June 27th, 2011
"Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs."
—Malcolm Forbes
Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene brought to you every Monday by the flip-flop foot models 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.
Summer classes begin this week here at good old Grub HQ, and you still have time to sign up for great workshops like Screenwriting I, Blueprint Your Book, Creative Nonfiction II, Fiction I, and many more. Yearning to write but not ready for a full-length workshop? Why not try "I've Always Wanted to Write," one of our most popular courses. The six-week class will take place at the gorgeous Arsenal Center For the Arts in Watertown starting July 13th. If you've never been to the Arsenal Center, all you need to know is it's got a great waterfront location, beatiful spacious classrooms, and tons of parking. See you there!
If you scroll down to the "Grub Events" section, you'll see that there are a lot of great workshops coming up on the weekend of July 9th - 10th. Feeling funny? Take "It's a Wonderful Pitch," a 3-hour comedy workshop taught by Peter Desberg and Jeffrey Davis, who are visiting all the way from California to teach this great class. Feeling a bit more intense? Take "Writing Literary Darkness" and turn that intensity into horror or high drama. And no matter what size writing suits you best, we've got a class for you: "Sonnet Generator" (size extra-small), "Flash Fiction Marathon" (small), "Structure as Solution: Form and the Personal Essay" (husky), and "Revision Bootcamp" (big and tall).
Are you curious about taking a Grub class during the day, but never have? Maybe you’ve been too busy, couldn’t find childcare, or maybe Grub hasn’t offered one that appeals to you. Please take 3 quick minutes to fill out this survey to tell us your daytime preferences: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/daytimerag. Soon we’ll be offering more daytime classes and want to know how to customize them to suit our community's needs. If you submit the survey by Tuesday, July 5th, you’ll be entered to win a FREE yearlong Grub Street membership.
That's right: Become a Sustaining Member of Grub Street, and you'll get a FREE seminar for use any time in the coming year! Sustaining membership is $10/month, which, if you're anything like us, is way cheaper than your latte habit. Join now and support your favorite writing organization--you'll be helping to make Boston the most vibrant city for literature in the nation, and getting to take a cool class to boot. Click here to view a current list of seminars eligible for this discount.
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, July 9th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Structure as Solution: Form and the Personal Essay
The personal essay comes in many different forms, and each of these forms offers its own advantages to the writer. In fact, the choice of structure can help save the essayist, pushing her ideas to greater depth and complexity. Changing the structure of an essay can even help disguise its weaknesses and enhance its strengths. But how do you know what structures are out there, and which would help your essay? Appropriate for both the experienced and aspiring essayist alike, the seminar will cover the wide array of structures established essayists like Didion, Lopate, and Ballantine use to, in the words of Aldous Huxley, “look at the world through the keyhole of anecdote and description." A reading packet will be distributed, containing both how-to craft articles and examples of the form both classic and modern. We’ll use this packet to practice identifying what structures—and “keyholes”—are at work in different essays. Then comes the fun part: using the essay ideas you bring in, we’ll practice brainstorming how an essay idea might look if realized through different structures. With this exercise, one vague idea can turn into the inspiration for several tightly crafted kernels of essays just waiting to be realized.
Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
$115/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday-Sunday, July 9-10th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Revision Bootcamp
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.
Instructor: Michelle Hoover
$220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, July 9th, 10:00am-5:00pm, The Unreliable Narrator in Fiction
The unreliable narrator, with his deceits and his confessions, with his justifications and evasions, is one of fiction-writing’s most venerable traditions, and one in which we’ve all probably dabbled ourselves, whether or not we know it. This one-night seminar will deal in isolating and exploring the various ways in which a first-person narrator can be made unreliable (there are many different types besides the scoundrel in Lolita); how unreliability can be used as a tool to draw more vivid characters, weave more complex plots, and complicate the interface of reader and writer; and how for better or for worse, for evil or for good, we are all unreliable narrators of our own experience, so why should our characters be any different, inextricably linked to our selves as they are? Discover how sometimes to lie to your reader is a way to expedite the truth. Or lie, if you want, for the sheer joy of lying. Lie, because that’s what writers do.
Instructor: Adrian Van Young
$115/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, July 9th, 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: Cam Terwilliger
$115/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND DAYTIME SEMINAR: Saturday, July 9th, 10:00am-1:00pm, It’s a Wonderful Pitch: Comedy Writing
Peter Desberg and Jeffrey Davis, authors of Show Me The Funny! At the Writers’ Table with Hollywood’s Top Comedy Writers, come to Grub Street all the way from California for a special comedy-writing workshop. They will offer comedy-writing techniques and tips based on their extensive writing experience, research and interviews with Hollywood’s biggest comedy TV and screenwriters. Their focus will be on creating comedy – how to go from idea to premise to treatment – and will also cover: Why pitching is an important skill to comedy writing; essential pitch skills every writer needs; and stage fright: overcoming the fear of pitching. Though it is not required, students can come prepared with a pitch on a project they would like to make ‘funnier’ or a comedy premised topic – any type of writing accepted (short stories, plays, screenplays, novels, etc.). There will be plenty of time for Q&A. Learn more at www.showmethefunnyonline.com.
