The Writer's Center Workshop & Event Guide by The Writer's Center

REFLECTING ON THE NOVEL

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

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THE WRITER'S C CENTER Fall 2012 Workshop & Event Guide

Workshop & Event Guide

THE WRITER'S CENTER

FALL 2012

IN THIS ISSUE

Editor Mía R. Cortez mia.cortez@writer.org Staff Contributors Zachary Fernebok zachary.fernebok@writer.org Sunil Freeman sunil.freeman@writer.org Laura Spencer laura.spencer@writer.org

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John Hamilton

john.hamilton@writer.org Contributing Writers Gimbaya Kettering Jenny Moore Sharon Rainey Copy Editor Bernadette Geyer

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Director’s Note Surviving the Novel Novel Workshops Oﬀer Sustenance, Structure Writer Proﬁles: Reuben Jackson & Sarah Cooke First Annual ‘Publish Now!’ Review Publishing Tips from the Pros Furniture Donations help Re-Furnish TWC Classrooms Photo Gallery Events & Readings Leesburg First Fridays Meet Our Workshop Leaders Book Talk A Blog Routine Thanks to our Donors Registration

WORKSHOPS

13 On the Cover 16 18 (Left to Right) Zachary Fernebok, Jenny Moore, Amin Ahmad, Lizzy Mass 18 19 Cover photo 21 Chelsie Lloyd 24 26 Visit us 27 www.writer.org 27 4508 Walsh Street 28 Bethesda, MD, 20815 29 30 p 301-654-8664 f 240-223-0458 post.master@writer.org

Fall Schedule at a Glance Fiction Nonﬁction Memoir/Essay Poetry Stage & Screen Songwriting/Mixed Genre Youth Classes Professional Development Children’s Lit Online McLean Capitol Hill

The Workshop & Event Guide is The Writer’s Center’s tri-quarterly publication. Pick it up; pass it on.

WELCOME THE WRITER’S CENTER

OTHER LOCATIONS

WRITER’S CENTER STAFF

cultivates the creation, publication, presentation and dissemination of literary work. We are an independent literary organization with a global reach, rooted in a dynamic community of writers. As one of the premier centers of its kind in the country, we believe the craft of writing is open to people of all backgrounds and ages. Writing is interdisciplinary and unique among the arts for its ability to touch on all aspects of the human experience. It enriches our lives and opens doors to knowledge and understanding. The Writer’s Center is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization. Donations are tax deductible. A copy of our current financial statement is available upon request. Contact The Writer’s Center at 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD 20815. Documents and information submitted to the State of Maryland under the Maryland Charitable Solicitations Act are available from the Office of the Secretary of State for the cost of copying and postage.

Annapolis Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts 801 Chase Street Annapolis, MD 21401 marylandhall.org

Executive Director Stewart Moss Assistant Director Sunil Freeman Program Manager Zachary Fernebok Marketing & Publications Manager Mía R. Cortez Development & Operations Manager Karen Callwood Oﬃce Manager Laura Spencer Managing Editor of Poet Lore Genevieve DeLeon

BOOKSTORE The Bookstore carries one of the most extensive collections of literary magazines in the mid-Atlantic states.

POET LORE Established in 1889, Poet Lore is the oldest continuously published poetry journal in the United States. We publish it twice a year, and submissions are accepted year-round. Subscription and submission information is available online at poetlore.com.

DIRECTIONS The Writer’s Center is located at 4508 Walsh Street in Bethesda, Maryland, five blocks south of the Bethesda Metro stop. Walsh Street is located on the east side of Wisconsin Avenue. For more detailed directions, please visit Writer.org.

PARKING Metered parking is across the street from our building. The meters are $1.00 per hour on weekdays and free on weekends.

Arlington Arlington Cultural Affairs Building 3700 South Four Mile Run Drive Arlington, VA 22206 arlingtonarts.org Capitol Hill The Hill Center 921 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Washington, D.C. 20003 hillcenterdc.org Glen Echo Glen Echo Park 7300 MacArthur Blvd. Glen Echo, MD 20812 glenechopark.org Leesburg Leesburg Town Hall 25 West Market Street Leesburg, VA 20176 leesburgva.com

Business & Operations Lindsey Gordon John Hamilton Kyra Corradin

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

McLean McLean Community Center 1234 Ingleside Avenue McLean, VA 22101 mcleancenter.org

Sally Mott Freeman Chair

Les Hatley Treasurer

Neal P. Gillen Vice Chair

Ken Ackerman Secretary

For directions, visit Writer.org

Margot Backas Sandra Beasley Naomi Collins Mark Cymrot Michael Febrey Patricia Harris John M. Hill James Mathews C.M. Mayo

Jim McAndrew Ann McLaughlin E. Ethelbert Miller Joram Piatigorsky Bill Reynolds Linda Sullivan Dulcie Taylor Mier Wolf

WEBSITE Our website is Writer.org. It provides complete descriptions of workshops, workshop leader biographies, interactive workshops, event listings, resources, Writer’s Center publications and more.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Wilson W. Wyatt, Jr.

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HONORARY BOARD & TWC’s Blog

Kate Blackwell Dana Gioia Jim Lehrer Kate Lehrer

Alice McDermott Ellen McLaughlin Howard Norman

CONTRIBUTORS Mía Cortez is managing editor of TWC’s Workshop & Event Guide. A seasoned arts reporter and editor, she covered books and A&E for The Gazette, a Post-Newsweek Media company, before joining The Writer’s Center staff this spring. She brings more than a decade of experience as a writer, editor and publication manager to the Center. A few of Mia’s favorite interviewees include Benjamin Alire Saenz, Austin Kiplinger, Sir Tim Rice, Carlos Santana, Carlos Mencia and the cast of Cirque du Soleil.

from the Maryland State Arts Council and has served, among other roles, as managing editor of Poet Lore during his 25-year stint at The Writer’s Center. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Gargoyle, Bogg, Abbey, Minimus, Wordwrights!, The Delaware Poetry Review, Kiss the Sky: Poetry and Fiction Starring Jimi Hendrix, and on the Library of Congress podcast of The Poet and the Poem.

John Hamilton is a graduate of the University of Maryland. He’s been involved in improvisational theatre with Erasable Inc. and has lead improv workGimbiya Kettering is TWC’s Undiscovered Voices shops geared towards middle-school, high-school Scholar. Her characters are often in the midst of shiftand college-aged students. He coaches Hammond ing identities and combining ethnicities. For the past High School’s improv theater team “The Dramastics,” year, she has been completing her debut novel Love is a writer and puppeteer with the Pointless Theater Company and has in the Time of Democracy – a coming-of-age story written scripts for short plays, short films and sketches with various about two girls, one American, one Kenyan – as they theater groups. realize their nationalities will pull apart their friendship. In addition to an MFA in Creative Writing from American University, Gimbiya has won grants Jenny Moore is a workshop leader and novelist from the Maryland State Council of the Arts, Elizabeth George Foundation whose writing has appeared in literary journals, and a residency at Yaddo. Her short stories have been published in The online and in Boston City Hall. She’s now writing her Kenyon Review, The Crab Orchard Review and The Florida Review. second novel and was recently awarded an artist residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Jenny Zachary Fernebok is TWC’s program manager. He’s has taught writing and provided manuscript consultalso a playwright, a company member of Infinite ing at Grub Street, Inc., as well as other venues. She works as an editor for Stage Theatre Company and Flying V, and playwrightliterary, cultural, and fi nancial publications, and has an M.F.A. in fiction in-residence at American Ensemble Theatre. His play, writing from The New School. The Pirate Laureate of Port Town, was most recently produced in Los Angeles by Mutineer Theatre Company. When he is not writing plays, he enjoys cartooning, reading graphic Sharon Rainey has taken several courses at The novels and masquerading as a chef. He also teaches at Writopia Lab. Read Writer’s Center, which spurred her to write and more at zacharyfernebok.com. publish her first book, Making a Pearl from the Grit of Life. She lives in Northern Virginia with her Sunil Freeman is assistant director of TWC. He’s also husband and son, where they run two businesses the author of two books of poems, That Would Exand a non-profit foundation. Sharon is currently plain the Violinist and Surreal Freedom Blues. He was working on her second book, chronicling her journey through advanced born in Raleigh, N.C., and has spent most of his life Lyme disease. She also enjoys a lifetime addiction to puns. Read more at in the Washington, D.C., area. He has received a grant www.sharonrainey.com.

THE WRITER’S CENTER IS SUPPORTED IN PART BY:

The Writer’s Center gratefully acknowledges assistance received from The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation. 2

PHOTO BY: KYLE SEMMEL

DIRECTOR’S NOTE When Paul McCartney sat down in 1970 at his farm in Scotland to write “The Long and Winding Road,” I’m pretty sure he was not thinking about the process of writing a novel. Yet, for those of you who have written a novel, or attempted to write one, my guess is that “Many times I’ve been alone and many times I’ve cried” describes your experience with some accuracy. All writers, regardless of the genre in which they work, have experienced the isolation that often accompanies the creative process. Yet, unlike the poet, who is a kind of diamond cutter and works in bursts of lapidary intensity to achieve maximum power from a minimum number of words, the novelist is more like the foreman of a building site in which he or she is both architect and laborer, engineer and inspector.

We’re especially eager to serve a growing community of writers who may have completed the M.F.A. (Master’s of Fine Arts) and, having found little in these programs to help them master the particular challenges of writing a novel, are looking for an opportunity to develop their craft with others in the same situation. Still other aspiring novelists may have contemplated enrolling in an M.F.A. program but could benefit more (and at a fraction of the cost) from the instruction the Center offers. If you fall into either of these categories, or have a manuscript you’ve been working on for years that you feel the support of other writers would help you complete, we hope the ‘long and winding road’ will lead you to our door. *****

Novels, of course, are among the many books that have been sold in The Writer’s Center bookstore. While we’ve substantially pared down our inventory, I want to reassure you that the Center will continue to sell books. As we always have, we’ll have books for sale at author readings and books on the craft of writing recommended by our Plot, dialogue, character development, setting and point of workshop leaders. We’ve also recently updated our selecview all have to be lowered into place at critical moments, tion of literary magazines and journals, all of which will as if dangling from a crane. Mistakes may happen, work continue to be for sale at the Center. In addition, we plan stops and must be reto sell a rotating selecstarted. But unlike at a “The novelist is more like the foreman of a tion of books written real construction site, by workshop leaders building site in which he or she is both archiwhich is alive with the during the season tect and laborer, engineer and inspector. “ when they’re teachvoices and camaraderie of other workers, the ing their workshops. novelist usually takes coffee breaks alone while contemplat- Beginning this fall, you’ll be able to access many other ing the months of labor that lie ahead. books – by workshop leaders, TWC members, and visiting authors –via the “Bookstore” section of our website and It’s because of the many novelists and aspiring novelists purchase them on-line. who have asked The Writer’s Center to provide extended As we enter the cooler months of autumn, it’s hard to resist support as they make their lonely way forward that we quoting Keats’ wonderful line about this being the “Season are creating some new programs to help them. These are of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” Whether you’re working described in this issue of the Workshop & Event Guide (see on a novel, short stories, a memoir, or poems, I wish you Jenny Moore’s article on page 4) and will complement much success and hope you’ll take advantage of all The the wonderful workshops that esteemed teachers such as Writer’s Center offers to help you bring these projects to Ann McLaughlin, Barbara Esstman, Lynn Stearns, Robert fruition. Bausch and Leslie Pietrzyk have offered at the Center for years. Best regards,

Surviving the Novel Jenny Moore In my worst moments I wish I weren’t a novelist. It’s an unfortunate truth that the stories I want to tell need a lot of room, a vast landscape in which to traverse expanses of character, plot, setting, time, or some other critical story element. The journey can be agonizing, maddening, exhausting. Esteemed authors have likened writing a novel to fumbling at the controls of a moving vehicle; staggering through the dark without any light; walking a tightrope without a net; crossing the ocean with no more than a few scraps of wood to stay afloat. Really, just think of any perilous journey in which the odds are stacked against making it safely to the other side. For most of the passage the outlook appears bleak, and the natural impulse is to simply stop, or sprint as fast as possible to the end. But it turns out that moving forward is best done with intention and vigilance, putting each foot in front of the other step by step while calling on a healthy dose of bravery, and a lot of faith. While writing I often think that what’s most needed are these basic survival skills: Keep going. Stay alert. Keep going. Trust your instincts. Did I mention keep going? Don’t forget to find nourishment. Over the past year, I’ve been in discussions with The Writer’s Center about how to expand on the way novels 4

can be supported and cultivated in a workshop setting. We’re now working on creating a setting that can better accommodate the novel’s challenges, its bulk and its unique process. Starting in early 2013, TWC will introduce a longer, master-level novel course. Designed for those deep into the process, it will allow for workshops of longer sections of material, and will focus workshops, exercises, craft lectures and events around the specific challenges of the novel form. Students will be able to work intensively on their projects among a trusted group of readers who are confronting similar issues, and will have the chance to find mentors who will come to know their projects intimately. The goal is to help each other keep going, whether stumbling blindly through the dark wilderness, staying aloft while inching across the high-wire, or paddling doggedly over the depths of an ocean. More often than not the only certainty of the writing process is that surprises will happen. They’re as abrupt and unforeseeable as a gust of wind that makes the tightrope sway, or a sudden squall that stirs the ocean waves. An imagined conflict, say, reveals itself to have irrevocable flaws, so we must find another route to resolution. A character behaves as we anticipated, but the scene still falls flat. Changing his decision enlivens

the scene, but the ripple effect significantly affects the way the rest of the novel unfolds. More work is called for. Sometimes it’s heavy lifting and sometimes it’s tinkering, but either way it’s a lot of time and effort. It’s tiring. It’s confusing. We have to work to find the intersection between what we want our writing to be and the actual words that arrive on the page. We must also, always, be mindful of basic survival: what will nourish the story? What will keep readers turning these pages? To move through this crazy process alone is even more difficult. More murky. More perilous. No one else can carry a novelist across the landscape she must travel, but colleagues can help a lot with the mapping, the sustenance, and the companionship. Without a doubt, writers need help along the way. That’s a big part of this upcoming program at TWC: We novelists can make our journeys together. Which means the writing can be less daunting — and also, of course, much more fun. See you there. ❏

Novel Workshops Offer Sustenance, Structure Sunil Freeman E-books, desktop publishing, the worldwide web and online courses were all elements of science fiction when The Writer’s Center first started offering writing workshops at Glen Echo 35 years ago. Although our workshops have evolved with the times, they continue to offer the fundamentals of the craft, with the intent of guiding novelists through every stage of the process.

rial members of my novel workshops use is autobiographical. This has much potential, but shaping it often proves a difficult challenge. Questions come up about how much to use, what parts to emphasize and how relatives and friends might feel, if it is published.”

