July 11th, 2011
"When rewriting, move quickly. It's a little like cutting your own hair."
—Robert Stone
Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene brought to you every Monday by the very demanding governess 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.
Grub Street is happy to be able to offer fifteen partial (50% discount) scholarships for our newly expanded daytime course curriculum to writers who have been impacted by the economic downturn. Scholarships can be used towards any weekday Grub Street class that takes place between the hours of 9am – 5pm. To learn more about this opportunity, please click here: http://www.grubstreet.org/index.php?id=573. Application deadline: Monday, July 25th.
You made a commitment to your writing this summer and joined a Grub Street class. Why not make that commitment last the whole year through by becoming a Grub Street member today--if you're taking a summer class, you can still get the $25 discount off your 10- or 6-week workshop if you register for a membership by July 31st. Just use coupon code "SummerWorkshop2011" on the checkout screen. Join now!
Do you like to play softball? The Grub Street Word Slingers are looking for fresh ink to bolster their ranks. Games are typically on varying times on Sundays in the metro area. The only requirements: glove and love of the game and fellow Grubbies. Join them for sun, exercise and a communal beer--what a great way to enjoy summer! Email Tom Meek at thom3@aol.com or Clarence Lai at thunderlai@yahoo.com for more details.
We know Bread Loaf is coming up next month, and we also know that many of you Grubbies will be headed there for two wonderful weeks of readings, workshops and dancing. We'd love to feature as many of you as we can in next month's Department of Congratulations, so if you're going to Bread Loaf, please email whitney@grubstreet.org to let her know. Thanks, and be sure to connect with fellow Grubbies while you're 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.
LUNCHTIME WRITING: Wednesday, July 13th, 12:30-1:15pm, Brown Bag Lunch Series
Do you work downtown and want to fit some writing into your day? Or do you have a schedule that gives you free afternoons instead of evenings? Bring your lunch and come on over to Grub Street for a Brown Bag Writing Workshop – a series recently profiled in the Boston Globe. For 45 minutes, you’ll meet fellow writers and get your creative juices flowing with some cool writing exercises. Led by one of our award-winning instructors or ambassadors. Best of all, you’ll leave lunch with some new ideas to ponder for the rest of your day...and beyond. No need to RSVP-- just come!
Instructor: Carrie Kei Heim Binas
FREE! Grub Street HQ.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, July 23rd, 10:00am-5:00pm, Plotting the Novel
Starting 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
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, July 23rd, 10:00am-5:00pm, Jumpstart Your Writing-- Fiction Focus
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: 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: Jennifer De Leon
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, July 23rd, 10:00am-5:00pm, The Art of the Scene
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 one-day class—an expanded version of the popular seminar—will look at the way scenes work and strategies employed by various authors. We’ll focus on pacing, choreography, tension, details, subtext, and more and practice these with in-class writing exercises designed to inspire and elevate your own writing. There will also be time to workshop a short scene you bring (up to about five pages double spaced) in small groups. Bring 5 copies.
Instructor: Amy Marcott
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, July 23rd, 10:00am-5:00pm, The Business of Writing
It’s no secret that being a writer these days is like running a one-person business. In fact, any writer who doesn’t see him/herself as a business is in for a rude awakening when that first (or second, or beyond…) book comes out. This class will tell writers at any level and at any stage of the game everything they need to do to get started as a businessperson, or to improve their current business's profitability. The teacher, Hillary Rettig, has taught hundreds of business classes over more than a decade, and has presented on her techniques at national microenterprise conferences. You will spend the morning learning about and discussing profitability, marketing fundamentals and legalities; the afternoon will be focused on marketing and sales. This seminar is a good companion to Hillary Rettig’s “The Time of Your Life,” which will be held the next day, Sunday, July 24th, but you can take either or both classes.
Instructor: Hillary Rettig
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday-Sunday, July 23-24th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Weekend Story Intensive
The goal of this seminar is to create a brand new, polished work of fiction in a single weekend. We will focus on the flash fiction form, and over the course of two days, we will go through the entire process of drafting, workshop, and revision. On Saturday, we will read some stellar examples of the form and write from a range of inspiring prompts to generate new material, and then each participant will work from one of those prompts to finish a first solid draft. On Sunday, we will begin with a workshop, follow with a series of revision techniques and exercises, and end with time for participants to complete their next draft. Whether you’re an experienced writer or just getting started, you will end the weekend with not only a well-crafted story but also a new set of tools for your fiction.
Instructor: Adam Stumacher
$220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, July 24th, 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/$95 members, Grub Street HQ. Register Now.
GRUB STREET SOUTH SEMINAR: Tuesday, July 26th, 7:00pm, Everybody's an Expert: Writing the Nonfiction Book
It’s true. We’re all an expert in something. Maybe you’re the only one who knows the best places to go clamming on the Cape. Or perhaps you built your own boat and have a great tale to tell. Perhaps it’s your delicious baking experiences, that popular blog and how you did it all while raising a family on the South Shore. So, why not share your hard-won expertise in a book? After all, isn’t it time to share your genius with the world? In this lecture/workshop you’ll learn how to streamline your ideas, structure your book, create a writing schedule, finish your book within a year and finally how to get published and get the attention you so richly deserve.