Instructor: Peter Desberg
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.*Become a Sustaining Member and take this class for free!*
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, July 10th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Writing Literary Darkness Tastefully and Effectively
The one-day version of the popular weekend seminar! Writing a dark domestic drama but can’t quite make the conflict pop? Penning a tale of the supernatural that wants to be taken seriously? Inhabiting a villain or scoundrel who refuses to be plausible? This weekend workshop is geared towards writing from the dark side without the melodrama or the fatal constriction of genre. By looking at the dark successes of some of our best writers, and through lively in-class exercises in everything from non-linear narrative structure to writing first-person unreliability, you will become a seasoned hand in writing violence, both physical andemotional, creating nuanced, relatable villains, mastering the finer points of dark and uncanny description, and making the dark hopes and desires of your characters seethe upon the page, among other strange things not dreamt of in our philosophy.
Instructor: Adrian Van Young
$115/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, July 10th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Sonnet Generator
Have you always wanted to write a sonnet but didn't know how to start? Or maybe you started and then got bogged down somewhere around the sixth line, when the rhyme scheme became daunting. This class is for you. In the morning we will follow an exercise designed to produce a "modern sonnet," and in the afternoon an exercise will guide us in writing a sonnet with borrowed end-rhyme. We will also read published sonnets, both modern and traditional. As time allows, we may critique each other's poems, but the emphasis will be writing. All levels welcome. Bring to class one or two of your favorite sonnets that use end rhyme.
Instructor: Wendy Mnookin
$115/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, July 10th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Jumpstart Your Blog
A blog can be a great way to market yourself, build an audience, and exercise those creative impulses. Whether you're looking to breathe life back into an already established blog or have been wanting to start one and need a push, this class will offer guidance for writing posts others will want to read. You'll learn what makes a successful blog, read examples from the blogosphere, and begin crafting a plan that will include ways to build your audience. You'll also practice different types of posts with in-class writing exercises that will be workshopped in large and small groups. The goal is to leave with some solid beginnings (possibly finished posts), inspiration, and a strategy for success.
Instructor: Amy Marcott
$115/$95.00 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEK-LONG INTENSIVE: Monday, July 11th - Friday, July 15th, 1-4pm, Week of Historical Fiction
Spend a week bringing your historical fiction to life. In this class, we’ll learn how to conduct research, how to organize it into a plot, and how to transmute all this material into compelling scenes and characters. Additionally, the class will offer students a chance to workshop historical fiction in progress, receiving feedback geared specifically to the genre.
Instructor: Cam Terwilliger
$255/$230 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.
--READING: Thursday, June 30th, 7pm, An Evening of Words and Music
with Yani Batteau & Judah Leblang
Join musician Yani Batteau and Grub instructor Judah Leblang for an evening of
song, poetry, and memoir.
During this fun evening, local musician Yani Batteau will sing folk,
country and blues, and writer Judah Leblang will share his (mostly)
humorous stories of growing up in Cleveland, Ohio and dealing with
middle age in Boston.
Yani Batteau is the front woman for the band Yani Batteau and the
Styles. Judah Leblang is a Medford-based writer and storyteller, a
columnistfor Bay Windows newspaper, and a radio commentator.
FREE, Medford Public Library, 111 High
Street in Medford Square
--READING: Tuesday, July 5th, 7pm, Ann Williams and Jane Roper
Grub instructor Jane Roper is the author of Eden Lake, a novel, and Baby Squared, a narrative blog for Babble.com. Her memoir on parenting twins and dealing with clinical depression will be published in 2012. Jane received her MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and her BA from Williams College. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and twin daughters.
Ann Joslin Williams earned her MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She is the author of The Woman in the Woods, a collection of linked stories, which won the 2005 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, and her work has appeared in Storyquarterly, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She was the winner of an NEA grant for her work on Down from Cascom Mountain. Williams is an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire.
FREE, Porter Square Books, Cambridge
--GRUB STREET SOUTH: Wednesday, July 6th, 7pm, Getting Emotional: Writing the Heart Without Slipping into Syrup
The visiting instructor is Robin Black, author of If ILoved You, I Would Tell You This. Black’s collection of short stories has gathered robust praise from leading publications and was among the 2010 finalists for the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award. The topic is “Getting Emotional: Writing the Heart without Slipping into Syrup.” The workshop will address how so much of fiction involves issues that run the danger of seeming overly-sentimental. What are some tricks for writing moving fiction that never crosses the line into being sappy? The workshop will look at everything from the sorts of characters you include to the structures of the sentences you use. Reservations are requested. Please call Buttonwood at 1-781-383-2665 to reserve.
FREE, Buttonwood Books & Toys, Shaw’s Plaza, Rt.3A, Cohasset.
--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 galumphing in galoshes, we offer you the chance to win a prize. A 19-month old girl who was dying in a London hospital had a condition that baffled the doctors until a nurse noted that the patient’s symptoms were remarkably like those of an infant in the novel she was reading. Based on her suggestion, the doctors tested for, found, and treated the infant for a type of poisoning and the baby recovered. What book was the nurse reading, and why type of poisoning did the baby have? 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: An early draft of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men was destroyed when his dog chewed it to bits. Winner: Alex Budney.