McLaughlin has incorporated discussions of The Great Gatsby and William Maxwell’s Goodbye, See You Tomorrow into her workshops. Participants “talk about these novels, Novel writing workshops at TWC have been popular not as literary critics, but as writers. We discuss structure, through the years, including ‘Introduction to the Novel,’ character, the use of detail and that elusive, critical concept ‘Writing Dialogue,’ ‘Revising the Novel’ and other ad– shape,” she says. She leaves workshop participants with vanced workshops. We’ve seen many success stories. advice that can carry over Nani Power, Carolyn “(TWC’s) workshops are aimed at the aspiring to all forms of writing: Parkhurst, Julia Slavin, novelist. Most M.F.A. programs focus exclusively “I always emphasize that Patricia McArdle, Jenon the short story, leaving future novelists to you have to make time to nifer Handford and fend for themselves upon graduation.” read novels, if you want Eugenia Kim are just others to read yours.” a few Writer’s Center workshop participants who have gone on to publication Amin Ahmad recently led “Sustaining and Structuring the and acclaim. Novel,” his first workshop. Workshop participants “tend to have a lot of life experience, and this made for very rich A core of writers often joined Robert Bausch’s workshops. writing: in my class I had fiction ranging from a historical Allison Leotta and Emily Miller are among the Bausch novel set in ancient Babylon to a novel about forest rangers alumni who have gone on to publish. Miller will read from set in the 1970’s. While my students might have been beBrand New Human Being along with Bausch at TWC on ginning writers, they were sophisticated readers, and I tried Sept. 23. to draw on their life experience and breadth of reading to Advanced Novel and Memoir workshop leader Barbara create a rich workshop experience.” Esstman describes the pitfalls students face: “Often new Tammy Greenwood moved from the Washington area a writers these days begin by trying to write a book, which few years ago, but she continues to lead workshops online. is somewhat like trying to ride a horse and beginning with She emphasizes the importance of researching a novel’s the Kentucky Derby.” She emphasizes that writing and characters. “I truly believe that if an author has ‘done their editing a novel is a time-consuming process: “Usually the homework’ with their characters, the plot will fall into earliest stages are a messy exploration that leads the writer place. I do, however, also teach the three-act structure as a to a better sense of what the book is about.” loose guideline for writing novels because I think it gives Esstman recalls an editing client several years ago who sent just enough sense of the organization of a story to orient her “a draft of a book that she wanted to write as a novel the author.” but was then more like an encyclopedia entry on her subShe brings an interesting perspective: “I think that The ject.” The aspiring novelist sent a new draft every year or so, Writer’s Center actually offers something that most MFA and each brought her closer to her goal. The manuscript is programs do not – workshops aimed at the aspiring novelnow with a highly coveted agent. ist. Most M.F.A. programs focus exclusively on the short Ann McLaughlin has been with The Writer’s Center since story, leaving future novelists to fend for themselves upon its inception. She has found that “The most familiar mategraduation.” ❏ 5

From Cacophony to Symphony How Reuben Jackson Refines Poetry Sharon Rainey “I’m just a big, quirky, sentimental, rambling, to the point, radical, traditional, shy, outspoken geek,” Reuben Jackson whispers in a soft melodic tone. His descriptions can meander, but his teaching is direct. Jackson’s passion is music; his vehicle, poetry. His style is relaxed and smooth. He combines musical prompts with photographs; sometimes he tosses out four words or phrases, challenging us to include all in the next assignment. His only rule: no self-effacing. I am one of those “repeat offenders” who has taken his poetry courses again and again. The first time, as I explained to him, I was not a poet; rather taking the course to find a way to become more succinct in my writing. He smiled and gently nodded amid the room full of writers ranging in age from 16 to 80, including first time amateurs and published, well-established, award-winning poets. Jackson’s poetry was first published in 1975, in a weekly newspaper called The Country Journal. Each student writes a poem every class. Each poem is read aloud and critiqued. And as each writer continues the course, each evolves into a true poet, forming our own style, form and rhythm. Jackson has been teaching at The Writer’s Center for 12 years. He’s constantly refreshing his courses, adding new formats, new prompts and new subjects. What remains constant is the intimacy he creates amongst classmates, the individual encouragement and assurance that each of us are indeed poets. Content overrules form; form changes in each week’s assignments. Jackson refines each poet’s style with feedback, often highlighting the lines that make the poem ‘sing.’ Reuben describes his life as a “combo platter,” growing up in Washington, D.C., teased and bullied for his love of 6

music and reading, the first child in his family to graduate from college, spending decades at the Smithsonian, finishing out as curator/senior reference archivist. For the past year, he has been in Vermont teaching high schoolers, something he wishes his mom was still alive to see. The students are eclectic; teenagers searching for their voice, liberals expounding, naturalists detailing, therapists interpreting, mothers dreaming, the elderly reminiscing; all trying to connect within themselves and with one another. What might initially appear as cacophony finishes as a symphony, each poet contributing to a musical feast for the ears. “I just love watching students work with their imaginations, and/or witnessing them honing and reconsidering their visions,” he admits. In each poem, Jackson finds the heart. And in each poet, he brings forth the soul. His teaching connects the poems and poets for a class that is bonded long after the last meeting. ❏

‘Breaking Down Walls’ Sarah Cooke on Being a Young Writer Zachary Fernebok Sarah Cooke, 17, is a Scholastic Award-winning writer and poet. Her play, “Lungs,” was recently selected for full off-Broadway production in New York City, so she’s breathing easy these days. Cooke was one of a small group of young writers named National Medalists, through the Scholastic Writing Awards, administered locally by Writopia Lab. Their short stories, plays, poetry and essays were among the top one percent selected, out of more than 200,000 submissions nationwide. She and others were commended in a National Awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall. Her work is also included in DC’s Best Teen Writing, a collection of the work of 225 local teens. The Writer’s Center caught up with this young, energetic writer just before she jetted off for the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio for the summer. An avid participant in writing workshops nationwide, Cooke shined some light on how group classes have influenced her as a creative writer. Cooke first sparked creativity in the storm of her imagination by playing with toys. She imagined storylines and subplots for her personified plastic playthings. Being dragged from its wonder for trivial things like dinner or bedtime was a burden. “I had a whole world to build,” she recalls.

Her construction of worlds evolved into a desire to write stories – bringing to life the inhabitants of these worlds and characters who don’t let these worlds define them. Cooke currently attends Sidwell Friends School, and loves it. It’s small, and she gets to interact with the faculty a lot more than kids at other schools, she says. However, the creative writing scene is a bit “underground.” Cooke does her best to unearth it by writing for the school’s literary magazine and pulling together writers groups, but she has also sought a community of writers outside of the classroom. “I need the workshop setting because I need others’ feedback, and to bounce ideas off of them,” she says. “I tend to get head over heels in one draft and can’t get away from it.” During the school year she takes workshops at Writopia Lab DC, and has completed admission-only workshops at the University of Virginia and Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop. In them she’s found a “fantastic sense of community and respect” from mentors and other writers. “Sometimes there’s a stigma about young writers,” Cooke admits, “like your poetry will be angsty.” But so far, in workshops she’s connected with other writers that don’t

believe in those misconceptions, and care genuinely about the work, regardless of what it is. “You’re here because you want to write, so let’s break down all these walls,” she says. To many writers, the idea of rebuilding something – a character, a story, a community – to discover it new, stronger, and better than before – is fascinating and beautiful. And it’s a theme Cooke incorporates into much of her work. “I’m really invested in seeing how people form things, and seeing the architecture behind personalities and relationships,” Cooke says. “It’s structure and motion.” Not yet finished with high school, she’s still undecided about what to study in college (not math or science she knows that). She’s passionate about reading and yoga, vegan cooking and black and white photography. For now, she plans to keep writing, exploring the far reaches of her imagination, excited to see how deep she can reach into the blank pages before her. ❏ 7

Digital Publishing Demystified at First Annual ‘Publish Now!’ Mía R. Cortez

The publishing industry is not what it used to be. Advances in digital technology have changed how people receive their information, and books are no exception. By the year 2016, over one-third of American adults are expected to own a tablet, according to recent statistics released by Forrester Research. Consequentially, writers are exploring their digital options. To help writers better understand and learn to maneuver the digital publishing landscape, The Writer’s Center hosted an all-day seminar, ‘Publish Now!’, on June 23. More than 85 area writers attended. Data from surveys collected shows that the seminar met or exceeded the expectations of 96 percent of the attendees. Writer John Kelly was just one of many who said that the presentations provided them with a wealth of new and valuable information. WILSON WYATT, C.M. MAYO, NEAL GILLEN, AND ANNE MCLAUGHLIN

The keynote speaker of the event was Justin Branch of Greenleaf Book Group, a nationally known publishing, marketing and distribution company based out of Austin, Texas. Other speakers included authors Neal Gillen, Ken Ackerman and C.M. Mayo, marketing gurus Ally Peltier and Angela Render, and attorneys Laura Strachan and Cynthia Blake Sanders. In detailing the different publishing methods – traditional, vanity, self, independent, eBook-only and Print On Demand (POD)– the speakers detailed costs and levels of control the author has in each method. Also on the agenda were presentations on marketing, social media, copyright and other legal aspects of publishing. “I imagined completing a manuscript would be the hardest part of becoming a writer and gave no thought on how equally challenging, time consuming, or costly publishing could be,” said Zame Khan, one of the writers in attendance. “Seeing this formidable wall for the first time, ‘Publish Now!’ gave me enough insight to pause and reconsider if I have the time, the motivation, or the money to move forward.” ❏

EILEEN ICIEK AND GIMBAYA KETTERING

Publishing Tips from the Pros Gimbaya Kettering

Know what you want. Once you are honestly able to identify your goals and the market potential of your manuscript, you can begin to research if traditional publishing, self-publishing, or working with an independent publisher would be right for you. Be realistic. The ‘Publish Now!’ speakers were realists who admitted that it is not many writers who make it to the mythical best seller lists. However, there are other ways to publish successfully. Edit, Edit, Edit. This can range from changing the plot to proofreading. In the traditional industry, agents look for perfection, then they ask for rewrites, then they edit some more. Seek help from family, friends, fellow writers or an independent editor.

KEN ACKERMAN AND ASSEGID HABTEWOLD

Have a plan. To have a successful publishing experience, regardless of the method, one must apply common business sense. Start with a tested, market-ready product, develop a marketing plan, and hire professional assistance if needed. Smile! You’re on YouTube. The reclusive, socially awkward writer is a stereotype of the past. Modern connectivity means that readers expect to interact with their favorite authors. Using social media platforms is an easy way to connect with your readers and build on your publicity. Write in groups. Writing can be an isolating, arduous task. By exchanging work, writers can help each other edit, proofread and provide valuable feedback. The Writer’s Center can be an invaluable part of the process. Workshops are designed to help hone writers’ talents and provide feedback on manuscripts. ❏ CHARLES BOYLE AND ZAME KHAN PHOTOS BY MIA R. CORTEZ

Furniture Bank Donations Help Re-furnish TWC Classrooms Mía R. Cortez A few of our writing spaces have a fresh new look, and we owe it to the generosity of Kane Furniture Bank, located on Westmore Avenue in Rockville. Neal Gillen, vice chair of the Center’s board of directors, and I arrived at the bank early the morning of Saturday, May 12. Being first in line, we were able to sign in, grab a stack of stickies and place first bids on more than 80 new chairs, a dozen new tables, two new desks, a cherry-walnut bookcase, a round wooden table and a new sofa. Gillen graciously donated the cost of moving the furniture – two full loads – and the staff helped get rid of the old to make way for the new. The new furniture made it possible to completely refurnish the Anton Chekhov and Robert

ANTON CHEKHOV ROOM

Frost rooms downstairs, the Book Gallery and my office. This fall, another trip to Kane will facilitate improvements to the Charlotte Brontë (theatre dressing room) and the Mark Twain, which we’re converting into a break room for workshop leaders. Office Movers Inc., which handles office relocations and downsizing, founded the furniture bank in September as an environmental and charitable initiative, said Joy Newton Grubb, general manager and vice president of commercial sales, in a recent Gazette article. The bank is the only one of its kind in the Washington, D.C., area. When Office Movers works with a client, the company offers the option to donate furniture not headed in the direction of the new office space to the bank instead of taking items to a landfill. Clients include corporations, schools, hospitals, universities, law firms and associations. They fill their 10,000-square-foot warehouse with the gently used furniture, and on the second Saturday morning of each month, they open the space to nonprofits. ❏

ABOVE: BOOK GALLERY SEATING LEFT: ROBERT FROST WORKSHOP ROOM PHOTOS BY MIA CORTEZ

FIND THE ARTS!

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The Writer’s Center

On sale at TWC’s Book Gallery is a selection of 70 literary magazines and 30 books on craft.

Chelsie J Photography • Actor Headshots • Production Photos • Family Portaits

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HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR WORKSHOP WHO SHOULD TAKE WRITING WORKSHOPS? Everyone — from those who want to try writing or would like help getting started, to more experienced writers who want to learn and improve. Learning to write is an on-going process that involves perfecting and using many skills at once. Even published writers benefit from editors and readers who help them refine their work. WHAT OUR WORKSHOPS OFFER

• Guidance and encouragement from a published, working writer • Instruction on technical aspects such as structure, diction and form • Kind, honest and constructive feedback directed at the work but never critical of the author • Peer readers/editors who act as “spotters” for sections of your writing that need attention and who become your community of working colleagues even after your workshop is completed • Tips on how to keep writing and integrate this “habit of being” into your life • Tactics for getting published when ready WHAT WE ASK OF PARTICIPANTS

• Attend as many sessions as possible • Share your own work • Comment on and share your ideas about your peers’ work • Complete workshop leader prompts or reading assignments • Complete the workshop response form at the end of the course *Our recommendation for new participants is to start with beginner level courses, as an introduction to the workshop environment. Beginner courses teach participants to give and receive helpful feedback, constructive criticism and incorporate multiple (and sometimes conflicting) ideas into the revision process.

REGISTRATION Registration for workshops can be done at the Center, through the mail, online at Writer.org, or by phone at 301-654-8664.

