our first "Creative Writing Camp for Teens" on Monday, June 27th - Friday, July 1st1, 11:00am-2:00pm each day. The days will be jam-packed with prompts, writing time, guest speakers, outdoor activities, and workshop. This great course is limited to 12 students age 13-18, and Grub Street is happy to be able to offer a limited number of full scholarships for this course. You are eligible for one of these scholarships if you are in a household that receives benefits from Massachusetts SNAP or Massachusetts TANF, if you are a foster child, and/or if your household's gross income is within the free limits on the Federal Income Guidelines. To apply for a scholarship, please send an email of no more than 500 words to chris@grubstreet.org describing why you want to take this class and stating that you meet the requirements above. At the end of the email, list the name and email address or phone number of one teacher or other non-relative adult whom we could contact for a recommendation. Please put "Spring Teen Scholarship" in the Subject line of the email. Deadline is Wednesday, June 22nd at 5pm, so get those submissions in fast!
First, try saying that title five times fast--it's good prep work for your appearance at our Spring Season Showcase, coming up this Thursday at 8pm. If you took a class, seminar or weekend workshop this spring term, come share a 5-minute excerpt of your work with fellow students and the Grub community. You'll also hear great work from other students and two of our fabulous instructors, John Cotter and Katie Willis-Morton. Sign-up for reading slots begins around 8pm--check out full details below. See you there!
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.
SEMINAR: Tuesday, June 21st, 6:30-9:30pm, Ask the Agent
In this Grub Street seminar, you will sit down with accomplished literary agent Lane Zachary, of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary and Entertainment Agency, to ask any question that's on your mind about the role of the agent and get an insider’s view on life inside a literary agency. You’ll learn how to pitch agents and how not to pitch them, how agents make decisions, how the business works, what happens once you have an agent, how nonfiction projects get developed and more. Come with questions. The agent will tell all.
*SOLD OUT*, $65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ. Click here to join waitlist.
SEMINAR: Tuesday, June 21st, 6:30-9:30pm, Crafting Fiction from Personal Experience
The fiction writer and essayist Amy Hempel once said: "I don't feel I have a particularly large imagination, but I do have some powers of observation. Part of it stems from training as a reporter, when you're trained to see the salient points of any situation and see them fast. I can select one thing that will tell you the most about a character, but this is just from looking around, not from thinking it up." In this one night seminar, we’ll learn the methods of using personal experience and observation to craft compelling short-fiction and characters. We’ll start by drafting a personal essay and then use the material to create a third-person narrative.
Instructor: Christopher Boginski
*SOLD OUT*, $65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ. Click here to join waitlist.
SEMINAR: Tuesday, June 21st, 6:30-9:30pm, Anatomy of a Perfect Parenting Essay
How is it that some writing from parents can be so toe-curlingly bad, and the next piece can bring you to tears in the turn of a single phrase? What's the writerly magic that can make you forget the dishes and laundry and read a parenting essay through to the end? This evening will focus on five or six winners -- essays from Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth McCracken, and Ian Frazier, among others. We'll take a line-by-line deep dive to figure out exactly how these writers got it so right, and brainstorm topics and approaches that will allow us to scale similar heights with our own motherly and fatherly writing. If there's time, we can finish up with a short, practical discussion of where to pitch our parenting masterpieces. Participants will receive the essays to read ahead of time via email.
Instructor: Tracy Mayor
*2 spots left* $65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ. Register online now.
SEMINAR: Wednesday, June 22nd, 6:30-9:30pm, The Strange World of Writing for Phones
This seminar will explore the opportunities Mobile Devices provided — an entirely new medium. We'll examine how location-awareness and social media are changing the way content is both delivered and received, along with all the new publishing opportunities suddenly made available by the massive popularity of the Mobile Space.
Instructor: Steve Brykman
Level: For Everyone
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ. Register online now.
SEMINAR: Wednesday, June 22nd, 6:30-9:30pm, Marketing Your Self-Published Book
For your book to sell, people have to know about it-- and telling them is what marketing is all about. But in this increasingly saturated communications environment, it’s harder than ever to know where to start and what to do. This session will look at smart marketing steps authors can take themselves, from defining their audience to messaging, targeting and timing. It’ll also look at why the most important step should take place well before a book is even written-- and what that step is. It’ll offer hands-on marketing tools, and case-studies of where and how they have worked.
Instructor: Sharon Bially
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ. Register online now.
