May 21st, 2012
"You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die."
—Carlos Fuentes, 1928 - 2012
Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene brought to you every Monday from the sad little nougat left in the chocolate box 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.
It's summertime, and the writing is easy. This summer term, we have a record number of evening, morning, afternoon, and weekend workshops to choose from. Brand-new this summer are workshops like:
Of course, we've also got all the classics in fiction, novel writing, publishing & promotion, creative nonfiction, and more. To see the full list of summer offerings (and to search for the ideal class for you), go to http://www.grubstreet.org/index.php?id=402. If you have questions or need help selecting a course, please call 617.695.0075 and any of our staff will be happy to assist you.
If you haven't been following the advice column on our blog, The Friday Five-O, it's time to start. Our dream team of advice-givers—Jane Roper, Stuart Horwitz, Allison Adair, and Jenna Blum—answer writing questions from the community, and they do it with style, panache and laugh-out-loud humor. If you have a question you'd like answered by one of the Five-O team, please email it to whitney@grubstreet.org. Include your name (or a funny alias) and any other biographical info you feel is necessary. Most of the Five-O questions get answered within a few weeks!
Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya, Eve, Chris, Rowan, Sean and Lauren
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.
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.
SEMINAR: Friday, June 1st, 11:00am-2:00pm, Yoga and Writing
The goal of this unique seminar is to let our inner writer flow using breath, guided meditation, movement, and all-inclusive awareness of self in order to access our creative muse, and continue to develop our authentic voice. We will begin with a free-write and a discussion of techniques for creating grounding, vibrant imagery. We will then dive deep with a prompted Proprioceptive writing exercise in order to “Write the Mind Alive,” using our stream of consciousness to create mindful transitions in our writing, invoke the senses, and create powerful direct experience for our readers. We will also spend time grounding into our physical bodies using breath and yoga in order to write from a body-centered space. Finally, we will discuss ways of using breath and movement to address writer’s block, and will learn some therapeutic exercises and take home tools for easing the cramped fingers, hands, and shoulders that exist as the by-product of our passionate love affair with our life’s work: our writing.
Note: A yoga mat is needed for this course, but no prior yoga experience. Please wear comfortable clothes to class that you can do gentle movements in.
Read a recent blog post by the instructor.
Instructor: Lindsey O’Neill
$50/$65 members, Grub Street HQ.
SEMINAR: Friday, June 1st, 11:00am-2:00pm, Time Management for Writers: Section B
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
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.
Weekend Workshop: Saturday, June 2nd, 10:00am-5:00pm, Developing Family Members as 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 memoirist, it is also appropriate for the writer of autobiographical fiction, and all exercises will be adaptable for both.
Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.
Weekend Workshop: Saturday, June 2nd, 10:30am-5:30pm, Get Unstuck: How to Fix, Patch, and Improve Your Plot
This one-day seminar covers the fundamentals of plotting and character development, with an eye toward getting past those "sticking points" that often slow the writing process. Every student will have their novel's structure analyzed, picked apart, and put back together. Participants must have a novel-length work underway--this is not designed for the beginning writer who "has an idea" and wants to shape it. This is also not designed for sensitive types. It's plumbing, folks. Prepare to hammer, solder, and sweat.
Please bring a 1-page plot synopsis, a list of characters, and three things you hate MOST about your current project.
Instructor: Micah Nathan
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.
Weekend Workshop: Saturday, June 2nd, 9:30am-4:30pm, 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.
Weekend Workshop: Saturday, June 2nd, 10:30am-5:30pm, 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: Shuchi Saraswat
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.
Weekend Workshop: Saturday, June 2nd, 10:00am-5:00pm, From Page to Stage: Writing for Performance
Designed for writers who want to practice taking their work off the page and making it live through spoken word reading and performance. In the workshop, we'll explore various ways to make your work come alive, and discuss strategies for using your writing as a vehicle for connecting with and entertaining your audience. Ideally, writers would have a short (5-15 minute piece) of writing they could bring to class, as a starting point for this work.