REFUND POLICY Cash refunds are not given. To receive course credit, notify twc by e-mail (post.master@ writer.org) within the drop period. Please call to confirm receipt of the message if you do not hear back from twc within two business days.  If twc cancels a workshop, participants who have already signed up and made a payment will receive a full refund or credit that can be used towards another workshop and/or membership.  Workshop participants who withdraw within the drop period (see below) will receive full credit that can be used within one year to pay for another workshop and/or a membership.  Workshop participants who have enrolled in and paid for a workshop and choose to withdraw from it after the drop period has ended will forfeit their full payment and will not receive any credit to be used to pay for another workshop and/or a membership.  Exceptions may be made in the case of serious illness or other extenuating circumstances such as relocation out of the area; in such cases, a formal request in the form of a letter or an e-mail must be submitted to the Executive Director.  No refunds or credits will be given for missed classes.

5 or More Workshop Sessions

Notice must be given at least 48 hours before the second meeting

4 or Fewer Workshop Sessions

Notice must be given at least 48 hours before the first meeting

BEGINNER workshops help discover what the creative writing process entails.

Offerings: • Getting ideas on the page in a clear and concise manner; • Determining a genre to work in and the shape your material should take; • Learning the elements of different genres; • Identifying writing strengths and areas of opportunity; • Gaining beginning mastery of writing fundamentals and how to tailor their particular roles in your work. INTERMEDIATE workshops build on skills developed in the beginner level.

Pre-requisites: • Completion of a beginner-level workshop; • Achieved some grace in using the tools of language and form; • Projects in progress that need further development; • Reading and discussing published works. ADVANCED workshop participants should have manuscripts that have been critiqued and revised at the intermediate level.

Offerings: • A focus on the revision and completion of a specific work; • A faster pace with higher expectations of participation; • Deep insight and feedback. MASTER classes are designed for writers who have taken several advanced workshops and have reworked their manuscript into a final format. Master classes offer unique opportunities to work in smaller groups with distinguished writers on a specific project or manuscript. Workshop leaders select participants from the pool of applicants – selection is competitive.

TWC recognizes that writers of all experience levels need to find their own place in our program. Our staff offers personalized guidance on choosing the right course(s).

TWC WORKSHOPS AT A GLANCE WORKSHOP

LOCATION START

DAY

TIME

LEVEL

PAGE

Fiction Fix Fantasy and Science Fiction The Sources of Poetry Writing with Bishop Improvisation for Playwrights The Writer's Toolbox Strengthening Your Prose Life Story & Legacy Writing Introduction to Poetry Rewriting Your Screenplay: The Art of the Rewrite Write a Winning College Admissions Essay Intro to the Novel Literary Travel Writing How to Write a Grant Proposal Poetry of Place: The Attentive Eye Tools for Revision: Short Fiction Artifacts: Blurring the Fiction/Nonfiction Divide Collaborating with the Dead Inspired by Literature Writing the Personal Essay Writing The Television Pilot Writing for the Young Reader Writing Suspense Short and Sweet: Writing The Short Film Script Writing the Mystery Novel: Introduction A Matter of Time: Verb Tenses and Poetry The Art & Craft of Screenwriting The ArtScape News (Ages 8–11) Young Writers Circle (Workshop for Teens) Teen Creative Writing Writing the Successful Short Story Writing Compelling Blog Posts The First Pages: What Makes a Good Beginning? Breaking Rules: Cross-Genre & Hybrid Forms Songwriter Sessions with the Masters

Bethesda

8/15

EVENING

Bethesda

8/16

EVENING

Bethesda

8/18

DAY

Bethesda

8/28

EVENING

Bethesda

8/28

EVENING

ALL

Bethesda

9/4

EVENING

B/I

Bethesda

9/5

EVENING

B/I

Bethesda

9/6

EVENING

Bethesda

9/6

EVENING

Bethesda

9/6

EVENING

I/A

Bethesda

9/8

DAY

Online

9/8

N/A

B/I

Bethesda

9/8

DAY

ALL

Bethesda

9/8

DAY

Bethesda

9/8

DAY

Online

9/9

N/A

I/A

Online

9/10

N/A

I/A

Bethesda

9/10

EVENING

Bethesda

9/11

EVENING

I/A

Bethesda

9/12

EVENING

B/I

Bethesda

9/12

EVENING

Bethesda

9/13

DAY

ALL

Bethesda

9/13

EVENING

B/I

Bethesda

9/13

EVENING

Bethesda

9/15

DAY

Bethesda

9/15

DAY

ALL

Glen Echo

9/15

DAY

B/I

Glen Echo

9/15

DAY

ALL

Glen Echo

9/15

DAY

ALL

Bethesda

9/16

DAY

Bethesda

9/17

EVENING

ALL

Capitol Hill

9/17

EVENING

Bethesda

9/18

EVENING

B/I

Bethesda

9/18

EVENING

I/A

Bethesda

9/18

EVENING

ALL

B—beginner

I—intermediate

A—advanced

M—master

ALL—all levels

TWC WORKSHOPS AT A GLANCE WORKSHOP

LOCATION START

DAY

TIME

LEVEL

PAGE

Beginning Story Writing

Capitol Hill

9/19

EVENING

Getting Started: Creative Writing

Bethesda

9/19

EVENING

Writng the Novel You've Thought About

Bethesda

9/22

DAY

ALL

Pros & Cons of Self-Publishing

Bethesda

9/22

DAY

Intro to Marketing Platforms

Bethesda

9/22

DAY

Introduction to Blogging

Bethesda

9/22

DAY

Beginning Fiction Workshop

Bethesda

9/25

EVENING

Reading & Writing Short Stories: Points of View

Bethesda

9/27

DAY

ALL

So You Gotta’ Write a Speech: Basic Approaches to Speechwriting

Bethesda

9/27

EVENING

ALL

Advanced Personal Essay

Bethesda

9/29

DAY

Getting Published: Hands-on Advice

Bethesda

9/29

DAY

ALL

Writing Poems in Series & Sequence

Bethesda

9/29

DAY

I/A

Advanced Novel Online

Online

9/30

N/A

How to Get Your Memoir Out in the World

Bethesda

9/30

DAY

Playing Another Tune: Poetry & Translation

Online

10/1

N/A

Advanced Novel

Bethesda

10/2

EVENING

Advanced Novel & Memoir

Bethesda

10/3

EVENING

Elements of Poetry

Bethesda

10/4

DAY

ALL

Digital Storytelling

Bethesda

10/6

DAY

Social Networking for Writers

Bethesda

10/6

DAY

Blogging Tips & Tricks

Bethesda

10/6

DAY

The Extreme Novelist

Bethesda

10/8

EVENING

Writing Talking Points

Capitol Hill

10/9

EVENING

ALL

Brick by Brick: Building the Short Story One Element at a Time

Online

10/10

N/A

ALL

Life Stories Intensive

Annapolis

10/13

DAY

B/I

Writing Your Novel or Memoir

McLean

10/16

EVENING

ALL

Reading the Pulitzers: A Poetry Salon & Workshop

Bethesda

10/16

EVENING

I/A

Creative Writing: Getting Started

Capitol Hill

10/17

DAY

Boot Camp for Writers: So the Words Don’t Get in the Way

Bethesda

10/17

EVENING

B/I

Building a Page Turner

Bethesda

10/18

EVENING

ALL

Flex Your Creative Muscles! A One-Day Workshop

Bethesda

10/20

DAY

B/I

The Art & Craft of Screenwriting

Bethesda

10/20

DAY

B/I

The Poetry of Unknowing

Bethesda

10/23

EVENING

How It Works: Making Truth Claims in Your Poems

Bethesda

10/23

EVENING

I/A

Writing Mystery and Suspense Fiction

Bethesda

10/24

EVENING

ALL

Writing from Life

Bethesda

10/24

DAY

TWC WORKSHOPS AT A GLANCE WORKSHOP

LOCATION START

DAY

TIME

LEVEL

PAGE

Travel Blogging

Bethesda

10/24

EVENING

B/I

From Journal to Memoir

Bethesda

10/25

DAY

ALL

Writing Talking Points

Capitol Hill

10/27

DAY

ALL

A Perfect Ending

Bethesda

11/3

DAY

B/I

Characterization in the Novel

Online

11/3

N/A

ALL

Transitions

Bethesda

11/3

DAY

B/I

An Introduction to Prosody

Annapolis

11/3

DAY

ALL

Writing for Personal Growth & Publication

Annapolis

11/10

DAY

ALL

Getting Started: Creative Writing

Bethesda

11/10

DAY

Getting Your Poems into Print

Bethesda

11/11

DAY

ALL

Personal Essay Workshop

Arlington

11/12

EVENING

Writing the Decision Memorandum

Capitol Hill

11/13

EVENING

ALL

The Art & Craft of Screenwriting

Glen Echo

12/1

DAY

B/I

Writing the Report

Capitol Hill

12/11

DAY

ALL

B—beginner

I—intermediate

A—advanced

BECOME A MEMBER

M—master

ALL—all levels

Of Mouse and Magic by Allan R. Gall A literary yarn to be read to young children or read by young readers and ageless adults. Listed among the 2011 Top Books Designed for Our Youth on www.thebestbookclub.com.

General Membership ($50) *

Household Membership ($75)

“Recommended for your child’s home library.” http://misslynnsbooks-n-more.blogspot.com. “This book is definitely one I will be sharing with others.” Cyrus Webb, Host of Conversations Live.

Member Benefits: • Reduced workshop registration fees • 30% discount on books & journals sold in-house • Discounts at participating businesses • Membership fee is tax deductible *All individuals living at the same address receive all the advantages of the basic General Member’s discount.

“Very well written and a good story.” Cary Frostick, Librarian, M.R. Styles Public Library, Falls Church, VA. “A delightful treat for children and young teens…” Anne Welles, Teacher, Filmmaker “Deft, witty writing, loving. Loving, lovable characters.” Kristin Sirotkin, Author: The Dulcimer See 5-star reader reviews on Amazon.com

WORKSHOPS PLEASE NOTE:

TWC will be closed Sept. 3 for Labor Day, Nov. 22 for Thanksgiving Day & Tuesday, Dec. 25, for Christmas Day.

 FICTION 

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION Workshop Leader: Brenda W. Clough For people who want to write fantasy and science fiction. In this workshop we will pass around our manuscripts and read and critique them. Special attention will be paid to the tropes and needs of the genre.

8 Thursdays 7:30–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

WRITING THE MYSTERY NOVEL: INTRODUCTION Workshop Leader: Alan Orloff

WRITING MYSTERY & SUSPENSE FICTION

If you’ve always wanted to write a mystery novel but didn’t know where to start, this workshop is for you. We’ll discuss writing fundamentals (voice, character, plot, setting, etc.) and their application to the mystery. We’ll examine characteristics of the many subgenres and learn about mystery-specific conventions and pitfalls such as tstl (too-stupid-to-live) syndrome, macguffins, red herrings, killer twists, wacky sidekicks, and smooth clue dropping, among others. Sessions will include instruction and writing exercises, with an emphasis on giving and receiving critiques of participants’ work. No meeting on 10/6.

Workshop Leader: Con Lehane

8 Saturdays 10 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

6 Wednesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $270 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/15–10/20 Beginner

This course will cover the essential aspects of mystery and suspense fiction writing, compelling openings, characters readers care about, exciting action, suspenseful situations, seamless plots, stories that endure, with an emphasis on creating suspense and mystery, the elements of fiction that keep readers turning pages. The basic format of the class will be a workshop in which participants discuss each other’s writing. I’ll also assign exercises and some reading. The workshop is open to writers at all levels, in all genres.

ADVANCED NOVEL

WRITING SUSPENSE

Workshop Leader: Amin Ahmad

Workshop Leader: Con Lehane

Whether you are a literary novelist or a genre writer, working on a novel can be an isolating, long-term process. This small, intensive class is intended to support aspiring novelists as they complete a first draft, or revise existing work for publication. By the beginning of the class, please have at least 100 pages of a novel in progress. Through a combination of in-class writing prompts, lecture, and workshop, we will focus on deepening each writer’s work in four areas: 1. Craft issues: we will investigate beginnings, endings, effective plotting, and novel structure. 2. Novel writing process: discover a process that works for you to write regularly, power through writer’s block and to effectively edit/revise your work. 3. Critique: learn to read other students’ work like a writer, identifying what is working well, and what needs to be developed further. The focus will be on creating a cohort of writers who support each other. 4. Marketplace education: understand the rules of literary and genre fiction, learn to build credentials, research the marketplace and pitch an agent. All students will have a chance to submit their work (up to 50 pages) twice. Come prepared to write a lot, read a lot and engage with a small group of motivated writers. Admission for this class is by permission of instructor: submit up to a 10-page writing sample to zach@writer.org by Sept. 15. Students will be notified of the instructor’s decision by Sept. 21.This course is a precursor to the Master Novel class, to be offered in Winter 2013.

10 Tuesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $450 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/2–12/4 Advanced

8/16–10/4 Intermediate

10/24 - 11/28 All Levels

Suspense means many things to many people. For one thing, it’s why we’re on the edge of our seats when the young couple in the station wagon picks up the tattooed hitchhiker with the bloodstained Bowie knife. But suspense, in addition to being its own genre, is an element in almost all fiction. In this two-and-a-half-hour interactive workshop, we’ll look at some of the techniques suspense writers use, borrow a few, and practice using them.

1 Thursday 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $50 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/13 Beginner/Intermediate

BEGINNING FICTION WORKSHOP Workshop Leader: Elizabeth Buchanan Have you written a story or part of a novel that you are ready for the world to see? In this workshop, new writers will find a community to share work and receive and give feedback. We will take a look at stories as a group and go over basic storytelling elements such as Character, Plot, Dialogue, Theme and Setting. Each class we will workshop stories and discuss a selection from Tobias Wolff’s The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories.

8 Tuesdays 7–9 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/25-11/13 Beginner

WORKSHOPS BUILDING A PAGE TURNER

A PERFECT ENDING

Workshop Leader: James Mathews

Workshop Leader: Lynn Schwartz

This workshop is for fiction writers at all levels who have a short story or novel in progress. The class will cover many basic elements of fiction, but will concentrate on the infusion of tension and forward movement in character and plot development. Each writer will be asked to submit up to 35 double-spaced pages for group critique. In addition, participants will be asked to complete writing exercises designed to appreciate the value of story-telling through dialogue and action.

The ending is the last thing your reader sees, but can often feel rushed or without thought. Find an organic end for your story or novel. Is there an epiphany or a question? A plotted ending or a resonant finish? Learn to combine the inevitable with the surprising, resolve interior and exterior conflicts, understand rounding, climax and more.

