June 4th, 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 by the wild turkey roaming the streets near 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.

Sign Up For a Summer Workshop

This summer term, we have a record number of evening, morning, afternoon, and weekend workshops to choose from. 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.

Richard Nash's Keynote at the Muse

Did you miss Richard Nash's provocative keynote on the future of publishing at this year's Muse conference? We've posted it in its entirety on our website, so check it out now.

Deadlines: Launch Labs, Scholarships and Master Classes

Launch Labs, June 6th deadline. The Launch Lab program is an innovative approach to marketing one's book which places a high value on community, feedback, and experimentation.   For details: http://www.grubstreet.org/index.php?id=2221.

Scholarships, June 6th deadline. Grub Street offers $200.00 partial-tuition scholarships to deserving writers interested in taking our courses. To apply for a Summer 2012 term scholarship, please email a 5-10 page sample of your work and a one-page letter detailing your financial need and desire to take a Grub Street class to rowan@grubstreet.org by Wednesday, June 6th at 12:00pm.  Applicants will be notified whether or not they qualified for a scholarship by the end of the week.

Master Classes, June 11th deadline. In the summer term, Grub Street is offering two master-level courses: Master Fiction and Master Novel in Progress. The classes are limited to nine students each and participation is by submission only. To apply, please submit a 10-15 page sample of short fiction to lauren@grubstreet.org by 12:00pm on Monday, June 11th. You will hear from the reading committee within one week after the deadline.

Department of Congratulations, Brand New Wheels On My Monster Truck Edition

Tons of good news from instructors and students this month. First up in instructor news, an update on Muse presenter Elinor Lipman, whose book deal we mentioned in a previous Rag. Elinor's book of political tweets, to be published by Beacon Press, will be called Tweet Land of Liberty: Irreverent Rhymes from the Political Circus and be out on the shelves this September. In added serendipity, Grub member Lynne Weiss gave Elinor the idea for the title at the Muse. We're thrilled abut the news from instructor James Scott, whose gothic debut novel, The Kept, about a midwife who returns to her isolated farmstead to find her family murdered, and sets out with her one remaining son to seek retribution from the men responsible, sold to Harper, at auction, by PJ Mark at Janklow & Nesbit. Looks like a lot of Grubbies will be heading to Bread Loaf this summer. Cam Terwilliger will be there as a work study scholar, and Adam Stumacher as a tuition scholar. We expect the Bread Loaf news to keep rolling in from instructors and students. Wendy Mnookin has recent poems published or forthcoming in Cerise Press, The Comstock Review, Prairie Schooner, Salamander and Solstice Literary Magazine. Former Grub instructor Midge Raymond's new book, Everyday Writing: Tips and Prompts to Fit Your Regularly Scheduled Life, just came out in May from Ashland Creek Press. Jacqueline Sheehan's new book, Picture This, was released May 22nd. Visit her for more information at www.jacquelinesheehan.com. A Letter to Harvey Milk, a new musical based on Lesléa Newman's short story of the same title has been selected as a Next Link Project of the New York Musical Festival. Former—and future!—instructor Mary Sullivan is publishing Dear Blue Sky (Penguin, Aug 2012), a YA novel about a girl whose brother goes to fight in Iraq. She is looking forward to teaching a YA Grub class in 2013. And congratulations to Cheryl Lawton Malone for her poem, "Sonnet to a Sleeping Bear," which placed in the top 25 of the Writer's Digest Seventh Annual Poetry Awards 2012.

