May 8th, 2012

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 from the sun-dappled terrace 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.

Grub Street Reading Series: Thursday, May 17th

Department of Congratulations, Mutant Pollen Spore Edition

Acres of good news this month! First up, a piece of Muse news: We're proud to announce the first book deal from the Muse: Beacon Press snapped up Muse presenter Elinor Lipman's political poetry that she's been publishing on Twitter, and the book will come out in September in time for the election. Read the story on the Grub Daily.

Next, an English garden's worth of instructor news. Ron MacLean’s second novel, Headlong, will be out from Last Light Studios in 2013. It's a literary mystery about a once-renowned journalist who gets entangled in trying to connect the dots between a major labor strike, an eco-terrorist group bent on capitalism's downfall, and a murder in which his best friend's son may be involved. Ron also has a short story, "Duck Variations," out in the current issue of Drunken Boat. Rosie Sultan's novel Helen Keller in Love debuted on May 1st, and has been featured in Good Housekeeping magazine, The Huffington Post, Deep South magazine, Library Journal and Booklist. Jane Roper's memoir, Double Time: How I Survived---and Mostly Thrived---Through the First Three Years of Mothering Twins, debuted on May 8th (and was available in advance at the Muse!) Tara L. Masih's latest book, The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays, has been released and is being called a "truly important book" by Robert Olen Butler. It just won a Skipping Stones Honor Award for Multicultural and International Books. Tara will be teaching "Think Small, Think Smart: How to Publish Beyond the Big Houses" at Grub on May 31st. Rebecca Givens was just named the winner of the 2011 Dana Award in Short Fiction for her short story, "You'd Rather Be Tender," and her first book of poems, The Wreck of Birds, was just released from Bauhan Publishing as the winner of the 2011 May Sarton New Hampshire First Book prize. Instructor Christine Cipriani and coauthor Peter McMahon have sold their book on Cape Cod's modern architecture, the story of an international group of designers who forged -- and lived -- a Bauhaus-meets-dune-shack aesthetic in the Wellfleet woods. Metropolis will publish it in 2014, and the authors were stoked when the project won a grant from the Graham Foundation. Adam Stumacher just had a short story accepted by The Kenyon Review. Student-turned-instructor Jenn De Leon's essay, "Mapping Yolanda," will be published in Ploughshares this fall (edited by Patricia Hampl). Jenn started the essay as an in-class exercise in Michelle Seaton's Master Creative Nonfiction Class in 2010. Former instructor Jami Brandli's latest play, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!), will be presented as a MainStage selection for the 2012 Great Plains Theatre Conference at the end of May, and it will also receive a staged reading in June at The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum as part of Botanicum Seedlings Spring Playreadings in Los Angeles. When Becky Tuch's not teaching for Grub Street, she's the founding editor of The Review Review, which has been listed by Writer's Digest as one of the 101 best resources for writers. And lastly, parlez-vous geek? Ethan Gilsdorf, Grub instructor and board member, is featured in a French documentary called "La Revanche des Geeks" ("The Revenge of the Geeks"). Its airs on the French national TV network "Arte" on 5/14 and 5/17. You can watch a teaser here (look for Ethan at minute 0:27). Bonus factoid: the French narrator is the guy who dubbed actor Christopher Lloyd's voice in the French version of Back to the Future.

Next up, a verdant expanse of member news, starting with book publications. The Bookie's Son, a novel by Andrew Goldstein, was published by (sixoneseven) books on May 1. Andrew writes, "After years of Grub Street night classes, The Bookie's Son will finally see the light of day, published by a micropress also born out of Grub Street. Go Grub. Come on Bookie." Fletcher Wortmann's book, Triggered: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder was published by St. Martin's Press (March 2012) and received a Booklist starred review. The book chronicles Fletcher's life living with and being treated for (at McLean Hospital) his particular variant of OCD—runaway intrusive thoughts with no visible compulsions such as hand-washing or checking. He incorporates a lot of wry humor in the telling. Joan Nichols' literary mystery A Novel by Dickens has garnered her a spot as a quarterfinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (semifinalists announced the 24th). Click the link to read an excerpt and write a review.