8 Thursdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/18–12/6 All Levels

11/3 Beginner/Intermediate

READING & WRITING SHORT STORIES: POINTS OF VIEW Workshop Leader: Susan Land

WRITING THE SUCCESSFUL SHORT STORY Workshop Leader: John Morris Are you ready to put your story in front of a group of readers who are also aspiring writers? If you have a story draft, or are looking for inspiration to complete a story, this workshop is ideal for you. The goal is for each participant to finish a successful draft. The workshop leader will provide detailed written comments on all manuscripts. The workshop’s emphasis is on encouragement, hard work, and practical suggestions.

Mondays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

1 Saturday 10 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Fee: $60 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/17–11/5 All Levels

First four weeks: we’ll read and discuss works by classic and contemporary short story writers; these readings will prompt and illuminate weekly exercises, focusing on point of view. We’ll share those exercises. Weeks five through eight: we’ll critique your own completed short stories. Text: Exercises in Style, by Raymond Queneau, translated by Barbara Wright.

8 Thursdays 10:30 A.M.-1 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/27–11/15 All Levels

WRITING THE NOVEL YOU’VE THOUGHT ABOUT Workshop Leader: Ann McLaughlin

FICTION FIX Workshop Leader: Kathryn Johnson Before you send your short story, novella, or novel off to a publisher, it must be complete and polished. How can you revise, perfect, and pitch your story effectively, if you don’t know what literary agents and acquiring editors are looking for, or what spoils a story for readers? This course reveals the most common, hidden flaws found in fiction submitted for publication, and gives students the tools to fix them. The instructor has used these same techniques to write and sell over 40 novels to major U.S. publishers.

6 Wednesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $270 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

8 Saturdays 10 A.M.-12:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/22–11/10 All Levels

8/15–9/19 Advanced

ﬁnd out

THE EXTREME NOVELIST Workshop Leader: Kathryn Johnson Can’t find the time/energy/inspiration to get your novel written? This popular course will help you complete a rough draft in just 8 weeks, with the encouraging guidance of professional writing coach Kathryn Johnson (author of over 40 published books). You will commit to an aggressive writing schedule and learn the tricks pros use to create a productive working environment and meet their deadlines despite distractions. (Contact the instructor for more details: Kathryn@writebyyou.com)

7 Mondays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $315 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

Almost all writers find beginnings hard. This workshop can make the process easier by discussions of manuscripts by the class. Each student will have an opportunity to read to the group twice, including discussion and written comments. Everyone will submit part or all of his/her first chapter for the first submission. It’s time to hone your critical skills and build confidence as a novelist.

10/8–11/19 Intermediate

www.DOandGO.org a service of the arts and humanities council of montgomery county

WORKSHOPS

 NONFICTION 

PERSONAL ESSAY WORKSHOP Workshop Leader: Sue Eisenfeld

TRAVEL BLOGGING Workshop Leader: L. Peat O’Neil Transform your travel notes or e-mails into an online narrative at a travel blogging workshop. Social media strategist and award winning travel writer L. Peat O’Neil leads a hands-on travel blogging workshop at Hill Center. O’Neil guides writers through selecting a blogging platform, starting a blog, writing travel postings and illustrating with photos or scanned art. Writing exercises will sharpen your travel memories. Could the travel blog evolve into a print article or book? IMPORTANT: Bring a notebook computer to class. Upload and organize files of travel photos and notes or draft articles before class.

1 Wednesday 7–9 P.M. Fee: $50 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/24 Beginner/Intermediate

6 Mondays 7:00–9:30 P.M. Fee: $270 Arlington (Members receive a 13% discount)

11/12 - 12/17 Intermediate

ADVANCED PERSONAL ESSAY Workshop Leader: William O’Sullivan

THE WRITER’S TOOLBOX Workshop Leader: Sara Mansfield Taber This workshop is for students who want to hone their skills in the elements of writing that make for fine literary nonfiction. We will examine published work by essayists, memoirists, travel writers and journalists. Then students will practice aspects of the writer’s craft, focusing on important building blocks such as: concrete detail and use of the senses; figurative language; characterization and dialogue; story; voice; scene, summary and musing; and sense of time and place.

8 Tuesdays 7:30–10 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

Examine, probe and muse about life through moments and memories. By sharing and workshopping your writing with a group of your peer readers and writers, discover what makes personal essays sing. Students should be prepared to submit two manuscripts for critique during the course of this short workshop. This class is geared toward those who have already dabbled in writing personal essays and who want to take their work to the next level. If time allows, we will also read examples of personal essays from magazines, newspapers, and literary journals and discuss publishing your work. Limited to 12 students.

9/4-10/23 Beginner/Intermediate

This workshop is for writers who have a good understanding of what makes an essay a personal essay, who are open to exploring further the many forms a personal essay can take, and who are already working seriously in the genre. Our focus will be participants’ writing, supplemented with readings by published authors. The workshop is designed for self-contained essays, not book-length memoirs. To be considered for admission, submit to zach.fernebok@writer.org an essay or excerpt of no more than five double-spaced pages by 9/22.

8 Saturdays 10 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/29 - 11/17 Advanced

LIFE STORIES INTENSIVE Workshop Leader: Lynn Schwartz

 MEMOIR/ESSAY  WRITING THE PERSONAL ESSAY Workshop Leader: Pamela Toutant The personal essay combines a wide range of techniques to make personal stories compelling to a general audience. Primarily through the participants’ work, we will explore the use of voice, reflection, and dialogue, as well as other techniques that shape personal stories and make them resonate with the reader. There will be some time spent writing in the workshop sessions, and one short writing assignment. Most of the time will be focused on giving constructive and supportive feedback on participants’ manuscripts. Beginning and experienced writers welcome.

8 Wednesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/12–10/31 Beginner/Intermediate

Whether you want to write a memoir, blog, college essay, letter to your granddaughter, or use your own life as the basis for fiction, life story writing requires that we tell where we come from and who we are. Learn to identify your story’s essence and to engage the reader through fictional techniques. Participants will leave inspired to begin or improve a work-in-progress.

1 Saturday 9:30 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Fee: $75 Annapolis (Members receive a 13% discount)

LIFE STORY & LEGACY WRITING Workshop Leader: Pat McNees The goal in this workshop is to capture your legacy in short personal writing (especially stories) for those who will survive you. Knowing that you are writing not for publication but to set the record straight (in your own mind, if nothing else) may liberate you, allowing you to frankly explore your life choices and experiences, achievements and mistakes, beliefs and convictions.

6 Thursdays 7:15–9:45 P.M. Fee: $270 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/13 Beginner/Intermediate

9/6 - 10/11 Intermediate

WORKSHOPS HOW TO GET YOUR MEMOIR OUT IN THE WORLD Workshop Leader: Sandra Beasley As writers, we may realize “This tale needs telling.” But recognizing raw memoir material is a long way from bringing 60,000+ words into print. We will focus on the different structural styles of contemporary memoir (and picking one that works for you), writing the sample chapter, and crafting a book proposal. We’ll also have time for a frank Q&A on the realities of today’s industry. Bring 3-4 sentences that capture your idea for a book.

1 Sunday 2–4:30 P.M. Fee: $50 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/30 Intermediate

FROM JOURNAL TO MEMOIR Workshop Leader: Susan Tiberghien Journal writing and memoir are both voyages in self discovery. The writer explores a subject to discover a self and a world. The journal captures memories, increases awareness, and plants seeds for stories. The memoir, short or long, is the fruit of journaling. In writing true life stories, the writer discovers and contributes to our shared humanity. In this workshop we will look at examples of journal writing and of memoir. From a journal entry, you will write a short piece of memoir.

1 Thursday 1–3:30 P.M. Fee: $50 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/25 All Levels

ADVANCED NOVEL & MEMOIR Workshop Leader: Barbara Esstman For serious writers with a book-length project and hopes of publication. Learn technical skills: character/scene development, language, dialogue, conflict and plot. Discuss the psychological aspects: how to locate and stay with the emotional core of the story and keep going to the end. We’ll also touch on rewriting and the directions for getting an agent. Each writer will submit up to 35 double-spaced pages.

8 Wednesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/3 - 11/21 Advanced

WRITING FROM LIFE Workshop Leader: Ellen Herbert How trustworthy is your memory? How will you cull the stories you need to tell from the complicated tangle of memory? This workshop will explore “true writing,” either creative nonfiction or fiction, employing literary techniques such as recreated dialogue, compression of time and voice.

7 Wednesdays 10:30 A.M.–1 P.M. Fee: $315 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/24–12/5 Intermediate

 POETRY  COLLABORATING WITH THE DEAD Workshop Leader: David Keplinger Last year I opened a box passed down from my father’s sister that contained the objects, original song lyrics, poetry, illustrations, and, finally, the obituary of a life lived 160 years ago. As I set out to write his story, I discovered a beautiful play between the known, to which I had to remain true, and the unknown, which I was free to invent. Such collaboration applies to many facets of the poetic process. In this workshop we will examine the interplay of fact and fiction in writing poems about, and from the point of view of, our dead.

8 Mondays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/10–10/29 Advanced

THE SOURCES OF POETRY Workshop Leader: Jessica Garratt Feeling in a rut? Like your poems gravitate toward the same subjects again and again? This course is designed to help you give life to new material (from String Theory to the biography of a pop icon) in your poems. We will read contemporary examples of poems that incorporate non-personal subject matter (often in ways that throw personal subjects into greater relief ) and see what makes them tick, from inventive uses of metaphor to the weaving together of disparate narratives. We’ll also do exercises, based on texts and artifacts brought into class, that will help launch you into your own projects.

1 Saturday NOON–3 P.M. Fee: $50 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

8/18 Intermediate

THE POETRY OF UNKNOWING Workshop Leader: Jessica Garratt Getting at the essence of an experience, feeling, or idea in the fewest words possible, and arriving at a concluding moment of illumination or wisdom? These are a few highly-valued feats a poem can accomplish. But in this course, we will read and write poems that pursue a different path, a meditative route that embraces unknowing through a spirit of amplification and leisurely unfolding, rather than condensation or closure. We will discuss collections by poets writing in this vein, considering them at the level of form, line and syntax, as well as content, and we will write and workshop poems that try out this approach of unknowing.

8 Tuesdays 7–9 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/23-12/11 Advanced

WORKSHOPS

WRITING WITH BISHOP

GETTING YOUR POEMS INTO PRINT

Workshop Leader: Jessica Garratt

Workshop Leader: Michele Wolf

This course is perfect for those new to Elizabeth Bishop’s work as well as for those who have loved her poems for years. We’ll read closely and tap into her prodigious powers as a poet through exercises and prompts. Some of our points of focus will be: slowing down; the art of attention; syntax as expression; tonal complexity; form; word choice; courting idiosyncrasy; reticence; description; ekphrasis; and more. The course will be balanced between close reading, discussion of readings, in-class and at-home writing.

Whether you have yet to submit your first poem to a literary journal or are ready to offer a publisher a book-length manuscript, this intensive one-day workshop will give you advice on how to succeed. Get tips on placing poems in journals and anthologies, publishing chapbooks and books, the pros and cons of contests, the etiquette of poetry submission, how to develop your poetry network and how to keep your morale high while facing rejection in a highly competitive field. Magazine handouts will be provided.

4 Tuesdays 7–9 P.M. Fee: $195 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

1 Sunday 2–5 P.M. Fee: $50 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

8/28–9/18 Intermediate

11/11 All Levels

INTRODUCTION TO POETRY

ELEMENTS OF POETRY

Workshop Leader: Melanie Figg

Workshop Leader: Nan Fry

In this class, you’ll get a thorough introduction to the craft of poetry with lots of fun assignments and time to write in each class. We’ll read poems by accomplished writers (Frost, Bishop, Stevens, etc.) and learn about voice, sound, imagery, diction, rhythm, form, line breaks and more. You’ll leave the class with a general knowledge of what it takes to create a poem as well as be on your way to becoming an informed, appreciative reader of poetry. Instructor will give substantial feedback on all poems written during the course. Bring a copy of the text we’ll useThe Poet’s Companion, by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux, to the first class.

What makes a poem a poem? We’ll explore some of poetry’s key elements such as imagery, metaphor, voice, and structure by reading and discussing poems from a variety of periods and cultures, including our own, both for inspiration and to see what works. We’ll also experiment with in-class exercises and out-of-class assignments to generate new work and to sharpen our powers of observation and imagination, two sources of poetry that we all have within us.

8 Thursdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/6–10/25 Beginner

7 Thursdays 10:30–1 P.M. Fee: $315 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/4-11/15 All Levels

WRITING POEMS IN SERIES & SEQUENCE Workshop Leader: Sandra Beasley

READING THE PULITZERS: A POETRY SALON & WORKSHOP Workshop Leader: Melanie Figg Want to read a few poetry collections? Hoping for some time to write? Looking for interesting discussions in a community of poets? Curious about how a book of poems works? Join us as we read the 4 recent winners of the Pulitzer Prize: The Shadow of Sirius (W.S. Merwin); Versed (Rae Armantrout); The Best of It: New & Selected Poems (Kay Ryan); Life on Mars (Tracy K. Smith). We’ll spend two weeks on each book, discussing it as a whole, as well as individual poems. Each class also includes time to write and generate new material of your own. The instructor will give extensive feedback on your poems. Bring The Shadow of Sirius to the first class.

8 Tuesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/16–12/4 Intermediate/Advanced

How can conjoining poems—through series or sequence—provide narrative or lyric clarity? What changes does this formatting require in the individual poems? We will focus on looking at classic examples of series and sequences, and in the final stretch brainstorm in regards to your own work.

1 Saturday 2–4:30 P.M. Fee: $60 Annapolis (Members receive a 13% discount)

HOW IT WORKS: MAKING TRUTH CLAIMS IN YOUR POEMS Workshop Leader: Sandra Beasley This intensive workshop encourages students to amplify their ‘truth claims’: to write poems that not only make observations about everyday experience, but that strive to articulate the way our world works. Each week we will lead off with guided discussion of poets—such as Czeslaw Milosz or Jack Gilbert—who blend passion with philosophical resolve. Bring 12 copies of both a draft and a favorite poem to our first meeting.

4 Tuesdays 7–10 P.M. Fee: $195 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/29 Intermediate/Advanced

10/23-11/13 Intermediate/Advanced

WORKSHOPS A MATTER OF TIME: VERB TENSES & POETRY

WRITING THE TELEVISION PILOT

Workshop Leader: Sue Ellen Thompson

Workshop Leader: Michael Kang

Should all lyric poems take place in the present? If you’re writing a narrative poem about something that happened in the past, do you have to use the past tense? This workshop will examine some of the approaches that poets have used to manipulate time in their poems, focusing on how choosing the right tense and knowing how and when to shift verb tenses can add immediacy, introduce tension or bring a poem to life.