There's also lots of great news from our students: Somer Brodribb's short story, "Small Change We Can Believe In," has been published in the online journal, Notes from the Underground. Kelly McNamara has a piece called "This is How Much You Need a Dog"coming out soon in the Chicago Quarterly Review. She wrote it in Michelle Seaton's Master Memoir class, and gives Michelle and the writers in that workshop thanks for their guidance and support. MARY: A Magazine of New Writing has accepted for publication in their spring/summer issue Daniel John's essay on child abuse, "Mommy Love Me." Will McAdoo's book, Filled With Nothing, is now available through Amazon. Kimberly Rose's short story "Photo Finish" was published in THE MOMENT: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories from 125 Writers and Artists Famous & Obscure (Harper Perennial 2012)   Kim's story has been featured on Talk of the Nation.  The book includes stories by Jennifer Egan, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dave Eggers and Diane Ackerman and has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Salon.com and Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 list. Barbara Ross's Clammed Up, Boiled Over, and Musseled Out, a new series of Clambake Mysteries set in coastal Maine and featuring a woman and her family clambake business, sold to Kensington. Diana Renn's YA novel, Tokyo Heist (Viking Children's Books/Penguin, coming 6/14/12) was selected for the Summer 2012 Kids' Indie Next List. Sarah McCraw Crow's short story "Vanishing World" won first place in Good Housekeeping's 2011 fiction contest. The guest judge was novelist Elizabeth Berg, and the story will run in the magazine's July 2012 issue. The Acentos Review, an online literary journal showcasing Latino writers, published Grub member Margarita Barresi's essay, "Abuela and her Gurus," in the May 2012 edition. Erika Gully-Santiago is excited to announce that she was recently accepted to the Squaw Valley Community of Writers summer fiction workshop and was awarded the William Turnbull Memorial Scholarship. To gain admittance to the conference, Erika sent a revised version of a short story that she wrote during the winter session of James Scott's Master Fiction class. She's thankful for the helpful comments she received from James and her fellow Grubbies on the first draft of that story. Linda K. Wertheimer thanks instructor Steve Almond for inspiring her in his one-night "obsessions" class to write about her brother's voice. Her essay was published on May 27th in Connections, a Boston Globe Magazine feature. Linda also recently traveled to Philly to accept a second-place award for her Globe magazine cover story, "Test of Faith." The piece about how schools handle religion spun out of a book proposal she developed in Joanne Wyckoff's non-fiction book proposal course. Tony Rogers won the First Novel prize give by the Southeast Missouri State University Press, and his novel, The Execution of Richard Sturgis, As Told By His Son, Colin, will be published by them in the fall of 2013. Lesley Mahoney's flash fiction piece "Rooted" was accepted for publication by Post Road Magazine. It will appear in the Guest Folio in the fall issue. Joanne Hillhouse's new book, Oh Gad! ..., a Caribbean story about family, love, politics, and self-discovery, was just published in May. Nancy Rappaport just published a memoir called In Her Wake: A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother's Suicide and has just published a book for teachers. She had a wonderful consultation won in a Grub Street auction to have her short story critiqued and says she would love to learn more about the short story form from the wise teachers at Grub Street.

And lastly, congratulations to the Grubbies who were awarded MCC Fellowships this year. There were 532 fiction applications and 359 poetry applications, so it's a huge accomplishement. $7,500 Fiction Fellows: Kathleen Crowley, Lisa Gruenberg, Tien-Yi Lee, and Julie Wu. $500 Finalist: Bud Jennings. $7,500 Poetry Fellows: Rodney Wittwer. (If we left you off this list, please let us know and we'll congratulate you next month!)

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.

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 HOUSES: June 5th, 6th, 7th and 11th, 5:30-6:30pm each night, Summer Open Houses
Drop by our new headquarters after work or before your workshop, and learn about what's going at Grub Street this summer. If you’re new to Grub Street, this is a great introduction. And if you’re a long-time Grubbie, this is an opportunity to meet other members, connect with Grub Street staff, and chat with some of our instructors. Our summer schedule is live on our website, and if you have questions about workshops, our staff will be happy to discuss what classes might be right for you. Light snacks and drinks provided.
FREE, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Thursday, June 7th, 6:30-9:30pm, Tell, Don't Show
SOLD OUT. Click here to be put on a waiting list.

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
*2 spots left* $65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Thursday, June 7th, 6:30-9:30pm, Guerrilla Book Promotion
SOLD OUT. Click here to be put on a waiting list.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, June 9th, 9:30am-4:30pm, Find Your Memoir
SOLD OUT. Click here to be put on a waiting list.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, June 9th, 10:30am-5:30pm, Molecules in the Inkwell: Infusing Writing with Science
Not focusing primarily on the genre of science fiction, instead this class will center on how science can be incorporated literally and metaphorically in writing across genres. Representative authors include Andrea Barrett, Mary Roach, Kimiko Hahn, Primo Levi, and Italo Calvino. In this workshop, we will plunder the pages of the Science Times and popular science magazines for the latest findings and metaphors to ignite our writing. Great for writers of short fiction, novels, non-fiction, and poetry.
Instructor: Tim Horvath
*4 spots left* $115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, June 9th, 10:00am-5:00pm, How to Plan, Write, & Develop a Book: Section B
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.

