The Rag 4/9/12: Manuscript Mart deadlines, Non-Fiction Career Lab info session, and our suggestion for the perfect literary night out

April 9th, 2012

In this issue

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

—Douglas Adams

Grub Street News

Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene brought to you every Monday by the acid green nail polish enthusiasts at Grub Street's World Headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this email in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Non-Fiction Career Lab Info Session

We are getting lots of questions about the pilot of our new year-long program, Non-Fiction Career Lab: Your First Book and Beyond, taught by Pagan Kennedy and Ethan Gilsdorf. If you are interested in hearing more about this exciting new option from the people who created it, please come to an info session with the instructors and Grub’s artistic director, Christopher Castellani, THIS Wednesday, April 11th, from 5:30PM – 7PM at Grub HQ. This will be a casual Q&A, so feel free to arrive anytime in that window. Topics include: the philosophy behind the program, the logistics of the application and the curriculum, more details on the kinds of writers the program would best serve, how the program intersects with an MFA and/or journalism school, and anything else on the minds of potential applicants.

Manuscript Mart Deadline in TWO Days!

If you have signed up for the Manuscript Mart at the Muse and the Marketplace conference on May 5-6, 2012, remember that you must upload your manuscript(s) by THIS Wednesday, April 11th at 5:00PM. If we do not get your manuscript in time, you will not be able to participate in the Manuscript Mart, and there are no refunds or credits. All instructions are here http://www.grubstreet.org/index.php?id=1978. If you have not yet signed up, there are still 6 spots left with agents and 16 spots left with editors, but these will go fast.

Free Teen Workshops This Saturday

Do you know a teen who likes to write poems, short stories, or fantasy fiction? Grub Street is offering FREE creative writing workshops for high schoolers this Saturday, April 14th from 11:00am to 4:30pm. Open to all high school students age 13-18. Teens enjoy cool writing exercises, mingling with fellow young writers, snacks, and an optional open mic. Click here to register. Visit our Young Adult Writers Program webpage to learn more, or email sean@grubstreet.org to join our YAWP mailing list.

The Perfect Literary Night Out

Get those babysitters lined up now, because Grub Street has a wonderful (and free) literary night out planned for you. First, join us from 5:30-7pm on Saturday, May 5th for an illuminating lecture by digital-publishing visionary Richard Nash. Then, you're on your own for a quick bite at one of downtown Boston's many wonderful restaurants. Stay close to the Park Plaza hotel, though, so you can return at 8:15 for a reading and reception featuring the non-fiction and fiction winners of Grub's National Book Prize. Details below and on our website.

Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya, Eve, Chris, Rowan, Sean and Lauren

Muse Spotlights

For the next two months, The Rag will be spotlighting sessions from our annual conference, The Muse and the Marketplace. We hope you’ll be able to enjoy these sessions in person the weekend of May 5th & 6th at the Park Plaza Hotel. For all details, including registration info, go to www.museandthemarketplace.com.

"Muse" Spotlight: Joining our conference for the first time, author Len Rosen will offer his take on an important question: “Where Do You Find Your Thrills (as a Writer?)” Without choosing sides or privileging one type of writing over another, this session will draw some distinctions between the genre thrillers of writers like John Grisham, Dan Brown, and Tom Clancy and the literary-genre thrillers of writers like John le Carré, P.D. James, and Scott Turow. Both approaches turn on taut plots and escalating tensions; yet they differ in degree (these are continua, not stark categories) on matters of aesthetics, character development, concern for moral implications, and a willingness to test readers’ patience by exploring “big ideas.” This Sunday morning class will consider examples of each approach and discuss the perils of mixing approaches unintentionally. We are very excited to welcome Len to the Muse this year. His debut thriller, All Cry Chaos, was published in September 2011 to strong reviews, with Mystery Scene calling it “easily one of the best first novels of the last couple of years.”

Marketplace Spotlight: Virtually every writer we meet is finding his or her way in the land of social media. Each year at the conference, Grub Street enlists the help of experts who know the landscape of social media well and take a practical and unintimidating approach to helping writers navigate it smartly and effectively. This year, the conference is offering three social media sessions, one for beginners on Saturday afternoon, May 5th and two for those writers already online on Sunday afternoon, May 6th. Three presenters will be leading the charge on this topic. Crystal King is a freelance writer and Pushcart-nominated poet who is currently working on her first novel. She holds an MA in Critical & Creative Thinking from UMass Boston where she centered her thesis on developing a system to help fiction writers in progress. An 18 year marketing and communications veteran, Crystal currently drives social media for Keurig, Inc., the leading coffeemaker brand in the US. Find her on Twitter at @crystallyn and on Google+ at gplus.to/crystallyn. Michael Borum is a digital strategist, designer, and developer with over 15 years experience in the Web marketing and communications industry. He is the founder of etherweave communications, which focuses on providing digital marketing services to authors, small non-profits, and educators; he is also the Web Manager at Oxfam America. Nichole Bernier is the author of The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D (Crown, June 2012) and one of the founders of the literary blog Beyond The Margins. She has been a contributing editor with Condé Nast Traveler magazine for 14 years, and was previously on staff as a features writer, columnist and television spokesperson. She can be found online at nicholebernier.com and on Twitter @nicholebernier.