With hundreds of television channels to choose from, the demand for original content is at an all-time high. This workshop is designed to hone the craft of dramatic writing for an original television pilot as well as guide participants through the more pragmatic ins-and-outs of navigating the TV business. Participants will develop an original idea for a television show from pitch to shooting script. The workshop will also cover the dramatic structural differences between television shows and feature films.

1 Saturday 1–4 P.M. Fee: $50 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/15 All Levels

8 Wednesdays 7:30–10 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

AN INTRODUCTION TO PROSODY Workshop Leader: Sue Ellen Thompson Why do so many poems being written today sound ‘flat’ and prose-like? A familiarity with prosody, the study of the patterns of rhythm and sound in poetry is essential if you want to make your poems sound more musical. In this class we will review the basics of meter and scansion and learn how to discover and develop rhythmic patterns that can then be used to underscore meaning and emotion, even in free verse poems.

1 Saturday NOON–4 P.M. Fee: $60 Annapolis (Members receive a 13% discount)

11/3 All Levels

SHORT & SWEET: WRITING THE SHORT FILM SCRIPT Workshop Leader: Michael Kang All great filmmakers started with the short film. Everything you need to know about drama and narrative form can be learned in the short screenplay. Before diving into that grand feature film opus, learn the craft of screenwriting in this workshop and walk away with the tools to get you through any film project.

8 Thursdays 7:30–10 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

POETRY OF PLACE: THE ATTENTIVE EYE Workshop Leader: Travis Cebula

IMPROVISATION FOR PLAYWRIGHTS

Much of the poetry written in the modern era has focused on the accurate representation of place. Poets such as Pound, Williams, Oppen, Lorca and Niedecker used place as a powerful tool to convey deeper meaning. This workshop will focus on cultivating the awareness, mindfulness and eye for detail necessary to convincingly evoke a location or scene. How does one write the quality of light, the smell, the season and the texture of a place? Participants will get outside and experience the world first, then write about it, even as the Impressionists did, en plein air.

Workshop Leader: Mario Baldessari

1 Saturday 10 A.M.–4:00 P.M. Fee: $75 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/8 Beginner

9/12-10/31 Beginner

9/13–11/1 Beginner

Would you like to be able to come up with ideas for stories, characters, situations and dialogue more spontaneously? Learn about improvisational storytelling skills and techniques that can either move a story forward instead of stopping it dead in its tracks? Strengthen your playwriting abilities with this fast, fun Writer’s Center course that combines in-class improvisational games, writing exercises and scene work, with take-home creative-writing assignments. Participants will be encouraged, by course’s end, to have written or rewritten a 10-minute play. Designed for playwrights of all levels. No improv experience needed.

6 Tuesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $270 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

8/28-10/2 All Levels

 STAGE & SCREEN  REWRITING YOUR SCREENPLAY: THE ART OF THE REWRITE Workshop Leader: Lyn Vaus In the business of filmaking often the most important aspect of screenwriting is the ability to rewrite. Workshop participants will learn how to refine their scripts on their own by incorporating the feedback of others. A completed or nearly completed first draft is required.

8 Thursdays 7:30–10 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/6-10/25 Intermediate/Advanced

Spring Events at

A.B. lo, Kyle Dargan & Poets Gregory Pard ch of a poetry series in un ril 10. Spellman at the la litics & Prose on Ap Po ith w ip partnersh

Yellow Barn Art Instructor Natasha Karpinskaia at the opening of the exhibit Playing with Abstraction, on display at TWC through August.

Heidi Durrow, winner of TWCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first annual First Novel Prize, read from her best-selling debut novel, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, on April 12.

Poet Lore celebrated its 123rd birthday with cake and bubbly on April 21. The event was part of the Bethesda Literary Festival.

TWC, Poet Lore staff & Board Chair Sally Mott Freeman celebrated the unveiling of the community arts mural inside the Bethesda Häagen Dazs on May 8.

celYellow Barn artists of g in en ebrated the op tion ac str Ab th Playing wi 6. ay M on er nt Ce at the

On June 18, TWC held a staff clean-up day. With the help of a few hard-working volunteers and six members of our staff, we filled a dumpster to the brim, pulled weeds, and tidied up our workshop rooms and storage space.

and Genevieve Mía Cortez, Laura Spencer weeds on staff ll pu Deleon (front to back) clean-up day. Photos Pho Ph P hotos ho oto to tos oss by by M Mi Mia ia Cort C Cortez/TWC orrt ort o rtez/ teez/ ezz/ z/TTW TWC WC W C

PHOTOS BY MIA CORTEZ / THE WRITER’S CENTER.

WORKSHOPS

THE ART & CRAFT OF SCREENWRITING

LITERARY TRAVEL WRITING

Workshop Leader: Khris Baxter

Workshop Leader: C.M. Mayo

This intensive one–day workshop will guide the beginning or intermediate screenwriter through the entire screenwriting process: idea, story, plot, structure, character development, scene construction and dialogue. In short, the necessary tools to begin writing a feature-length screenplay. Participants should arrive with a short synopsis (no more than a page) of their screenplay idea. There will be a one-hour lunch break. The minimum age is 18.

Take your travel writing to another level: the literary – which is to say, giving the reader the novelistic experience of actually traveling there with you. For both beginning and advanced writers, this workshop covers the techniques from fiction and poetry that you can apply to this specialized form of creative nonfiction for deliciously vivid effects.

1 Saturday 10:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M. Fee: $100 Glen Echo (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/15 Beginner/Intermediate

1 Saturday 10:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M. Fee: $100 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/20 Beginner/Intermediate

1 Saturday 10:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M. Fee: $100 Glen Echo (Members receive a 13% discount)

12/1 Beginner/Intermediate

1 Saturday 1-5 P.M. Fee: $60 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/8 All Levels

PROS & CONS OF SELF-PUBLISHING

SONGWRITER SESSIONS WITH THE MASTERS Workshop Leader: Cathy Fink In this series of workshop/lectures, songwriting masters will share their skills, methods and tricks of the trade. Sessions will include information on song structure, motivation, craft, melody writing, wordsmithing, rhyming and the muse. Cathy Fink will open and close the series as well as present the other writers, which include Victoria Vox, Tom Paxton, Christylez Bacon and Paul Reissler. This class is open to ALL levels. Classes 7 & 8 will be opportunites to share and critique each other’s songs. (SAW & WAMA members receive TWC member discount)

9/18-11/6 All Levels

 MIXED GENRE  BOOT CAMP FOR WRITERS: SO THE WORDS DON’T GET IN THE WAY Workshop Leader: Beth Kanter This course is for individuals who want to tone up their writing muscles so they can go the distance in the workplace or in the creative space. Each class will begin with a short warm up exercise. We will then focus on specifics like effective beginnings, creative prose and strong conclusions. You will also learn how to avoid common grammatical and usage errors that can distract from your message. This class will focus on both craft and technique and is designed for students of all backgrounds who are looking to take their writing endurance and skills to the next level.

5 Wednesdays 7–9 P.M. Fee: $240 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

More people are choosing self-publishing and independent presses to publish their writing. Explore the wide variety of publishing opportunities, the costs, marketing and experiences of those who have gone this route. This class in an introduction to self-publishing. Those who have already published a book through this process are welcome to attend as well.

1 Saturday 1:30–3:30 P.M. Fee: $50 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

 SONGWRITING 

8 Tuesdays 7:30–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

Workshop Leader: Diana M. Martin

10/17–11/14 Beginner/Intermediate

9/22 Beginner

DIGITAL STORYTELLING Workshop Leader: Elizabeth Buchanan Do you yearn to create narratives that literally leap off the page? Then this workshop is for you. In a three-week, three-session workshop series we will go through all the stages of digital storytelling from finding your voice and telling your story, to pairing your text with images and music, to creating a final publishable product in Photo Story 3 or iMovie. No technology experience necessary! A laptop is required. Part I: Intro to the Digital Story and Scripting Your Narrative. Part II: Moving from the Page to Production. Introduction to Audacity and Photo Story 3 Part III: Editing your digital story, workshop in groups, and presentation

3 Saturdays 10 A.M.–NOON Fee: $150 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/6–10/20 Beginner

GETTING STARTED: CREATIVE WRITING Workshop Leader: Elizabeth Rees If you have always wanted to write but haven’t known how to begin, this is the workshop for you! We will explore journals, short stories, poems (and prose poems), and memoirs in order to ‘jump start’ your writing. Exercises done in the workshop will focus on transforming a creative idea into actual words on a page. Goals: loosening up, generating new material and enjoying the excitement of writing.

8 Wednesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/19 - 11/7 Beginner

WORKSHOPS STRENGTHENING YOUR PROSE

FLEX YOUR CREATIVE MUSCLES! A ONE-DAY WORKSHOP

Workshop Leader: Graham Dunstan If you’re new to prose writing and have a story to tell, this writing class is meant for you. We will explore both short fiction and nonfiction and hone skills that can help you create more powerful prose. Students will write and critique short prose assignments and read contemporary examples of short fiction and nonfiction. Join us to create your own voice and to study key elements of writing including conflict, character development and style.

8 Wednesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $360 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/5-10/24 Beginner/Intermediate

Workshop Leader: Leslie Pietrzyk Spend the afternoon doing a series of intensive, guided exercises designed to shake up your brain and get your creative subconscious working for you. You can come with a project already in mind and focus your work toward a deeper understanding or you can come as a blank slate (that we’ll quickly fill). Fiction writers and memoirists of all levels are welcome. Please bring lots of paper and pen/pencil or a computer with a fully charged battery.

1 Saturday NOON–5 P.M. Fee: $85 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

SO YOU GOTTA’ WRITE A SPEECH: BASIC APPROACHES TO SPEECHWRITING

THE FIRST PAGES: WHAT MAKES A GOOD BEGINNING?

Workshop Leader: James Alexander

Workshop Leader: Leslie Pietrzyk

What’s tougher than getting up in front of a large audience and delivering a powerful, moving “stem-winder” speech? Well, maybe writing the speech. In fact, very few writing assignments are tougher than speechwriting. It’s a life of multiple drafts and trying to capture something that can be rather elusive called “voice.” Much more than just poetic words, a speech is a story that builds a case and carries a message. Learn in a fun and interesting way about this very personal form of ghostwriting that can be exciting once you learn the concepts and the techniques. Participants will get hands-on experience and everyone will write a complete speech by the time the workshop ends. The workshop will also include discussion about social media in speechwriting and participants will be able to follow along and communicate in the interim through a blog.

6 Thursdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $270 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/27–11/1 All Levels

WRITING FOR PERSONAL GROWTH & PUBLICATION Workshop Leader: Laura Oliver, M.F.A. Our stories are the tellers of us, the currency of intimacy we exchange when meeting someone new but our personal summaries are often no longer true and limiting. We will use writing to change a life from within, learning how the stories we repeat about ourselves affect the brain and keep us stuck. We’ll learn to create new synapses through story that allow us to be who we meant to be. The skills of fiction and memoir writing such as imagination, memory, setting, dialogue, description and dramatization will be used to write a new narrative. Both old and new story and the process by which they and we were changed may be shaped for publication.

1 Saturday 1–3:30 P.M. Fee: $60 Annapolis (Members receive a 13% discount)

11/10 All Levels

10/20 Beginner/Intermediate

Most writers know that they have to ‘hook’ their reader from the start of the story or novel, but how exactly do we do this? What are the elements that make a great beginning to a story or novel? You’ll find out in this workshop, as we explore ways to strengthen your opening pages. Everyone is invited to bring 15 copies of the first two pages of one of their stories/novels/essays/memoirs for some hands-on advice.

1 Tuesday 7–10 P.M. Fee: $50 BethesDa (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/18 Beginner/Intermediate

TRANSITIONS Workshop Leader: Mary Carpenter Free up personal experiences, discover voices, choose the best words, etc. In each session, we will write one piece using an assigned topic and read these pieces out loud so the others can listen and comment on what’s strongest, what’s most engaging, where they hear the clearest voice. In addition, participants may bring in work written or rewritten at home for us to read. The goal of the workshop is to create a greater awareness of what it takes to turn life into stories, of which aspects of each participant’s writing work the best and to better understand how to work together to create a writing group.

6 Tuesdays 10:30 A.M.–1:30 P.M. Fee: $270 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

11/3–12/8 Beginner/Intermediate

INSPIRED BY LITERATURE Workshop Leader: Nancy Lemann In order to improve our writing (and inspire it) we will study the classics of literature and analyze structure, voice, technique, types of narration, etc. My reading list often includes among others Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, Evelyn Waugh, Raymond Chandler, Walker Percy, Virginia Woolf, James M. Cain, John O’Hara, Alice Munro, Gore Vidal, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Salinger and a wide variety of others. Accompanying the reading assignments are suggested writing exercises inspired by the book under study.

6 Tuesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $270 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/11–10/16 Intermediate/Advanced

WORKSHOPS

GETTING STARTED: CREATIVE WRITING Workshop Leader: Nancy Naomi Carlson If you have always wanted to write but haven’t known how to begin, this is the workshop for you! We will explore journals, short stories, poems (and prose poems), and memoirs in order to ‘jump start’ your writing. Exercises done in the workshop will focus on transforming a creative idea into actual words on a page. Goals: loosening up, generating new material and enjoying the excitement of writing.

1 Saturday NOON–5 P.M. Fee: $85 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

11/10 Beginner

GETTING PUBLISHED: HANDS-ON ADVICE Workshop Leader: Nancy Naomi Carlson Have you wanted to get your writing published, but didn’t know where to start? Are you already publishing but want to publish in more competitive markets? Do you wonder if your work is ready for publication? Now is the perfect time to look at these questions, as the fall is ‘prime time’ for submitting your writing to literary journals and magazines. In this workshop we will learn about the business of poetry and short story submission. We will also research and target appropriate markets for your writing. Please bring at least 10 copies of two poems or a few pages of a story to discuss, time permitting.

1 Saturday NOON–5 P.M. Fee: $85 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/29 All Levels

BREAKING RULES: CROSS-GENRE & HYBRID FORMS Workshop Leader: Travis Cebula Advances in technology have provided contemporary writers with tremendous opportunities to blend genres within a single text. This workshop will explore the vibrant and expanding realm of writing that exists in the interstitial spaces between poetry, prose and visual art. Participants will interact with, and create, examples ranging from traditional haibun, to illustrated texts, to prose poems, to lyrical essays, to visual poetry with an ever-attentive eye to removing constraints and expanding the possibilities of meaning within the work.