BOOK CLUB: Tuesday, June 12th, 6:30-8:30pm, the Grub Street Book Club reads Bedbugs
The Grub Book Club offers a chance to read and discuss great books with a focus on reading from a writer's perspective. The book club's next pick is the novel Bedbugs by Grub Street instructor Ben H. Winters. The club will discuss Bedbugs for the first hour and will then be joined by the author for a Q&A about his novel. For more information or to join our book club please contact sean@grubstreet.org.
FREE, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Tuesday, June 12th, 6:30-9:30pm, Criminals and Outsiders in Fiction and Memoir
What makes outlaws and drifters so compelling and such essential staples for the American literary tradition? In this seminar, we will discuss why outlaw figures are so appealing and what makes them powerful as literary figures. We will examine ways to fashion sympathetic bad guys in our writing, and the instructor will share his own approach to creating the outsider characters in both fiction and memoir. We will look at examples of such figures in American literature in order to better understand why individuals who embody recklessness, lust, greed, and cruelty often seem the most authentic. This is an expanded version of the popular Muse 2012 session.
Instructor: Deni Y. Béchard
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Wednesday, June 13th, 6:30-9:30pm, Your First 10 Pages
Ever pick up a book, read the first paragraph, and put it down? Of course you have. What makes a book riveting from the start and what makes it just so-so? Join an eye-opening session about the emotional, thematic, and stylistic impact of your manuscript’s opening, and learn how to strengthen your first 10 pages as much as possible with an in-class workshop. Essential for writers readying to submit to agents or editors, as well as those in the final stages of editing their books. Please submit your first 10 pages to lauren@grubstreet.org by noon on Wednesday, June 6th, and come to class with 12 copies of the same sample.
Instructor: Deni Y. Béchard
$65/$50 members, Grub Street HQ.

OPEN MIC NIGHT: Thursday, June 14th, 7-9pm, Spring Season Showcase
Join Grub students from the winter 2012 term, plus two Grub instructors, as they read (for 5 minutes each) from recent work. Open only to students who've taken courses, seminars or weekend workshops in the spring term. Limited to 15 readers. Everyone gets free snacks and drinks. Sign-ups begin at 6:30pm. A great event for current Grubbies and those who want to check us out.
FREE, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Friday, June 15th, 11:00am-2:00pm, Making Images
What makes an image fresh, vivid, astonishing, memorable? What makes an image at all? In the first half of this seminar we'll take a hard look at some surprising and dazzling images in poetry and fiction to articulate a working definition of the image, to observe the choices involved in the making of great images, and to develop a list of image-driven strategies. In the seminar's second half we'll perform some exercises to practice and implement these strategies, and to rethink how we construct images in our own work. Participants are expected to bring an image that they would like to revise, which they'll work on and have the opportunity to share at the seminar's end.
Instructor: Scott Challener
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Friday, June 15th, 11:00am-2:00pm, Use Obsession to Jumpstart Your Writing
Most good writing-- whether fiction or non-fiction-- arises from a writer's obsessions. In this session, we'll discuss how to explore our obsessions on the page, without falling pray to self-absorption or sentiment. We'll start by looking at the work of Nick Hornby, Calvin Trillin, and other obsessive writers, and proceed to a broader discussion of passionate attachment. Large-group seminar; limited to 24 students.
Instructor: Steve Almond
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, June 16th, 10:00am-5:00pm, The Psychology of Strong Characters
SOLD OUT. Click here to be put on a waiting list.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, June 16th, 10:30am-5:30pm, Haiku Intensive
Often misrepresented or only partially understood, the heart of Haiku contains many lessons for poets in its compacted form: image, metaphor, enjambment, attention, word choice, and silence. This intensive will survey the history and core principles while reading ancient and contemporary examples. By the end of the day you will be equipped to incorporate the powerful discipline of haiku into your life, using it to hone your poetic practice and increase your daily awareness.
Instructor: Janaka Stucky
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, June 16th, 10:30am-5:30pm, Unruly Fictions
All successful fiction is somewhat unruly. Any story that sticks its talons into our brains, gets under our skins, making us ponder or sending us sprawling, simply cannot be playing it entirely safe, “hugging the shore,” to use John Updike's expression. In any story with power, something is alive, mysterious, wild; the surface might be deceptively calm, but beneath is an undertow lurking and making its way toward us. In this class, we'll look in particular at works that have been dubbed "experimental," flagrantly challenging the conventions of narrative order and logic, cause and effect, plot and characterization, time and space. In several cases, they don't even look like stories. By trying out the exercises in this class, you will stretch yourself and explore some unconventional narrative modes. But this class is by no means geared exclusively toward those who already find themselves drawn to the literary avantgarde. The guiding assumption is that all writers can benefit from the ways in which such work galvanizes our minds and our pens, uncovering latent potential in whatever work we are already doing. By trying out everything from stream of consciousness to Oulipean games, montage to typology, you'll get fresh vantage points on your characters and storylines already in progress, whether in your mind or on the page. Optional: Bring in a draft of something in progress to which you can apply some of the techniques we'll cover.
Instructor: Tim Horvath
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, June 16th, 10:00am-5:00pm, Characters with Attitude
How do you create characters so vivid that you know how they would act, both inside and outside your story, novel, or essay? How, with little or no physical description, do you make a reader see a character in all his or her particulars? In this session, using examples from classic and contemporary literature, we'll unlock some of the secrets of characterization. We'll discuss "flat" and "round" characters, as defined by E.M. Forster, and we'll do a couple of exercises designed to get your characters fully onto the page. Come to this class with one or two of your characters in mind.
Instructor: Chip Cheek
$115/$95 members, Grub Street HQ.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP: Saturday, June 16th, 9:30am-4:30pm, Jumpstart Your Blog
SOLD OUT. Click here to be put on a waiting list.