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.

OPEN HOUSE: Wednesday, April 11th, 5:30-7:00pm, Non-Fiction Career Lab Info Session and Q&A
If you are considering applying to Grub Street’s Non-Fiction Career Lab, this is your chance to ask instructors Pagan Kennedy and Ethan Gilsdorf, as well as Grub’s artistic director Christopher Castellani, any questions about the program. Topics include: the philosophy behind the program, the logistics of the application and the curriculum, more details on the kinds of writers the program would best serve, how the program intersects with an MFA and/or journalism school, and anything else on the minds of potential applicants. No need to RSVP.
FREE, Grub Street HQ.

LUNCHTIME WRITING SERIES: Wednesday, April 18th, 12:30pm-1:15pm, Brown Bag Lunch Series-April
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: Drew Jameson
FREE, Grub Street HQ.

READING SERIES: Friday, April 20th, 6:30pm-8pm, Grub Street Reading Series
Do you want a chance to read your work out loud? Join the new Grub Street Reading Series for a fun open mic event where you can practice the art of reading to an audience. This event is open to the public, and limited to 10 readers. Sign-up begins at 6:30pm. Readings will run from 7:00pm to 8:00pm. This is a great opportunity for any members interested in sharing their work and connecting with other writers. For more information or to join the reading series mailing list, please email sean@grubstreet.org.
FREE, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, April 21st, 10:00am-5:00pm, Characters in Conflict
Do your readers complain that nothing happens in your fiction? Do they complain that too much does? As Henry James wrote: character determines incident; incident reveals character. This course will help you complicate your understanding of your major characters in an attempt to discover obstacles that mirror your characters' innermost fears and flaws. As a result, not only will your fiction contain the all necessary conflict (both internal and external), but this conflict will feel integral to your characters and achieve a true emotional response from your readers. The course will be a combination of lecture, examples, and writing exercises. Bring a copy of a scene you're having trouble with, 2000 words maximum.
Instructor: Michelle Hoover
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday-Sunday, April 21st-22nd, Get Unstuck! Personal Essay Revision Bootcamp
Every writer knows that the true challenge isn’t in writing what Anne Lamott calls “shitty first drafts,” but rather in taking those first drafts through the grueling and crucial revision process. Too often revision gets shortchanged, mistaken for mere line editing (or what Dinty Moore calls prettying up the living room curtains) when a fuller, furniture-clearing re-envisioning is what’s needed to take the writing as far as it can go. But how can you do deep revision without getting lost? In this hands-on weekend workshop, we’ll actively revise our essay and chapter drafts, learning strategies for questioning every crucial aspect of creative nonfiction in a way that makes the process thorough but manageable. We’ll discuss strategies for seeing the work on both the macro and micro levels, and use revision roadmaps that have helped established writers. Students will have the opportunity to workshop short sections, brainstorming ways to improve troublesome scenes. At the end of the weekend, we’ll commit to our revision plans for each piece, and leave with new confidence for tackling future revisions. Please note that you need not have a nearly-finished piece to benefit from this class—it’s the perfect way to get unstuck on a draft whose problems you aren’t sure how to solve! You will, however, need complete first drafts of two different pieces of writing. The instructor will send further information on what to bring to class (e.g., a notebook, a pen, highlighters) before the first session.
Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
$220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday-Sunday, April 21st-22nd, 9:30am-4:30pm, Introduction to Screenwriting
Writing a screenplay is a completely different style of writing with a host of complex rules and conventions. During this two-day workshop, students will explore Hollywood structure and format and gain the necessary tools to begin a career in screenwriting. Please bring in an idea you would like to develop. On the first day you will work on your story structure and receive feedback. The second day you will bring in a scene to workshop. Topics explored will include how to write a proper elevator pitch, how to write effective dialogue, how to overcome writer’s block and what to do when the script is finished.
Grub students can get an exclusive discount onFinal Draft screenwriting software. Please emailrowan@grubstreet.orgfor information.
Instructor: Mark Fogarty
$220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday-Sunday, April 21st-22nd, 10:30am-5:30pm, Writing for Radio
In this workshop you will learn not only how to write a radio piece but we'll pay special attention to how to get it accepted for air. You will learn how to write for the ear, the rules of broadcast style and how to pitch public radio editors and producers. This class will pay extra attention to how to refine a pitch and how to distinguish a workable idea from a not-so workable one. Students should plan to come to class with a solid idea or first draft of a radio piece. No prior experience in radio is necessary, nor any prior Grub Street classes. This workshop is open to all. Taught by an instructor who was a producer for NPR's nationally syndicated program "The Connection” and a six-and-a-half-year producer for CNN.
Instructor: Jennifer Mattson