4 Tuesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $195 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/18-10/9 Intermediate/Advanced

 YOUTH CLASSES  WRITE A WINNING COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ESSAY Workshop Leader: Pamela Toutant The college application essay gives admissions officers insight into who you are beyond your standardized test scores and grades. Join awardwinning essayist, and seasoned college essay tutor (90 percent of Pamela’s 2009, 2010 and 2011 students were accepted at their first choice college) for a workshop to jump-start a college admissions essay that reflects your strengths and authentic voice. Receive guidance on the elements of great college admissions essays, an opportunity to brainstorm potential essay themes, and the time and guidance to develop an essay outline. Students should bring essay questions from colleges to which they are planning to apply.

1 Saturday 10 A.M.–NOON Fee: $50 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

THE ARTSCAPE NEWS (AGES 8–11) Workshop Leader: Adele Brown Participants will publish an autumn edition of Artscape News! They will write short stories, poetry, interviews, the latest sports and fashion news, horoscopes and travel guides. Sessions will be ‘hands-on,’ and we will examine the role of ‘play’ in creative writing as well as the importance of organization and structure in report writing. Time will be set aside in each session for comments and revision of work, and students will have a ‘press release’ reading for family and friends at the conclusion of the workshop. There are no texts required for the workshops, but students will need paper and pencils.

6 Saturdays 10 A.M.–NOON Fee: $200 Glen Echo (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/15–10/20 All Levels

YOUNG WRITERS CIRCLE (WORKSHOP FOR TEENS) Workshop Leader: Adele Brown Participants will use nature writings as their inspiration and experiment with poetry, prose, and drama and have an opportunity to share new ideas for writing forms and techniques. The workshop is an opportunity for young writers to deepen their understanding of how various types of writing work and what makes them and their use of language powerful. Participants will share finished work for appreciation and helpful comments from their peers, and a reading of their collected works for family and friends will conclude the series of workshops. There are no texts required for the workshops, but students will need paper and pencils. Minimum 8 participants, maximum l4.

6 Saturdays 1–3 P.M. Fee: $200 Glen Echo (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/8 Beginner

9/15–10/20 All Levels

WORKSHOPS TEEN CREATIVE WRITING

INTRO TO MARKETING PLATFORMS

Workshop Leader: Kenny Carroll

Workshop Leader: Angela Render

This workshop, for writers who want to improve their poetry, fiction, or nonfiction, consists of fun and engaging interactive exercises. Participants will discuss writing basics and will work individually with the instructor and in workshop readings to improve their approach to writing. Participants will have the opportunity to read their work to the class during the last workshop. This workshop works for passionate young writers and for students looking for inspiration and technique to get their creative writing juices flowing.

Getting published is hard, especially for a first-time author. Publishers want you to come with a platform and this workshop will discuss what a platform is and when to start building it. It will also give a brief overview of the tools available to writers for building a platform on the web, and discuss internet privacy and copyright. Participants will brainstorm what types of internet media might be right for them to use.

6 Sundays NOON–2 P.M. Fee: $215 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/16–10/21 Beginner

HOW TO WRITE A GRANT PROPOSAL Workshop Leader: Cara Seitcheck Learn how to research and write a grant proposal that will result in funding for your organization. You will learn prospect research methods for locating those foundations or corporations that match your organization’s needs. You will learn how to write a targeted grant proposal and about the review process. This is designed for all levels of writers. Please identify a project or organization to be funded before the first meeting. The 9/22 workshop will meet online.

9/8-9/22 Beginner

Workshop Leader: Angela Render This introductory class explains what a blog is and what it can do for a writer. It will cover several blogging software options, the basics on how to set up a blog and choose a domain name, how to post, and how to insert images. Participants will get a feel for what sort of content should be included in a post, how to organize their content, how to invite comment, and how to promote themselves on other people’s blogs. Participants will brainstorm topic ideas for participants’ own blogs.

1 Saturday 3–5 P.M. Fee: $40 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/22 Beginner

CHILDREN'S LIT  WRITING FOR THE YOUNG READER Workshop Leader: Judith Tabler

SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR WRITERS Workshop Leader: Angela Render Does the world of social media make you want to head for a cave? Do you think the world’s all gone to Twitter, Facebook and other social networks? Learn to navigate the social surf online and in person as you learn how to approach social networking online and off. Recommended, but not mandatory: Familiarity with blogging or completion of Introduction to Blogging.

1 Saturday 3–5 P.M. Fee: $40 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/22 Beginner

INTRODUCTION TO BLOGGING

 PROFESSIONAL  DEVELOPMENT

3 Saturdays 1:30–4 P.M. Fee: $150 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

1 Saturday NOON–2 P.M. Fee: $40 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/6 Beginner

This workshop is designed for participants who want to write for middle grade and young-adult readers. Each week, we will address topics such as character, setting, plot, dialogue and pacing while reading participants’ submissions. We welcome beginners and experienced writers who want feedback on their work from others who are interested in writing for this audience. We will meet in person three times (weeks one, three, six) and do our critiques online other weeks (two, four, five).

6 Thursdays 10 A.M.–1 P.M. Fee: $ 270 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/13–10/18 All Levels

Manuscript Editor

BLOGGING TIPS & TRICKS

Don’t let a single typo survive!

Workshop Leader: Angela Render An intermediate level workshop that is best suited for people who are already blogging and want to take their blogs to the next level. Students will learn techniques to improve their posts and their exposure. Basic graphics editing, search engine optimization (SEO), and ways to come up with sustainable topics to write about will be discussed.

Fact checking

Vocabulary enhancement

Grammar, spelling, sentence structure & flow

1 Saturday NOON–2 P.M. Fee: $40 Bethesda (Members receive a 13% discount)

Reasonable rates; fast turnaround

10/6 Intermediate

copyeditormd@gmail.com 27

WORKSHOPS

 ONLINE 

TOOLS FOR REVISION: SHORT FICTION Workshop Leader: Mike Ingram

Online workshops offer remote learning with the freedom to participate at any time of the day. A sample workshop is available at onlinetwc.org/workshop/.

BRICK BY BRICK: BUILDING THE SHORT STORY ONE ELEMENT AT A TIME Workshop Leader: Garret Freymann-Weyr When it comes to writing fiction, the short story serves as a gateway both to building and strengthening your craft. In this eight-week workshop, you will develop the tools every writer needs as we analyze how to use detail, character, point of view, voice and subtext. For the first four weeks, we will write exercises designed to explore each of these elements, while also working on our own short stories. We will study works by writers such as Irwin Shaw, Helen Simpson and Raymond Carver. After four weeks, you will turn your stories in to be critiqued within a workshop setting. During the last two weeks of class, we will not only focus on each other’s stories, but on the never-ending process of revision and editing that is a vital part of the writer’s craft. This course is designed for beginners (and who amongst us is not a beginner?), but also for anyone who wants to dive back into story writing. It is the ideal environment in which to work on your craft.

6 Wednesdays N/A Fee: $195 Online (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/10–11/14 All Levels

Crafting high-quality, publishable short stories involves about 20 percent drafting and 80 percent revising, yet too many writers focus on the former and ignore the latter. We’ll discuss practical strategies for revision, ways to deepen or complicate our narratives and take your stories to the next level. Our focus will be on reading and responding to each others’ works-in-progress, with an eye toward readying those stories to be submitted for possible publication in literary journals. Each participant will be expected to submit two draft stories for the workshop.

10 Sundays N/A Fee: $360 Online (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/9–11/13 Intermediate/Advanced

INTRO TO THE NOVEL Workshop Leader: T. Greenwood If you have always wanted to write a novel but didn’t know where to start, this workshop will help you understand the process of writing a novel so you can get started putting pen to paper. We will focus on everything from generating ideas to developing characters to establishing point of view. We will touch on many elements of fiction (dialogue, scene, etc...), but the emphasis will be on discovering the writing process that works best for you.

8 Saturdays 10 A.M.-NOON Fee: $270 Online (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/8–10/27 Beginner/Intermediate

CHARACTERIZATION IN THE NOVEL Workshop Leader: T. Greenwood

ADVANCED NOVEL ONLINE Workshop Leader: Jenny Moore Working on a novel can be an isolating, long-term process. This intimate online workshop is intended to support aspiring novelists as you work to complete a first draft or revise existing work for publication. Through a combination of group critique, discussion and exercises, we will focus on craft issues specific to the novel, discuss the writing process, improve your ability to critique others’ writing and target areas for each participant to focus on in their own work. We’ll also discuss considerations for the marketplace. Students will have a chance to submit their work (up to 25 pages) twice. Be prepared to write a lot, read a lot and engage (virtually) with other motivated writers. By the beginning of class, please have at least 50 pages of a novel in progress. This class is useful preparation for the upcoming Master Novel course, which will debut in Winter 2013. Class size limited to 10 students. Enrollment by permission of instructor; by Sept. 15, submit a writing sample of up to 10 pages for consideration to zachary.fernebok@writer.org.

8 Saturdays N/A Fee: $270 Online (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/30–11/18 Advanced

When writing a novel, we must know our primary characters inside and out. We need to understand their desires, motivations and frustrations, their histories and their futures. This workshop will focus on the development of authentic characters. We will examine character as both autonomous and residing within the context of the other novelistic elements, and we will discuss the challenge of creating and integrating these various elements into a cohesive and credible whole. Participants will explore the main character(s) in their novels-in-progress.

8 Saturdays N/A Fee: $270 Online (Members receive a 13% discount)

PLAYING ANOTHER TUNE: POETRY AND TRANSLATION Workshop Leader: Yvette Neisser Moreno It is no coincidence that most famous poets also have translated poetry. Translating allows you to deeply understand how a poem is composed and to stretch your poetry muscles by playing with words while following someone else’s script. We will begin by reading short essays by poets about how translating has influenced their own writing. Then, the workshop will follow this format: Students (1) translate a poem they love; (2) share what they discovered about the poet’s techniques or style; and (3) write their own poem using those techniques or style. Both translations and original poems will receive feedback from instructor and classmates.

6 Mondays N/A Fee: $195 Online (Members receive a 13% discount)

11/3–12/22 All Levels

10/1-11/5 Intermediate

WORKSHOPS ARTIFACTS: BLURRING THE FICTION/NONFICTION DIVIDE Workshop Leader: Mike Ingram The line between fiction and nonfiction is a blurry one, particularly as memoirists and lyrical essayists borrow the tools of fiction to craft narratives based on true events. In this class we?ll be doing the reverse: taking the stuff of real life and incorporating it into our fiction, to give our stories the emotional resonance of truth. This could mean using episodes from our real lives as jumping-off points for imaginative writing, or experimenting with known forms: letters, confessions, personal ads, obituaries. We’ll read published examples of this kind of writing, and offer feedback on each others’ genre-bending experiments.

10 Mondays N/A Fee: $360 Online (Members receive a 13% discount)

Visit our website for the most current schedule of online workshops. To sign up for our e-blasts, email mia.cortez@writer.org.

9/10–11/12 Intermediate/Advanced

 MCLEAN 

Denise Horton, Ph.D.

The Writer’s Center is pleased to join in partnership with the McLean Community Center (MCC), to offer workshops at their location at 1234 Ingleside Avenue in McLean, VA. The MCC is handling registrations for these workshops. Current Writer’s Center members who register for a workshop at the MCC will pay the full rate and receive the 13% member discount as a refund. For more information about the MCC, visit mcleancenter.org.

Psychotherapy & Spirituality for Women. Harvard-trained. Holistic/Jungian approach. Sexual abuse, addictions, dissociative disorders, trauma, ACOA issues. Retreats, Vision Quests, Wilderness Workshops. EMDR. Free consulation. Insurance-eligible.

434.825.3088

WRITING YOUR NOVEL OR MEMOIR

Exploring Marfa, Texas & Environs in 24 Podcasts

Workshop Leader: Barbara Esstman This course is for writers with a book-length projects. Working from your own manuscripts, we’ll discuss character and scene development, tone, language, point of view and plot. We’ll also learn to focus on the main idea and emotional center and to keep going to the end. We’ll cover rewriting, getting an agent when you finish and other essentials. Each writer will submit up to 20 double-spaced pages, which can include an optional plot synopsis.

6 Tuesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $270 McLean (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/16 - 11/20 All Levels

C.M. MAYO’S PODCASTING PROJECT

MARFA MONDAYS

LISTEN IN ANYTIME WWW . CMMAYO . COM

Your Business Card Here $45 (301)654-8664 mia.cortez@writer.org

WORKSHOPS

 CAPITOL HILL  The Writer’s Center is offering a variety of workshops at Hill Center (921 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Washington, D.C.). To register for these workshops, visit the Hill Center’s website: hillcenterdc.org. To view or register for Hill Center workshops listed exclusively online, visit www.writer.org/capitolhill.

BEGINNING STORY WRITING

CREATIVE WRITING: GETTING STARTED

Workshop Leader: Con Lehane

Workshop Leader: Laura Fargas

This course is designed to help you find your voice as a story writer. One way we’ll approach this is by reading exemplary stories, but mostly you’ll be asked to do a lot of writing exercises. The basic format of the class will be a workshop. At the end of the course, I expect that you’ll have written at least a draft of a story. You should also have gained some knowledge of the importance of substance and structure to a story. And I hope you will also have developed the habits of a writer to look at the world around you with a more careful eye, to listen more carefully, noticing what people say but also how they say it.

This workshop focuses on awakening your inner writer and giving him or her access to the outer world. The workshop consists of exercises both in and out of class designed to startle writing out of you and get the creative flow started. It also hopes to teach some good writerly habits.

6 Wednesdays 7–9:30 P.M. Fee: $270 Capitol Hill (Members receive a 13% discount)

9/19-10/24 Beginner

6 Wednesdays 1–3:30 P.M. Fee: $270 Capitol Hill (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/17–11/21 Beginner

WORKSHOPS WRITING TALKING POINTS Workshop Leader: Arthur Besner Talking Points help organize and focus your main thoughts so you will deliver information concisely and effectively. They serve as a guide and easy way to stay on track when you prepare or deliver information to an internal or external audience. Talking Points also can establish the foundation for writing pamphlets, press releases, newsletters, opinion pieces and speeches.