Instructor: Judah Leblang
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.
SEMINAR: Thursday, June 7th, 6:30-9:30pm, Tell, Don't Show
Be a rebel and break an assumed rule of writing prose. “Showing”-- writing characterized by immediate, sensory details-- has always been the favorite among writing teachers, while “telling” is considered the naughty, irreverent sibling we’re instructed to avoid. And yet writers like Jonathan Franzen and Ernest Hemingway have created literary masterpieces that are largely “told.” What gives? In this class we’ll discuss the pros and cons of “telling,” and will discover how and when telling works. Bring a page of your own writing to learn why the telling in it works and how it can be improved.
Instructor: Jenn Scheck-Kahn
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.
SEMINAR: Thursday, June 7th, 6:30-9:30pm, Social Media for Writers
You know you should be Tweeting, but you don’t know where to start. You’re not even sure how Twitter – or the many other social networking sites out there – will help your writing career (let alone your craft). In this very practical and generative seminar, literary agent Lauren MacLeod will guide you through the world of social media, with a focus on developing your social media persona and effectively utilizing twitter, and explain how and why it works for aspiring, emerging and established writers. If you don’t have a Twitter account yet, you’ll sign up for one this very night with Lauren’s help; by the end of the night, everyone will have Tweeted something and gained at least 12 followers. You will come away empowered with the “do’s and don’ts” of social media and gain some understanding not just of how to do it, but how to do it well. Bringing a laptop or an iPad to class is strongly encouraged as the last third of the class will be used for practical application.
Instructor: Lauren MacLeod
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.
SEMINAR: Thursday, June 7th, 6:30-9:30pm, Jumpstart Your Poetry
It's all too easy to fall into patterns in our writing. We find ourselves writing not only about the same subjects, but with the same style, using similar word choice, syntax and diction from poem to poem. In this workshop, we will do several free-writing exercises and explore how these free-writes can expand our choices in both new work and our efforts at revision. This is especially fun to do in a group, where the language each of us puts in the air helps fuel us all.
Instructor:Wendy Mnookin
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.
SEMINAR: Thursday, June 7th, 6:30-9:30pm, Guerrilla Book Promotion
If you're about to publish a book -- fiction or nonfiction -- you've probably got questions about how to best publicize it. You’re probably wondering how soon to begin your PR campaign, and which ideas work best. Whether you have a big or small publisher, or chose self-publishing, this seminar will outline both traditional and non-traditional methods to identify, reach and build a target audience in various potential book-buying communities. We'll discuss planning and executing a master timeline for book promotion; setting up a promotional budget; creating a book tour (and not just at bookstores but using non-traditional venues); brainstorming special contests, promotions and giveaways unique to your book; establishing yourself as an expert and tying in your book to current events; writing tie-in op-eds and commentaries; pitching yourself to traditional media like print, TV and radio; getting your book into the hands of opinion leader, among other topics. We'll also look at what your publisher should do and what you can do, and the problems that self-publishing creates (and how to work around them). Come with questions.
Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.
SEMINAR: Thursday, June 7th, 6:15-9:15pm, Micro-Editing
Before an editor evaluates your manuscript’s themes, plot, characters, or voice, he or she judges its sentences. The best way to impress any reader is to write clear and efficient prose. Good sentence-level editing can increase the pace, enhance the description, and deepen the mood of your work. In short, it can make your writing more compelling. In this workshop, we will take apart and reassemble sentences and paragraphs from both fiction and nonfiction drafts. You will learn to read like an editor, to question every word and remove abstraction in order to take your writing to the next level.
Instructor: Michelle Seaton
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.
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: Wednesday, May 23rd, 7pm, Dan Zevin
Dan Zevin (Entry-Level Life, The Day I Turned Uncool) is the least hip
citizen of Brooklyn—a stay-at-home dad with two small children, an obese
Labrador mutt, and a minivan. But how he got there is a bit of a blur. Join
us as Zevin, a humor writer for NPR, Boston Magazine, The Boston Phoenix,
and Rolling Stone among others, shares his own hilarious story of slouching
reluctantly towards middle-age.