$220/$195 members, Grub Street HQ.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, April 22nd, 10:30am-5:30pm, Graphic Novel Basics: How to Write for the Drawn Story
Looking to write for graphic novels but don’t know where to begin? This one-day intensive course will introduce the medium of the graphic novel, a narrative work in which the story is conveyed using sequential art in a comics format. Through both lecture and in-class exercises we will examine the story structure and visual grammar of graphic novels, along with script formatting, pacing, and commonly used iconography. By the end of the course students should expect to have a solid understanding of how to write for the drawn story, along with take-home instructional handouts and a suggested reading list. No previous drawing experience is necessary to take this course. Students may bring a personal or fictional short story, short scene, or story excerpt to use as a spring board for in class exercises.
Instructor: Katherine Roy and Tim Stout (Special Guest)
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Sunday, April 22nd, 10:00am-5:00pm, How to Plan, Write, & Develop a Book: Section A
Books often start with a simple yearning to explore new territory: fascinating topics, characters who won’t leave you alone, a good story. But manuscripts get unwieldy, fast. One out of ten writers never finish their manuscripts because most first-time book writers get lost without good structure and planning. Mary Carroll Moore, award-winning author of 13 books in three genres and a PEN/Faulkner nominee, will guide you through a simple and successful book-writing process that can take your book from idea to publication, a process using a three-act structure that eases organization and makes a manuscript vivid and engaging to readers. Find out why Aristotle believed that three acts formed a perfect structure for all stories, why humans lean toward beginning, middle, and end, and why we crave the emotional catharsis of that format in literature too. For all levels of writers working on nonfiction, memoir, or novels, at any stage from seed idea to draft. Learn why strong structuring is the key to selling a book in today's competitive publishing industry.
Instructor: Mary Carroll Moore
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, April 28th, 10:00am-5:00pm, The Messy Essay
Don't have time to take six weeks, six essays? Come to this workshop where we'll tackle the joys and pitfalls of essay writing. The first half of the course will be spent looking at the essay form and dissecting a few essays to see what makes them tick. Next, we'll take a look at our own essay attempts, talk about the challenges that come up during revision, and discuss tools and ideas to help take your work-in-progress or ideas to the next level. Bring an essay you are working on, your ideas and your questions!
Instructor: Amy Yelin
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, April 28th, 10:30am-5:30pm, Basics of the Non-Fiction Book Proposal
Are you working on a nonfiction book, or have a great idea in mind? Grab this opportunity to learn, in one intensive day, the critical steps you need to take before you write another word. We will cover all the core elements of a killer book proposal, which is the key to signing with an agent or snagging a nonfiction book deal. This class will be helpful for memoirists, too: although that sales process differs a bit, you will gain vital insights into what publishers are looking for, helping you fine-tune your project and perfect your pitch. Come armed with a laptop (or pen and paper) and be prepared to work on the spot and share ideas. We will brainstorm elevator pitches, get started on crafting persuasive bios, and begin stitching together a marketing platform that will impress agents and editors. In addition, you will see examples of great and not-so-great drafts and learn how to make important decisions about what to include and what to leave out when it comes time to shop your book. You will come away with a clear plan for achieving your goals from an insider with years of experience working with agents, publishing executives, book publicists and and a cross section of local and national media.
Instructor: Katrin Schumann
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, April 28th, 9:30am-4:30pm, Freelance Writing Essentials
You want to write feature stories for the Boston Globe or the Cambridge Tab, essays for Salon.com or Slate.com, or op-eds for USA Today or the New York Times. Now what? In this seminar we’ll discuss how to come up with ideas that editors want, where to get insider information on who edits what. We’ll also look at the do’s and don’ts of contacting editors and cover the basics of pitching stories and writing pitch letters. Equally important is grasping how much various markets pay, being able to read a contract and understand your publication rights, and developing a realistic game plan for your success. (Note: this class won’t cover corporate writing or freelance copywriting.)
Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, April 28th, 10:30am-5:30pm, 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 7 Secrets of the Prolific) 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.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, April 28th, 10:00am-5:00pm, The Who, What, Where, and Why of eBooks
This class will provide all the basics for students interested in learning about eBooks. Everything from how to create your own eBook, to how to go about marketing and distributing them, to why are eBooks important in the first place will be covered in this course. Further, by the end of the course, each student will have created at least one eBook from one of their own manuscripts, and if desired, will have the opportunity to post it up for sale online.
Instructor: Steve Brykman
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.