SEMINAR: Wednesday, June 22nd, 6:30-9:30pm, Writing True Crime
Crime can pay – with the right story. The nation is obsessed with true crime and publishers will capitalize on that with the right project. There could be a true crime in your neighborhood, city or town waiting to be explored, one that doesn’t necessarily involve gruesome bloodletting or macabre circumstances, but is still an unsolved mystery that could be unraveled with fresh eyes. In this informational and discussion-based seminar, Michele McPhee, best-selling author of six true crime novels, will lead you through a discussion of the following topics: first, how to define true crime; then, to what separates “good” true crime (i.e. Dennis Lehane, the master of the genre, and George V. Higgins’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle, probably the best crime novel ever) from less successful true crime. She will also discuss how to navigate the process of getting documents and developing sources, the basics of reporting, and how to write a proposal that sells.
Instructor: Michele McPhee
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ. Register online now.
SEMINAR: Wednesday, June 22nd, 6:30-9:30pm, Radical Disclosure (or Can I Really Write That About My Mother-in-Law?)
Every writer faces a basis decision at the keyboard: how much of my own life, and which parts, can I disclose. Will my friends and family recognize themselves. Will they disapprove. How do we, as writers, find the balance between their right to privacy and our right to make art? This discussion, which applies both to fiction and non-fiction, would use examples from folks such as Lorrie Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, Shalom Auslander as a point of departure.
Instructor: Steve Almond
*SOLD OUT*, $65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ. Click here to join waitlist.
SEMINAR: Wednesday, June 22nd, 6:30-9:30pm, Your Family, Your Characters
One of the most difficult tasks of the memoirist is learning to see family members as fully developed characters. As writers, we must set aside self-interest to understand our characters' motivations and allow them to live on the page. Only then will our characters have as much emotional reality for our readers as they do for us as writers. This is as true when our characters are our family members as it is for fictional characters-- only sometimes more difficult (as writers are human, too)! Fortunately, writing exercises can help. In this class, we'll use writing exercises to develop the characters that just happen to be our family members. We'll also read and discuss exceptional examples of family member characterization in published memoirs, and use these examples as models for our own writing. Come prepared with family stories and ready to write! Please note that while this class is intended primarily for the family memorist, it is also appropriate for the writer of autobiographical fiction, and all exercises will be adaptable for both.
Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
*SOLD OUT, $65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ. Click here to join waitlist.
OPEN MIC: Thursday, June 23rd, 8:00-10:00pm, Spring Season Showcase
Join Grub students from the Spring 2011 term, plus two of our award-winning instructors, as they read (for 5 minutes each) from recent work. You'll hear great fiction, non-fiction, poetry and maybe even a screenplay. Open only to students who've taken courses, seminars or weekend workshops in Spring 2011. Limited to 15 readers. Everyone gets free snacks and drinks. Sign-ups begin around 8pm. A great event for current Grubbies and those who want to check us out.
Featured instructor readers are John Cotter and Kathleen Willis Morton.
FREE, Grub Street HQ.
TEEN WRITERS: Monday, June 27th - Friday, July 1st, 11:00am-2:00pm, Creative Writing Camp for Teens
We'll have prompts, writing time, guest speakers, outdoor activities to get our sensory descriptions flowing, and workshop. By the end of the week, you'll have your toolbox full of ideas, beginnings, and some drafts to keep you going all summer. We will discuss the submission process/publication opportunities for teens, and end the week with a reading and potluck lunch. Limited to 12 students age 13-18.
SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Grub Street is happy to be able to offer a limited number of full scholarships for this course. You are eligible for one of these scholarships if you are in a household that receives benefits from Massachusetts SNAP or Massachusetts TANF, if you are a foster child, and/or if your household’s gross income is within the free limits on the Federal Income Guidelines.
To apply for a scholarship, please send an email of no more than 500 words to chris@grubstreet.org describing why you want to take this class and stating that you meet the requirements above. At the end of the email, list the name and email address or phone number of one teacher or other non-relative adult whom we could contact for a recommendation. Please put "Spring Teen Scholarship" in the Subject line of the email. Deadline is Wednesday, June 22nd at 5pm.
$255/$230.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register online now.