Our members have some great prize and other publication news, too: Two poems by Sara Letourneau are featured in the April 2012 online issue of Underground Voices. She's also received an acceptance letter from The Eunoia Review for two more poems that will be published in July. Jen Michalski has won the 2012 Big Moose Prize with her novel The Tide King; her second story collection, From Here, is forthcoming from Aqueous Books (2013), and her collection of novellas is forthcoming from Dzanc (2013). Member Len Abram, who you can find working on his novel in the Grub Street space almost every week, just had an article published about his other favorite hangout, the new coffeeshop, Dwelltime. David Cameron just became the new fiction editor for Talking Writing. The media keeps saying that "40 is the new 30," but Amy Rodriguez says it's not. In between taking care of her aging self, she wrote "The Care and Maintenance of a Forty-Year-Old Woman," which was published by errant parent. Kathy Handley has guest posted about adaptive sports on fellow Grubbie Ray Anderson's fantastic blog, Take a Long Hike.

Congrats to all!

Do you have writing news and want to be featured in the DoC? The first Monday of every month, we feature Grub Street members who have sent their good news to whitney@grubstreet.org. To be included, please fill out our brand new Congratulations Form (http://bit.ly/IziUEF) or kick it old school and send Whitney an email with information about your publication, award or fellowship. Limit your announcement to 60 words or less. Extra credit if the announcement is written in the third person, which is good practice for your writing anyway.

Spread the Love by Sponsoring a Writer

Grub Street's scholarship fund keeps our community open, affordable and thriving. There are many writers out there who are not able to attend Grub Street classes without assistance, and Grub Street's scholarship fund helps us reach as many of them as possible by offering offer partial-tuition scholarships to all our multi-week workshops, free spaces in our Novel Incubator and Non-Fiction Career Lab, free spaces in our Teen Writing Camps, and scholarships to the Muse and the Marketplace conference.

If you'd like to support fellow writers, visit our website and donate today. A donation of any amount helps. $250 sponsors a writer by giving them a partial tuiton scholarship to Grub Street's workshops, and makes a tangible impact on their writing lives. The excellent work our fellow writers produce has the power to affect each of us, and the ability to make a profound difference in the world. Thank you for your support!

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

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 MIC: Thursday, May 17th, 7-8pm, Grub Street Reading Series - May
Do you want a chance to read your work out loud? Join the new Grub Street Reading Series for a fun open mic event and 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 members interested in sharing their work and connecting with other writers. This reading will take place outside in the Boston Common near the Parkman Bandstand gazebo. The reading series will meet at Grub Street HQ by 7:00pm, and walk over to the Boston Common together as a group. For more information or to join the reading series mailing list, please email sean@grubstreet.org.
FREE, $95/$115 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, May 19th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Point of View Intensive
Point of view is one of the most important decisions you'll make about your story or novel. In this class, we'll survey your options with examples from literature, from the old-fashioned omniscient narrator to modern first-person present, and discuss the consequences of each. We'll discuss free-indirect style, psychic distance, and a host of other related topics. And we'll do exercises designed to try out various points of view and see your own work from different angles. Come to class with a short story or a section of your novel.
Instructor: Chip Cheek
$95/$115 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, May 19th, 10:30 am- 5:30 pm, Poetry Revision Clinic
Perhaps the most difficult acts of writing are the acts of revision. How do we know when a poem is finished? How do we know what should change and what should remain? In the first half of this seminar we'll take a hard look at some revisions of some more well-known poems to articulate a working definition of revision, to observe the choices involved in the making of great poems, and to develop a list of principles by which to revise our poems. In the seminar's second half we'll apply these principles to our work. Participants are expected to bring a poem that they would like to revise, which they'll work on and have the opportunity to share at the seminar's end. Participants can also expect to leave the seminar with more examples of revision to examine on their own.
Instructor: Scott Challener
$95/$115 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, May 19th, 9:30 am- 4:30 pm, Writing Dialogue
This workshop is designed for playwrights, screenwriters, novelists, and short fiction writers interested in writing crisp, realistic-sounding dialogue.
Instructor: Mark Fogarty
Sorry, this class is sold out. Please click here to be put on a waiting list.