LECTURE: Saturday, May 5th, 5:30-7pm, "Don't Get Left Behind: New Opportunities for Writers" with Richard Nash
Part of Grub Street's Publish It Forward lecture series, funded by the NEA. What does it mean to be a writer in a world where seemingly everyone is a writer? Richard Nash, serial entrepreneur, maverick, and student of books and media, draws on legal, economic and intellectual history, on his experience running iconic indie Soft Skull Press, and on his start-ups Small Demons, Red Lemonade and Cursor to offer writers a new framework for understanding the business of writing and the culture of reading. You will leave with a new perspective on the incredible range of opportunities now available to writers which will enable you to make the best possible choices in your own life and career. Registered Muse and the Marketplace attendees do not need to register for this session; they may simply come. The event is also open to the public.
Instructor: Richard Nash
FREE, Boston Park Plaza Hotel, 50 Park Plaza at Arlington Street, Boston

READING: Saturday, May 5th, 8:15-9:30pm, National Book Prize Reading & Reception with Wendy Call and Eileen Pollack
Join us for a festive reading and reception to honor Wendy Call and Eileen Pollack, the most recent winners of the Grub Street National Book Prize. Non-Fiction winner Wendy Call of Seattle will read from No Word for Welcome: The Mexican Village Faces the Global Economy, and Fiction winner Eileen Pollack of Ann Arbor will read from her novel, Breaking and Entering.
The Grub Street Book Prize is awarded once annually to an American writer outside New England publishing his or her second, third, fourth (or beyond) book. First books are not eligible. Writers whose primary residence is Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut or Rhode Island are also not eligible. Click here for more information.
FREE, Boston Park Plaza Hotel, 50 Park Plaza at Arlington Street, Boston.

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.

--READING: Tuesday, April 10, 7PM, Rick Moody and Tanya Donelly
Rick Moody, author of On Celestial Music: And Other Adventures in Listening, with Special Guest Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses and Belly. Rick will read a few selections from his book and then sing with Tanya.
FREE, Newtonville Books, 10 Langley Road, Newton Centre. Green Line (D) to Newton Centre.

--READING: Thursday, April 12th, 5pm, WPR Recording Session: Patrick Donnelly
Join us for our final recording session of the season, featuring poet, translator and editor Patrick Donnelly, who will read from his latest collection, Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2012), which has been hailed as an "ambitious, winged re-imagining of the possibilities of voice." A Q&A with the audience will follow. Introduction by Daniel Tobin.
FREE, Harvard Campus, Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Room 330. Photo ID required for entrance.

--NEW YORK CITY READING: Tuesday, April 10th, 7:30 pm, QT (Queer Text) reading with Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich and Mary Jane Nealon
Grub Street instructor Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich and memoirist Mary Jane Nealon (author of Beautiful Unbroken) will read from their work on Tuesday evening at NYC's art space Dixon Place. The reading is part of the QT (Queer Text) series curated by Nicholas Boggs. More information online here: http://www.dixonplace.org/html/lit_qt.html
$6, Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey), NYC

--READING: Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 7pm, Katherine Howe reads from The House of Velvet and Glass
Harvard Book Store is delighted to welcome bestselling novelist and Muse 2012 presenter Katherine Howe for a reading of her new Boston-set historical novel, The House of Velvet and Glass. From the opium dens of Boston’s Chinatown to the opulent salons of high society, from the back alleys of colonial Shanghai to the decks of the Titanic, The House of Velvet and Glass weaves together meticulous period detail, intoxicating romance, and a final shocking twist that will leave readers breathless.
FREE, Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

--CONFERENCE: Saturday, April 28th, 9am - 12:30, What’s New in Children’s Books
The Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program of Pine Manor College (http://www.pmc.edu/mfa) and the Foundation for Children’s Books will co-host the second in a series of biannual events, “What’s New in Children’s Books,” a half-dayconference featuring authors Cynthia Lord, Janet Wong, and Gregory Mone; bookseller Terri Schmitz, and librarian Christian Porter. For a downloadable registration form, go to: http://www.thefcb.org/forms/; for directions to Pine Manor College, go to: www.pmc.edu/directions.
$65, Founder’s Room, Pine Manor College campus, 400 Heath Street in Chestnut Hill

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where like remembering not to rub your eyes after chopping habanero peppers, we offer you the chance to win a prize. After a long career as a veterinarian, this man began writing books that communicated his deep affection for animals. Email your answer to whitney@grubstreet.org. The first correct respondent wins a Starbucks gift card for a coffee treat.

Last week's trivia: William Sydney Porter started his writing career while serving a four-year jail sentence, and wrote under the pen name O. Henry. Winner: Walter Altherr.