FREE, Brookline Booksmith, Coolidge Corner.
--Celebrating Granta
Join Granta magazine for an evening exploring the stories that Britain is
telling about itself today, just in time for the Queenıs Diamond Jubilee and
the London Olympics. Author Tania James has new work in the latest edition
of Granta: Britain. Jamesıs story of two brothers from Lahore seeking fame
as professional wrestlers in London 1910 shows the tension between what one
is asked to sacrifice when pursing a dream and bonds to family and country.
Writer and critic James Lasdun reads and discusses 'Dog Days', a tender new
poem of loss and memory for Granta.com.
FREE, Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
--PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION: Through May 30, Authors Among Us: Portraits of Boston-area writers
Photographer Gretje Ferguson has been photographing local authors for the past year. Her portraits are on display at the Wellesley Free Library until May 30. Learn more at http://gfergphoto.com/photography-exhibits-events.html.
FREE, Wellesley Free Library, 530 Washington St., Wellesley 781-235-1610
-CONCERT: Wednesday, June 13th, 8pm: Joe Henry and Lisa Hannigan
Singer-songwriter and Friend of Grub Joe Henry joins Lisa Hannigan for great night of music. Joe Henry's latest album, Reverie, his twelfth, continues the eclectic, uncategorizable streak, and
is the latest installment in willful genre obliteration and poetic exploration. Reverie is lounge music of a sort,
but it’s music "from the coolest lounge in the universe, the one where the piano
player quotes T.S. Eliot and Raymond Chandler before last call, and where the
patrons all drink their bourbon neat and play Tom Waits on the jukebox between sets." Lisa Hannigan is a Mercury-nominated artist whose most recent album, Passenger, came out last September
$25, Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston. Tickets at www.thedise.com
--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
--RETREAT: Starting June 16th, One-day Writing Retreats in Little Compton, RI
Grub Street member, supporter & former student Elisabeth Carter will be leading Amherst Writers & Artists style one-day writing retreats in a lovely, scenic, pondside home in Little Compton RI this summer. These new daylong multigenre workshops for adults will run from 10 am to 4 pm on select Saturdays, with a generous lunch break, time to explore the area, walk to the nearby ocean beach, write, or just sunbathe... And it's only about 75 miles from Boston or Waltham! Find out more at www.studiowriting.com or contact Elisabeth for an enrollment packet at studiowriting@gmail.com.
$80 includes workshop, consultation, soft drinks, handouts; free to recent veterans.
--CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Application deadline June 15th, To Think, To Write, To Publish:
Communicating Science and Innovation Policy through Narrative
A two-part, multi-day workshop that will bring together emerging writers and early career science and innovation policy scholars—along with creative writing and journalism professors, museum professionals, and editors of mainstream publications—to immerse themselves in the art and business of nonfiction storytelling.
Participants will attend workshops in Washington, DC and Tempe, Arizona, and will be guided for an entire year. Travel expenses to attend the workshops will be paid, along with an honorarium.
WHO SHOULD APPLY? Fiction and nonfiction writers, journalists, poets, documentary filmmakers, bloggers and other writers involved in alternative media, and museum communicators at the beginning stages of their careers.
Workshop Dates: October 3 - 7, 2012 (Washington, D.C.) & (tentatively) May 16 – 20, 2013 (Tempe, AZ)
See complete instructions and details at www.thinkwritepublish.org.
Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where like Cookie Monster at Weight Watchers, we offer you the chance to win a prize. Email your answer to whitney@grubstreet.org. The first correct respondent wins a Starbucks gift card for a coffee treat.
Last week's trivia: For many years, Manfred Lee and his cousin Frederic Dannay functioned as one author known as Ellery Queen, an eccentric bookworm who allegedly wrote about his adventures as a detective. Winner: Ani Gjika.