EVENT: Wednesday, May 23rd, 12:30pm-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: Jeremy Lakaszcyck
FREE, Grub Street HQ.

MEMBER EVENT: Thursday, May 24th, 7:00-9:00pm, Pub & Grub (May Member Mixer)
Join us for an exclusive Grub Street members-only party at The Lir, a friendly Irish pub in the heart of Boston's Back Bay. This member mixer will feature a group story telling activity, drinks, and great grubby company. This is a fun opportunity to meet other Grubbies and connect outside of the classroom.
MUST BE A CURRENT GRUB STREET MEMBER TO ATTEND. MEMBERS MAY BRING FRIENDS.
For more information or to join the member mixer mailing list, please email sean@grubstreet.org.
FREE, Lir Irish Pub & Restaurant, 903 Boylston Street, Boston, MA

EVENT: Thursday, May 24th, 11:00am-1:00pm, Speech! Elements of Successful Speech-Writing
This course will help you develop successful speeches, covering everything from creating learning objectives to researching subjects, from how to estimate the length of your speech by its word count to personalizing dry statistics.
Instructor: Carolyn Roy-Bornstein
Sorry, this class is sold out. Please click here to be put on a waiting list.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, May 26th, 10:00am-5:00pm, The Art of Language
In this seminar, we will take a close look at that most fundamental building block of story: language. Too often, as writers we pass over the crucial choices we make every time we select a word or construct a sentence, and in this seminar, we will slow down and examine such decisions in detail. We will closely read selections from authors such as Sandra Cisneros, James Salter, and John Edgar Wideman, exploring the range of linguistic choice from lyrical to minimalist, experimental to traditional. When does figurative language serve narrative and when does it become a hindrance? How do we adapt language to specific situations such as opening sentences, transitions, and endings? The seminar will include numerous craft exercises designed to help all of us expand our palettes as writers, and please bring a short story or novel chapter, as we will conduct a language-oriented workshop for each participant. By the end of the weekend, we will have an enhanced appreciation for the small choices underlying any successful narrative, as well as a new set of skills to apply to our own work.
Instructor: Adam Stumacher
$95/$115 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP:Saturday, May 26th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Managing Time in Fiction & Non-Fiction
Whether your writing covers the span of one hour or thirty years, unravels a mystery, or depicts multiple simultaneous plotlines, the structure of any narrative form requires us to think about time. In this class we’ll look at the relationship of time to action, ways for the past (or future) to emerge through discovery or disclosure, time slowed, sped up, and skipped, timelines as a way of understanding your material and choosing what to present, the relationship of time and point of view, and ways to keep track and help the reader keep track, too. Also includes discussion of backstory, what’s important about it, and how it can emerge. We’ll look at published examples and do a few writing exercises to clarify and organize time in our work. Great for writers of both fiction and non-fiction.
Instructor: Jennifer De Leon
$95/$115 members, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Thursday, May 31st, 6:30pm-9:30pm, Time Management for Writers: Section A
An intense seminar on finding the time to write, and using that time well. We'll talk about powerful personal habits, mastering distraction technology, when and how to give yourself a coffee break, and making the most of every writing minute.
Instructor: Ben H. Winters
$50/$65 members, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Thursday, May 31st, 6:00pm-9:00pm, How to Create an Irresistible Narrator
In this class, we'll examine the work of Ford, Salinger, Austen and others-- and try an in-class exercise-- in an effort to make sure your next narrator isn't just strong, but irresistible.
Instructor: Steve Almond
Sorry, this class is sold out. Please click here to be put on a waiting list.