WEEKLONG INTENSIVE: Monday, June 27th - Friday, July 1st, 11:00am-2:00pm, Writing for Radio
Public radio is a writer's dream come true. From commentaries to personal essays, memoir to satire, it's a perfect place to pitch your wackiest ideas. But writing for broadcast is nothing like print. It's a beast all its own. Whether it's the distinct voice of This American Life or the fast-paced daily news of All Things Considered, NPR is one of the most exciting places for today's storytellers to air their work. Problem is most people don't know enough about broadcast to navigate their way through the NPR system, no less a radio script. You will learn the basics of how to write for the ear, the critical differences between print and broadcast, how to read your copy on air, and how to pitch your stories. Participants will begin writing a radio script so that by the week's end each student will have some version, finished or not, of their ideal radio piece. There will be an opportunity for you to receive feedback as well as share your thoughts with others. Taught by an instructor who is a six-year producer for NPR's nationally syndicated program "The Connection” and a six-and-a-half-year producer for CNN.
Instructor: Jennifer Mattson
$255/$230.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register online 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.
--LAUNCH PARTY: Monday, June 20th, 5:30-8:30pm, Printer's Devil Review
Printer’s Devil Review (PDR), a new online journal of literary and visual art, will be hosting a launch party at Middlesex Lounge on Monday, June 20, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The event will include readings from contributors; music by the street band Factory Seconds; and free PDR T-shirts, buttons, and broadsides. The event will kick off with readings of short fiction and poetry and conclude with music by the Boston brass band, Factory Seconds. Participants in Somerville’s !Honk Festival, the band describes their style as a “sometimes awkward, sometimes raucous mix of songs from surf rock, klezmer, jazz, and other folk traditions.” In keeping with the magazine’s non-commercial spirit, there will be no cover charge for the party and PDR volunteers will be handing out T-shirts, broadsides, and more. The magazine is independent, non-commercial, and staffed entirely by practicing writers and artists who work as volunteers; it’s also free. Go to pdrjournal.org/partyjune for more details.
FREE, Middlesex Lounge, Central Square.
--BOOK LAUNCH PARTY: Thursday, June 23rd, 6pm, Gary Braver
Northeastern Professor (and Muse 2011 presenter) Gary Braver will discuss his new book Tunnel Vision. Free and open to the public. Stellina will provide free appetizers, cash bar, ample parking. Bring a Friend!
FREE, Stellina Restaurant, 47 Main Street, Watertown, MA.
--CONTEST: 2011 Shabo Award for Children’s Picture Book Writers
The goal of the Shabo Award is to help emerging children’s picture book writers develop “nearly there” manuscripts into publishable pieces. To be eligible, applicants may not have already published a children’s picture book. Up to eight writers will be chosen to participate in a day-long master class, with a follow-up session to polish their manuscripts. For details and guidelines, visit:
https://www.loft.org/images/LoftImageArchive/PDF/Shabo_Guidelines_2011-12.pdf
--RETREAT: August 21st - 23rd, How to Write More, Write Better, and Be Happier
For writers of fiction and creative nonfiction. This all-inclusive retreat mixes a beautiful setting, private time to write, and small-group workshops that offer insights into craft, quality feedback, and support. The retreat is led by Joni Cole, a popular speaker/instructor at writing conferences around the country, and the author of the acclaimed book, Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive. Participation is purposely small (maximum of six writers) to assure personal attention and space. Info/registration: http://www.jonibcole.com/?page_id=14.
$530 per person, double occupancy; $705 single occupancy, includes workshops, critiques, lodging, and meals. Highland Lake Inn, Andover, NH.
--CONFERENCE: August 14th-19th, The Cape Cod Writers Conference
The Cape Cod Writers Center’s announces the 49th Conference, “Craft and Composition With Creativity in the Digital Age.” The Conference takes place at the Craigville Conference Center of Centerville between August 14-19th and is open to aspiring as well as published writers. As the 49th Conference title suggests, participants can choose from over thirty classes in poetry, prose, screenwriting, online communications, marketing and promotion. Find out more about the noted speakers and faculty, and courses offered by going to the website: www.capecodwriterscenter.org, and download a brochure.
Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where like the dirty word in your alphabet soup, we offer you the chance to win a prize. An early draft of which famous American novel was destroyed when the author’s dog chewed it to bits? Email your answer and your postal address to whitney@grubstreet.org. The first correct respondent wins a delicious ice cream treat certificate from J.P. Licks.
Last week's answer: J.M. Barrie (the creator of Peter Pan) loved to say the words “Brussels sprouts” so much that he always ordered them at restaurants even though he never ate them. Winner: Bridget Keown.