Instructor: Jamie Cat Callan
FREE, Buttonwood Books.
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.
--CALL FOR ENTRIES: Where Writers Write blog
Where Writers Write is looking for photos of the place (or places) where you work: your desk, the room, your favorite table at the local cafe, your bed, the kitchen table, the view from the window you look out of, the tchotchkes you keep nearby for inspiration. It can be a past or present place. Or both. If you prefer to do a short "cribs" style video, that is welcome, too! If you'd like to include a few words on your space, or what the place where writers work means to you in general, by all means send it along. Be as creative as you'd like. And if you'd like to be featured on the site please send a short bio and, most importantly, a link to your website/blog/book tour schedule--anything you want people to know about and click on. This is a site for writers but, like all online content, is also a means of creating visibility. This site does not discriminate. It is for authors, poets, journalists, academics, students, screenwriters, non-fiction, fiction, graphic novelists--anyone who puts words on paper. It is for both the professional and the amateur. For the purpose of this site, if you are writing, you are a writer.
--CONTEST ALERT! Win Editing Services from Book Architecture
Tell Book Architecture (Grubbies Stuart Horwitz & Karen Byrne) which blog post on their site is your favorite & why (with permission to reprint), and you will be entered into a drawing to receive five free hours of developmental editing services. Contest ends July 18th; winner will be chosen randomly. . .because there’s really no other way to do it!
--READING: Tuesday, July 12th, 7pm, U35 Poetry Reading Series with Ben Berman, Jillian Saucier and C. M. Ohge.
U35 is a bi-monthly reading series for poets under the age of thirty five. Conceived as a space for greater community as well as diversity of voice and vision for young poets, U35 was selected as one of 2010’s ten best event series by the Boston Globe. On Tuesday, July 12th the featured readers will be Jillian Saucier, C. M. Ohge and Grub instructor Ben Berman.
FREE, The Marliave Restaurant and Bar, 2nd Floor 10 Bosworth Street, Boston (MBTA: Park Street)
--READING: Wednesday, July 13th, 7pm, Rooms Down the Hallway series: A Midsummer Night's Read, the hallway gallery, JP
Rooms Down the Hallway presents A Midsummer Night's Read! Featuring flash nonfiction from Carpentrix Nina MacLaughlin and an excerpt from Lisa Borders' recent novel, The Fifty-First State. Dawn Dorland Perry, series host, will also read her essay "Why I Write," featured recently on the Grub Daily. Chocolate -- nips of wine -- hand-picked music -- author Q & A. Come celebrate an evening of local words and neighborhood culture.
FREE,
the hallway gallery, 66a South Street, Jamaica Plain // thehallwayjp.com
--READING: Wednesday, July 13th, 7pm, Rooms Down the Hallway series: A Midsummer Night's Read, the hallway gallery, JP
Rooms Down the Hallway presents... A Midsummer Night's Read! Featuring flash nonfiction from Carpentrix Nina MacLaughlin and an excerpt from Lisa Borders' recent novel, The Fifty-First State. Dawn Dorland Perry, series host, will also read her essay "Why I Write," featured recently on the Grub Daily. Chocolate -- nips of wine -- hand-picked music -- author Q & A. Come celebrate an evening of local words and neighborhood culture. @ the hallway gallery, 66a South Street, Jamaica Plain // thehallwayjp.com <http://thehallwayjp.com/>
--READING: Wednesday, July 13th, 6-7:30pm, Author's Night @ Stellina's with debut novelist, Laura Harrington
Join Laura Harrington to talk about her debut novel Alice Bliss at acclaimed restaurant, Stellina's in Watertown. A fun evening with drinks, discussion, Q&A, and signing. Laura Harrington is a Gloucester based playwright whose plays, musicals, operas, and radio plays have been seen and heard in NY, across the US, in Canada and Europe. Alice Bliss is already garnering praise with a four star review from People, an Entertainment Weekly "The Best Reads of the Summer" pick, and B&N's "Discover Great New Writers" for the fall.
FREE (except for the cost of a drink) Stellina's Restaurant, 46 Main Street, Watertown, MA 02742, 617.924.9475 www.stellinarestaurant.com.
Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where like placating a platypus, we offer you the chance to win a prize. When he was 90 years old, this playwright was brought before a court of law by his sons, who sought to have him declared senile and thus incompetent to manage his own estate. In his own defense, the playwright read aloud passages from his most recent work, which had been completed but not yet staged. The jury confirmed his competency, chastised his sons, and escorted him home as an honor. Who was he? 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: Robert Frost once famously wrote on the sole of his shoe during a burst of inspiration. Winner: Holly Hartman.