1 Saturday 10 A.M.–5 P.M. Fee: $100 Capitol Hill (Members receive a 13% discount)

10/27 All Levels

WRITING THE DECISION MEMORANDUM

INTIMATE, AFFORDABLE MEETING SPACE NEAR METRO ____

Workshop Leader: Arthur Besner The Decision Memorandum helps the organization make sound and supportable decisions. The structure of the Decision Memorandum provides management with all options that should be considered in making a decision. The writer is challenged to use high level analytical and critical thinking skills in weighing the advantages (“pros”) and disadvantages (“cons”) of each option. High performance organizations report that the Decision Memorandum facilitates the decision making process and establishes accountability for implementing a management decision.

Tuesday/Wednesday 6–9 P.M. Fee: $110 Capitol Hill (Members receive a 13% discount)

WA N T E D :

11/13-11/14 All Levels

The Writer’s Center 4508 Walsh St.,Bethesda

• Conferences • Receptions • Film Screenings • Celebrations • Productions •Club/Group meetings Classrooms $25, $15 members

WRITING THE REPORT Workshop Leader: Arthur Besner A “road map” is introduced to facilitate preparing a report—whether it is an accomplishments, special issue, annual or recurrent report. The process starts with a set of critical thinking skills to identify and analyze useful information and resources. It follows with identifying a theme that serves as the foundation for writing the report and techniques for categorizing and synthesizing information. The process leads to outlining, drafting, revising and completing the final report.

Tuesday/Wednesday 1–5 P.M. Fee: $140 Capitol Hill (Members receive a 13% discount)

12/11-12/12 All Levels

WRITING COMPELLING BLOG POSTS Workshop Leader: Patrick Ross What brings you back to your favorite authors? Is it the cover art, font selection, or marketing campaigns? Or is it the writing? Blogs succeed when the writer has a defined voice and brings value and pleasure to the reader; in other words, it’s no different than any other form of writing. In this class we will workshop each other’s blog posts each week, with an emphasis on voice and theme. By the end of the class, students will be writing blog posts that stand out in the crowded field of writing blogs. This class is meant for those who already have blogs as well as those considering launching one.

6 Mondays 7–9 P.M. Fee: $215 Capitol Hill (Members receive a 13% discount)

Allan B. Lefcowitz Theatre $65 - $125/hr Jane Fox Reading Room $35 -$80/hr Rooms can be reserved 7 days/week, based on availability. A $25/hr staffing fee is required for reservations made outside normal business hours.

Inquiries: 301-654-8664 or laura.spencer@writer.org

9/17-10/22 Beginner

EVENTS We host more than 50 events annually, including Sunday Open-Door readings and theatre productions in our historic black box theatre. If you would like more information about these events—including interviews, videos and audio—please visit our website www.writer.org/events or our blog, First Person Plural.

OPEN-DOOR READINGS

SUN, AUG 12, 2 P.M.

SUN, SEPT 9, 2 P.M.

Celebrate Entering the Real World: VCCA Poets on Mt. San Angelo. Contributors read from ‘this splendid intriguing anthology,’ including Kelly Cherry, Barbara Crooker, LuAnn Keener-Mikenas, Laurie Kutchins, Kathleen O’Toole, Vivian Teter, JC Todd, Michele Wolf, as well as Margaret B. Ingraham and Andrea Carter Brown, who also edited the collection for VCCA’s 40th Anniversary.

Reading by authors published in Baltimore Review and Beltway. Authors include Francisco Aragon, Michael Gushue and Katy Richey.

SUN, AUG 19, 2 P.M.

SUN, AUG 5, 2 P.M. The Writer’s Center welcomes poets associated with the Mariposa reading series and poetry retreat. Readers TBA.

Maritza Rivera

Alan King reads from Drift, his recent collection of poems. He is joined by poet Cliff Bernier, who reads from The Silent Art and Peter Brown, Alan King who reads from Sidewalk Faces, his new collection of short stories.

SUN, AUG 26, 2 P.M. The Writer’s Center welcomes poets with recently released collections: Donna Cowan (Between Gods); Anne Sheldon (The Bone Spindle), Surekha Vijh (A Leap Into Water); They are joined by nonfiction author Phyllis Langton, who reads from Last Flight Out.

FRI, SEPT 14, 7:30 P.M. The Writer’s Center hosts a poetry slam and reading by Taylor Mali, with MC Kenneth Carroll.

SUN, SEPT 16, 2 P.M. Poetry and Prose Open Mic. Sign-up for readers begins at 1:30 p.m.

SUN, SEPT 23, 2 P.M. Emily Jeanne Miller reads from her new novel, Brand New Human Being. She’s joined by novelist Robert Bausch.

SAT, SEPT 29, 7:30 P.M. The Writer’s Center hosts a Fall for The Book program with Danielle Cadena Deulen, author of The Riots, and Brian Brodeur, author of Natural Causes.

SUN, SEPT 30, 2 P.M.

SAT, SEPT 8, 7:30 P.M. PHOTOS BY: MIGNONETTE DOOLEY RIVERA; MARLENE LILLIAN KING; “SUPER SID” SIDNEY THOMAS BROWN; RICHARD LEVINE DAY; ANDREW DAYTON ELAHE TALIEH DAYTON; ELAHE TALIEH DAYTON ANDREW DAYTON; CHARLES HUNT HERBERT; KATHERINE BRANCH COLLIER; MARY NOBLE OURS TABER; JANE BERGER SPARK.

Poet Merrill Leffler reads from Mark the Music. He is joined by poets who will read from Scorched by the Sun, Moshe Dor’s new collection of poems, translated from the Hebrew by Moshe Dor and Barbara Goldberg.

Debra Spark

Lucille Lang Day

Debra Spark reads from The Pretty Girl: Novella and Stories. Lucille Lang Day reads from her memoir, Married at Fourteen.

EVENTS SUN, OCT. 7 (TIME TBA)

SUN, NOV 4, 2 P.M.

SUN, DEC 9, 2 P.M.

The Writer’s Center will host a panel discussion in connection with To Think, To Write, To Publish. This is a multi-day workshop that will bring together writers and 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. Details of the panel discussion will be announced on our website. The conference is sponsored by the Consortium of Science Policy and Outcomes, Arizona State University and supported by a generous grant from the National Science Foundation. The event is co-sponsored by The Creative Nonfiction Foundation and The Writer’s Center.

The Writer’s Center celebrates winners of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House competition. Poet Kathleen Hellen reads from Umberto’s Night and David Ebenbach reads from his short story collection, Into the Wilderness.

Ellen Herbert reads from Falling Women, her recent collection of short stories. She is joined by poet Susan Bucci Mockler, the 2010 recipient of Ellen Herbert The Writer’s Center Undiscovered Voices scholarship.

SUN, NOV 11, 2 P.M.

Melanie McCabe

Marjorie Hudson reads from her recent collection of short fiction, Accidental Birds of the Carolinas. She is joined by poet Melanie McCabe, who reads from History of the Body.

SUN, NOV 18, 2 P.M. SAT, OCT 13, 10 A.M. – 5 P.M. Make Lit Happen: Journeys Through the MFA and Beyond. Panelists will include David Everett, David Keplinger and Jenny Moore.

SUN, OCT 14, 2 P.M. The Writer’s Center welcomes poets Michael Collier, David St. John and Anna Journey.

Michael Collier

Poetry and Prose Open Mic. Sign-up for readers begins at 1:30 p.m.

SAT, DEC 1, 2 P.M. The Writer’s Center hosts a reading featuring workshop leaders and a sale of workshop leader books. Readers TBA.

SUN, DEC 16, 2 P.M. Poetry and Prose Open Mic. Sign-up for readers starts at 1:30 p.m.

ON STAGE The musical James Joyce’s The Dead, Book by Richard Nelson and Music by Shaun Davey, will open the Quotidian Theatre Company’s Fifteenth Anniversary at The Writer’s Center. Performances will run from Nov. 16 - Dec. 16, 2012. Visit www.quotidiantheatre.org or call 301 816-1023 for more information.

SUN, DEC 2, 2 P.M. Join editor Michael Montlack and poets published in the anthology Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on Their Muses. Readers TBA.

SUN, OCT 28, 2 P.M. Brian Friel’s

AFTERPLAY

Sarah Taber

Andrew Dayton

Sara Taber reads from Born Under an Assumed Name: Memoir of a Cold War Spy’s Daughter. She is joined by novelists Andrew and Elahe Dayton, co-authors of The House That War Minister Made.

Plus a new stage adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s short story

ber 16 Novem 16, 2012 ber Decem

All performances held at The Writer’s Center 4508 Walsh Street Bethesda MD 20815

a little trick

July 20 - August 19, 2012 QUOTIDIAN THEATRE COMPANY

quotidiantheatre.org

EVENTS

LEESBURG FIRST FRIDAYS www.writer.org/leesburg Leesburg Town Hall (Lower Level Meeting Room) 25 W. Market Street Leesburg, VA 20176 $4 TWC members and residents of Leesburg $6 General admission

GEORGE DAVIS: FINDING YOUR STORY & A CHARACTER TO EXPRESS IT FRIDAY, SEPT. 7 It’s your story, but a character who is too much like you may not be the best person to carry your story into the publishing industry. Find a character who is “hot”– whose world you know well – to walk, run, fly, snarl, chase your story in. George Davis is the author of the Vietnam War novel Coming Home (Random House) and the bestselling non-fiction book Black Life in Corporate America (Doubleday). His latest work, a Christian spy novel titled The Melting Points, was published in March by Here Books. Davis is a professor of writing, a former journalist with The Washington Post and The New York Times and has blogged at The Huffington Post, Psychology Today and other sites.

LCWA PANEL: HOW WE DID IT FRIDAY, OCT. 5 Join us as four members of the Loudoun County Writers Association share their stories of publication: how they generated the idea, structured and wrote their first book and found an agent or publisher. 34

Leesburg Town Hall

Penny Loeb has been a journalist for three decades, including 15 years on investigative teams at Newsday and U.S. News & World Report. She is a graduate of Vassar College and earned a master’s degree from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. She won multiple national journalism awards and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award. She is currently producing a movie for a screenplay she wrote based on her book, Moving Mountains: How One Woman and Her Community Won Justice from Big Coal. Clara Bowman-Jahn is the author of Annie’s Special Day, published in 2010. Prior to pursuing a second career in writing, she worked for 32 years as a registered nurse. Jason “Jay” Blevins published his first novel, The Last Fall, in September 2010. His book won second place in the Family Fiction’s Reader’s Choice Awards competition. He has been published in Celebrate Life Magazine, Calvary Chapel Magazine and Reader’s Digest. Suzanne Walls has written numerous children’s books focused on beginning readers. Titles in her wildlife series include A Child’s Book of American Wildlife, A Child’s Book of Animals in the Wild, A Child’s Book of Insects, and A Child’s Book of Waterbirds. Recently, she wrote an updated book on birds, Backyard Birds of the Piedmont, which presents high-quality photography and easy-to-read information about the birds you can find right in your own backyard.

DARE TO DREAM FRIDAY, NOV. 2 If New York Times bestselling author John Gilstrap had listened to the advice he received from parents, teachers and friends, he never would have published a thing. As it is, he listened to the naysayers for at least 20 years too long. In this inspirational presentation, John decodes the culture of negativity that keeps artists of all stripes from achieving the dreams they were born to live and gives people the tools to turn it all around. It’s never too late to dare to dream. John Gilstrap is The New York Times bestselling author of nine thrillers. Damage Control will be released in June of 2012. His previous books include Threat Warning, Hostage Zero, No Mercy, Six Minutes to Freedom (nonfiction), Scott Free, Even Steven, At All Costs, and Nathan’s Run. His novels have been translated into more than 20 languages. John has also adapted four bestselling novels for the big screen, including novels from Thomas Harris and Nelson DeMille. He is currently signed to write the screen adaptation for his book, Six Minutes to Freedom, for Sesso Entertainment.

WORKSHOP LEADERS AMIN AHMAD was raised in India. Educated at Vassar College and M.I.T., he has studied creative writing at The New School and New York University. His work has been published in The Missouri Review, Harvard Review, New England Review, Narrative and The Good Men Project. He’s been a finalist for Glimmertrain’s Short Story Award and been listed in Best American Essays. Ahmad’s first novel, The Caretaker, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in 2013, followed by Bollywood Taxi in 2014. He is particularly interested in genre fiction and novel structure. JAMES ALEXANDER has been writing professionally for more than 30 years and spent several of those years as a speechwriter including at the Cabinet level. After earning a B.A. in Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he started his career as a newspaper reporter. Alexander worked for The Charlotte Observer and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and also interned at The Washington Post. Alexander followed up his newspaper career by serving in the House and Senate as a U.S. Congressional Fellow before working several years on Capitol Hill as a press secretary and op-ed writer. As an op-ed ghostwriter, he has published more than 50 op-eds for key government and political figures on a variety of topics in various newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. MARIO BALDESSARI is a local playwright, actor and acting instructor. His playwriting credits include The Every Fringe Show You Want to See in One Fringe Show Fringe Show (Capital Fringe), Three Bears (1st Stage), Jack and the Bean-Stalk (1st Stage), Fat Gay Jew (Charter Theater), Fear Itself (Charter) and Sacred Cows (Charter). He teaches classes in improvisation for the Actors’ Center, the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, Imagination Stage and the Educational Theater Company. He is an artistic associate with Charter Theater and served as the playwright-in-residence at First Draft at Charter Theater for 2011-2012. KHRIS BAXTER is a screenwriter, producer, and script consultant. He has sold and optioned six screenplays to major Hollywood studios. Baxter teaches screenwriting at Gettysburg College and at the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at Queens University in Charlotte, NC. He is a member of the Virginia Film Commission.

SANDRA BEASLEY’s most recent book is Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a memoir and cultural history of food allergy. She is also the author of I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize and Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize. Her work has also been featured in the Best American Poetry, Tin House, the Washington Post Magazine, and The Oxford American. She lives in Washington, D.C. ARTHUR BESNER has more than 30 years experience at the U.S. Department of Education, where, among other things, he wrote speeches— delivered by the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and the Department Secretary—that were given to national education, civil rights and legal organizations. He also designed and delivered an ongoing training course, “Writing Memoranda and Reports,” for Department employees. He teaches at Montgomery College. ADELE STEINER—B.A. & M.F.A. in English Literature & Creative Writing (University of Maryland); an instructor at Montgomery College, a Poet-in-the-Schools, Maryland State Arts Council; a veteran artist in-residence at Georgetown Hospital; and author of Refracted Love, Freshwater Pearls and Look Ma, “Hands” on Poetry. Her work has appeared in WordWrights!, Maryland Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Lucid Stone, Smartish Pace, and So to Speak. ELIZABETH BUCHANAN’s writing has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, Bluestem Magazine, Helix, and The Washington Post, and is forthcoming from Bethesda Magazine as the 2012 Short Story Contest winner. She was the 2011-2012 Writer-in-Residence at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and currently teaches writing and literature at McDonough School in Baltimore. Her story, A Man’s Game, was selected by Charles Baxter as the winner of the 2012 New Ohio Review Fiction Contest, and will appear in the fall 2012 issue. NANCY NAOMI CARLSON, PH.D., is an associate editor for Tupelo Press. She has published two award-winning chapbooks, one collection of poetry and a book of translations. Awarded a Maryland Arts Council grant for poetry, her work has appeared in print over 240 times, including AGNI, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and is forthcoming in The Georgia Review.