SEMINAR: Tuesday, June 19th, 6:30-9:30pm, Writing Suspense: You Know It When You Feel It
Suspense is that feeling that makes it impossible to put a book down and shut off the light. It’s that essential ingredient that turns a work of fiction into a “page turner.” In this 3-hour workshop we’ll talk about what makes suspense work.
Instructor: Hallie Ephron
$50/$65 members, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Tuesday, June 19th, 6:15-9:15pm Ask the Agent
In this Grub Street seminar, you will sit down with two accomplished literary agents to ask any question that's on your mind about the role of the agent and get an insider’s view on life inside a literary agency. You’ll learn how to pitch agents and how not to pitch them, how agents make decisions, how thebusiness works, what happens once you have an agent, how nonfiction projects get developed and more. Come with questions. The agents will tell all.
Instructor: Kathryn Beaumont, Katherine Flynn
$50/$65 members, Grub Street HQ.

SEMINAR: Tuesday, June 19th, 6:00pm-9:00pm Brilliant Openings: How to Hook Readers from Word One
Most pieces that are submitted to magazines or publishers -- whether fiction or non-fiction -- are toss onto the reject pile within the first 500 words. Brutal, but true. In this informal class, we'll look at a few famous openings, in an effort to understand what they have in common. In addition, students are asked to bring in the first page (and only the first page) of recent unpublished manuscript for evaluation.
Instructor: Steve Almond
*One spot left* $50/$65 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 LAUNCH: Monday, June 11th, 6pm, The Education of a White Parent: Wrestling with Race and Opportunity in the Boston Public Schools
The Boston book launch of Grub Street author Susan Naimark's The Education of a White Parent: Wrestling with Race and Opportunity in the Boston Public Schools. Event co-hosted by Community Change, Inc., Boston YWCA and Boston Parent Organizing Network.
FREE, Boston YWCA, 140 Clarendon Street Boston, MA 02116.

--READING: Tuesday, June 12, 7PM, Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman, author of The Magician King.  Return to Fillory in the riveting sequel to the New York Times bestseller and literary phenomenon, The Magicians.  
FREE, Newtonville Books, 10 Langley Road, Newton Centre, MA 02459.  Green Line (D) to Newton Centre.

--READING: Tuesday, June 12th, 7pm, Pablo Medina
Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome poet and novelist Pablo Medina for a reading of his new book, Cubop City Blues. Our guide into Cubop City is The Storyteller, born nearly blind and shrouded in his mother’s guilt. He’s homeschooled inside his parents’ crumbling apartment with a European housekeeper, and educated through Encyclopedia Britannica, The Bible, and Arabian Nights. When he's twenty-five, his mother and father are diagnosed with cancer, and The Storyteller is left to care for them. He does so by telling them stories conceived from the prolific reading that allowed his imagination to flourish despite little contact with the outside world. Through his tales—full of magic, sorrow, longing, love—Cubop City surges to life.
Molded in the cadence of Afro-Cuban jazz, Cubop City Blues is a symphonic portrait of a bustling urban landscape and the intimate lives that give a city its voice.
FREE, Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138.

--READING: Thursday, June 14th, 7pm  Kimberly Rose and Grace Talusan  reading from The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories from 125 Writers and Artists Famous & Obscure
 The stories in The Moment take all shapes and sizes— from written narratives ranging from six to a thousand words, to photographs, comics, illustrations, handwritten letters, tweets, and more. You'll hear some talented authors from the book share their moments with us. At the end, anyone from the audience is invited to share a "first line" from a Moment in his or her life. All details on the Booksmith website.
FREE, Brookline Booksmith, Coolidge Corner.

--VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY: PEN Prison Writing Workshop
PEN/New England is seeking volunteers to teach creative writing workshops (fiction, nonfiction and poetry) to prison inmates in Massachusetts. Volunteers can teach in one or more of the genres and scheduling is highly flexible. The workshops meet at the prison facilities every two weeks on Saturday mornings from November to May. The genre workshops run consecutively and teacher teams are rotated, so actual commitment can be as little as a few weekends during that span. The program is active in a women’s pre-release center in Framingham and a men’s medium security correctional center in Norfolk. There will be a mandatory orientation for new volunteers at Bay State Correctional Center in Norfolk, 28 Clark Street, Norfolk, Mass. on Friday, 6/8 at 4:00.   
 If you’re interested please contact Leah V., program coordinator, for details and more info: leahvanvaerenewyck@gmail.com. Also, please check out the PEN/New England web site: http://www.pen-ne.org/prison-writing.