SEMINAR: Thursday, May 31st, 6:15pm-9:15pm, No to All That: Dealing with Writerly Rejection
From J.K. Rowling to Stephen King, almost all writers face rejections. Even if you're in good company, it's easy to grow discouraged and feel like sending your work is a waste of time. Learn how to keep those rejections in perspective and keep trying. Readings will come from On Writing by Stephen King, Rotten Rejections by Andre Bernard, Annie Lamott, and blogs. We'll also work on how to write a cover letter for a literary submission and how to find places that might be good matches for our work.
Instructor: Clara Silverstein
$50/$65 members, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Thursday, May 31st, 6:15pm-9:15pm, Go Deeper, Baby: Writing Meaningful Erotica
In this one-night seminar, we'll celebrate erotic fiction looking at why it's both emotionally valuable and increasingly popular. Drawing on well-respected authors such as Anais Nin and Steve Almond, we'll explore what makes a sexy story sexy, while also tapping the transformational qualities of the genre. Come along with a willingness to be open about feelings and sensations, and you'll leave with a short, sexy story of your own. All sexual and gender identities warmly welcomed. Led by an instructor who regularly publishes erotica and views it as some of her most meaningful work.
Instructor: Sue Williams
$50/$65 members, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Thursday, May 31st, 6:30-9:30pm, Think Small, Think Smart: How to Publish Beyond the Big Houses
For many reasons, new and established writers are moving their publications to smaller presses. Join an industry professional, who has published with three indie presses, for an intensive discussion on alternatives to larger presses. Topics will include how to make yourself appealing to small presses, how to approach them, handle contract issues, market/promote, obtain blurbs and reviews, handle your book tour in line with your book distribution, and make your readings successful. Small press publishing has its challenges, but armed with this knowledge, you can make it work for you.
Instructor: Tara Masih
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.

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.

--BOOK READING AND BOOK LAUNCH PARTY: May 20th, 3pm, The Bookie's Son
Long time Grub student Andrew Goldstein will be reading from his debut novel, The Bookie's Son. This novel was workshopped in Jenna Blum's Master Novel class, and Andrew first start writing it forty years ago. It is published by (sixoneseven) books, which was founded by Michelle Toth, Grub Street board member. Reading at 3pm, party follows at the Concord Scout House from 4-6. All are welcome.
FREE, Concord Bookshop, 65 Main Street, Concord, MA.

--CONFERENCE: June 6th - June 10th, Writers @Work
Writers at Work: Conference 2012 Writers@Work is pleased to announce its twenty-seventh Conference to be held at the Alta Lodge, located in the scenic Wasatch Mountains just east of Salt Lake City in an intimate mountain setting. Workshops, Panels, Readings, and Manuscript Consultations. Workshop Faculty includes Steve Almond, Pete Fromm, Bill Harley, Heather McHugh, Timothy O’Keefe and many more. Conference with meals, $575; with all meals and lodging from $725. On-site consultation $25. Visit website for full details: www.writersatwork.org.

--CONFERENCE (AND SCHOLARSHIPS): July 15th - 20th, The Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Summer Program
The MVICW is now open for registration and scholarship applications for the 2012 Summer Writing Program. There is an amazing line-up for faculty, including award-winning poets, Catherine Pierce and Marcus Wicker, and award-winning short story and novel writers, Michael Kardos and Phong Nguyen (editor of the nationally acclaimed literary journal, Pleiades). MVICW is happy to be able to provide merit-based and need-based scholarships this year. The scholarships cover between 50-100% of tuition costs. Scholarship applications must be received by June 1st 2012, and awards will be announced in mid-June.
Prices vary, visit website for details: http://mvicw.com