MARY CARPENTER has been a published journalist for 25 years, specializing in medical topics for Time, the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post and women’s magazines. She has written two middle-grade books: a children’s biography of Temple Grandin, 2003; Lost and Found in the Mississippi Sound: Eli and the Dolphins of Hurricane Katrina, 2011. She’s currently working on literary/ memoir essays from her mother’s life, of which one is published and one accepted for publication in Gargoyle, fall 2012. KENNETH CARROLL is a native Washingtonian. His writings appear in numerous publications, including Stanford University Education Journal, Penguin’s African American Textbook and Turn the Page: Sharing Successful Chapters in Our Lives with Youth. He has worked as an educator in the D.C. public schools for the past 20 years, where he has used literature and writing to reach youth and to engage students in learning and leadership opportunities. As the former director of DC WritersCorps, he created the country’s first Youth Poetry Slam League, which was honored by the President’s Commission for the Arts and the Humanities in 1999. TRAVIS CEBULA previously wrote, edited and taught in Colorado, but he recently relocated to Bethesda. He graduated from the M.F.A. program at Naropa University in 2009, the same year he founded Shadow Mountain Press, a small press focusing on hand-made editions of poetry chapbooks. Thus far, he has authored one full-length collection of poetry and six chapbooks, the most recent of which, But for a Brief Interlude at Versailles, was released in fall of 2011 by Highway 101 Press. Also in 2011, Western Michigan University awarded him the Pavel Srut Fellowship for Poetry. BRENDA W. CLOUGH is a novelist, short story, and nonfiction writer. Her recent e-books are Revise the World and Speak to Our Desires. Her novels include How Like a God, The Doors of Death and Life and Revise the World. She has been a finalist for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards. She has been teaching science fiction & fantasy workshops at The Writer’s Center for over 10 years.

WORKSHOP LEADERS GRAHAM DUNSTAN is a fiction and memoir writer who has won numerous awards for his writing, including a Larry Neal Fiction Award from the District of Columbia and fiction awards from Lullwater Review and Anchorage Daily News. He earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he also taught composition. Dunstan has been published in The Signal, The Phoenix, Lullwater Review, We Alaskans, Creative Loafing, Anchorage Weekly, and on PlanetOut. SUE EISENFELD’s essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Gettysburg Review, Potomac Review, The Washington Post, Washingtonian, Hunger Mountain, Under the Sun, Ars Medica, Virginia Living, Blue Ridge Country, Blue Lyra Review, and other publications. Her essays have been listed twice among the notable essays of the year in The Best American Essays (2009, 2010). She is the recipient of the 2010 Goldfarb Family Fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and a 2011 residency as well. She holds an M.A. in Writing from The Johns Hopkins University, where she is on the teaching faculty as well. www.sueeisenfeld.com. BARBARA ESSTMAN, M.F.A., is a National Endowment for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Virginia Commission for the Arts fellow, and a Redbook fiction award winner, among other distinctions. Her two novels, The Other Anna and Night Ride Home, are in numerous foreign editions; both were adapted for television by Hallmark Productions. She co-edited an anthology, A More Perfect Union: Poems and Stories About the Modern Wedding, and has taught extensively in universities.

LAURA FARGAS has a J.D. from University of Pennsylvania and an M.F.A. from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop; she has published stories, poems and a novel. Her most recent book is An Animal of the Sixth Day. MELANIE FIGG has been teaching creative writing for over twenty years. She’s taught children, male prisoners, university students, and adult learners. She has won many awards and fellowships for her poetry, and been published in The Iowa Review, LIT, MARGIE, Colorado Review and other journals. Her first manuscript was a finalist for the Walt Whitman Award, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, the Tupelo Prize, and three other national competitions. She curates Literary Art Tours in local galleries, and manages Cross-Pollinate, a monthly multi-genre artist workshop that develops new work based on Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Method. CATHY FINK is a prolific songwriter with 2 GRAMMY Awards, 14 GRAMMY nominations and 50 awards from the Washington Area Music Association in bluegrass, folk and children’s music. She shares all her awards and recordings with Marcy Marxer. Cathy & Marcy maintain an active tour schedule as children’s/family performers and folk/roots/ country/swing artists. She has won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and International Songwriting Contest. She writes songs in many styles for listeners of all ages. Fink’s skill as in instructor has been honed in 25 years of teaching including The Kennedy Center, Music Center and Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. GARRET FREYMANN-WEYR is the author of six novels and one picture book. Her work has been translated into five languages, including Japanese. Freymann-Weyr received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina and her M.F.A. from New York University. Her work has been honored by the Michael L. Printz Award, the American Library Association, Publishers Weekly and the New York Public Library. She is a native of New York City, lived in DC for many years and now makes her home in North Carolina and Los Angeles. She has taught online at UCLA’s Extension Writing Program and in person at a variety of colleges.

NAN FRY, PH.D. (Yale University) is the author of two books of poetry, Relearning the Dark and Say What I Am Called. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and textbooks. She received an EdPress Award for Excellence in Educational Journalism and taught at the Corcoran College of Art + Design for over twenty years. JESSICA GARRATT, PH.D. (University of Missouri), M.F.A. (University of Texas at Austin), is the author of Fire Pond, winner of the Agha Shahid Prize in Poetry and published by the University of Utah Press in 2009. She is working on her second collection, poems from which appear or are forthcoming in the Southwest Review, Colorado Review, Western Humanities Review, and Literary Imagination. T. GREENWOOD is the author of seven novels. She has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and, most recently, the Maryland State Arts Council. Two Rivers was named Best General Fiction Book at the San Diego Book Awards in 2009. Five of her novels have been BookSense76/IndieBound picks; This Glittering World was a January 2011 selection, and Grace is an April 2012 selection. She teaches creative writing at for San Diego Writer’s, Ink. She and her husband, Patrick, live in San Diego, CA with their two daughters. She is also an aspiring photographer. ELLEN HERBERT’s short story collection, Falling Women and Other Short Stories, was published in 2012. Her fiction has won more than 10 awards including a PEN Fiction and a Virginia Fiction Fellowship. Her writing has been published in women’s magazines, literary magazines, and the Style section of The Washington Post. She won The Flint Hills Review Prize for Creative Nonfiction. Join Herbert for a discussion of creative writing and publishing today at ellenherbert.info. MIKE INGRAM is one of the founding editors, and current fiction editor, of Barrelhouse Magazine. A graduate of The Iowa Writers ‘Workshop, he’s currently an associate professor at Temple University, where he teaches writing and literature. His fiction has appeared, most recently, in EPOCH, The Southeast Review, The Baltimore Review, and Monkeybicycle.

WORKSHOP LEADERS KATHRYN JOHNSON, founder of Write by You (kathryn@writebyyou.com), an author’s mentoring service, writes under her own name as well as Mary Hart Perry. More than 40 of her novels have sold to major U.S. and foreign publishers. Her first in a series of Victorian thrillers, The Wild Princess, launches in August 2012. The Gentleman Poet (2010, HarperCollins) has received critical acclaim. An inspiring conference speaker, she also has served as judge on the Edgar Awards Committee for the Mystery Writers of America. MICHAEL KANG is an award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter who has written and directed two feature films -- The Motel (Sundance ‘05) and West 32nd (Tribeca ‘07). Michael was also a directing fellow in the ABC / Disney Television New Talent Division where he shadowed on hit ABC shows from Lost, Hannah Montana and Desperate Housewives, among others. As a screenwriter, Kang has written feature scripts and also developed an hour-long dramatic pilot script for HBO entitled The Lucky Cat. BETH KANTER is a feature writer specializing in parenting and local travel. She is the author of Food Lovers’ Guide to Washington D.C. and Day Trips from Washington, D.C.: Getaway Ideas for the Local Traveler as well as a regular contributor to the Fodor’s and Michelin guidebook series. Her newest book, Washington D.C. Chef’s Table: Extraordinary Recipes from the Nation’s Capital, is forthcoming this winter. Kanter’s articles and essays have appeared in a variety of publications, including Parents, American Baby, Working Mother, Wondertime, Kiwi, Shape, and Chicago Tribune. Beth earned her M.S.J. from Northwestern University. DAVID KEPLINGER is a poet and Director of the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at American University in Washington, D.C. He’s published four books and two works in translation and has received fellowships from the NEA and the Danish Council on the Arts, and has won the Colorado Book Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize for his poetry.

SUSAN LAND has all kinds of experience teaching writing, from Bethesda Elementary to the FBI. She has an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her fiction has won three Maryland Council for the Arts awards, and her work has recently appeared or will soon appear in Bethesda Magazine, Potomac Review, Roanoke Review, Niche Lit Magazine, Enhanced Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women and the anthology He Said, She Wrote. CON LEHANE has published three crime novels featuring New York City bartender Brian McNulty. His latest effort features librarian Raymond Ambler (a friend of the aforementioned McNulty) and will appear in 2013. Over the years, he (Lehane, that is) has worked as a college professor, union organizer, labor journalist, and bartender. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. NANCY LEMANN is the author of five books, Lives of the Saints, The Ritz of the Bayou, Sportsman’s Paradise, The Fiery Pantheon, and Malaise. She has written for Esquire, The Paris Review, New York Observer, Oxford American, Slate, etc. DIANA M. MARTIN has an M.F.A. in creative nonfiction and is currently an adjunct professor at Montgomery College. Martin also has an extensive background in association, nonprofit, and corporation marketing. As a freelance writer for over 20 years, she has contributed to national and international publications. She shares a new business, Alex’s Art Loft, with her son which promotes creativity, independence and support for people with disabilities.

C.M. MAYO’s books include Miraculous Air, a widely-lauded memoir of her travels in Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, and the novel The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, a Library Journal Best Book of 2009. Her books and many essays have been recognized with numerous awards, including three Lowell Thomas Awards and the Flannery O’Connor for Short Fiction. ANN MCLAUGHLIN, PH.D., has given workshops in the novel, short story, and journal writing at The Writer’s Center for the past 25 years and is on the board. She has published six novels: Lightning in July, The Balancing Pole, Sunset at Rosalie, Maiden Voyage, The House on Q Street and Leaving Bayberry House. She has had 11 eleven fellowships at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, one at Yaddo, and one at Laverny, Switzerland. PAT MCNEES was an editor in book publishing (Harper & Row, Fawcett) and a freelance journalist (samples at www.patmcnees.com) before she began writing other people’s life stories and organizational histories and helping others write their memoirs. She is president of the Association of Personal Historians; editor of the anthologies My Words Are Gonna Linger: The Art of Personal History, Contemporary Latin American Short Stories and Dying: A Book of Comfort; and the author of several nonfiction books.

JAMES MATHEWS is a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University Masters in Writing program. He is the author of Last Known Position, a short story collection and winner of the 2008 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. His fiction has appeared in many literary journals. He is also the recipient of a number of fiction awards, including three Maryland State Arts Council grants (1999, 2006, and 2010). His website is www.jamesmathewsonline.com

WORKSHOP LEADERS JENNY MOORE is a novelist whose writing has appeared in literary journals, online and in Boston City Hall. She’s working on her second novel and was recently awarded an artist residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Jenny has provided thoughtful, constructive critiques to writers for more than a decade and has taught writing and provided manuscript consulting at Grub Street Inc., as well as other venues. She works as an editor for literary, cultural, and financial publications, and has an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the New School. YVETTE NEISSER MORENO’s first book of poetry, Grip, won the 2011 Gival Press Poetry Award and will be released in Fall 2012. She is co-translator of South Pole/Polo Sur by Maria Teresa Ogliastri and editor of Difficult Beauty: Selected Poems by Luis Alberto Ambroggio. She has recently taught at The George Washington University, Catholic University, and the University of Maryland University College. Moreno is the founder of the DC-Area Literary Translators Network (DC-ALT) and serves on the programming committee of Split This Rock Poetry Festival. Her website is www.yneissermoreno.com JOHN MORRIS has taught at the Writer’s Center since 1995. He has published fiction and poetry in more than 80 literary magazines in the U.S. and Great Britain, including The Southern Review, Missouri Review, Five Points, Subtropics, Prairie Schooner, and Fulcrum. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and reprinted in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism and the newly released Anatomy of a Short Story from Continuum Press. A chapbook, The Musician, Approaching Sleep, appeared in 2006 from Dos Madres Press. His musical project, Mulberry Coach, a collaboration with singer and lyricist Katie Fisher, released its sixth CD in 2012. LAURA OLIVER, M.F.A., is the awardwinning author of The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers (Penguin Books). She is a creative writing instructor at St. John’s College and taught writing at the University of Maryland. Oliver’s work is published in national newspapers, magazines and top-tier literary reviews. She is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She speaks on writing as a transformational tool and facilitates writing workshops at Annapolis Wellness House and the Life Center of Chesapeake Hospice. www.thestorywithin.com

L. PEAT O’NEIL (M.A.) has taught food writing for Smithsonian Resident Associates, L’Academie de Cuisine and UCLA. Her writing has appeared in Gastronomica, The Washington Post, National Geographic News online and in other publications. ALAN ORLOFF is the author of Diamonds for the Dead (2010), an Agatha Award finalist for Best First Novel. He also writes the Last Laff Mystery series (Killer Routine (2011) and Deadly Campaign (2012)). He has served as treasurer for the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of Mystery Writers of America (M.W.A.) and is a member of International Thriller Writers (I.T.W.). For more info, visit alanorloff.com. WILLIAM O’SULLIVAN M.F.A.,is an essayist, editor, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellow. His personal essays have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, National Geographic Traveler, The Washingtonian, and North American Review, among others. He has received two Artist Fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and his work has been listed three times among the notable essays of the year in The Best American Essays. LESLIE PIETRZYK is the author of the novels Pears on a Willow Tree (Avon) and A Year and a Day (William Morrow). Her short fiction has appeared in many publications, including The Washingtonian, TriQuarterly, Gettysburg Review, The Sun, Iowa Review and New England Review. Her work has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes and has received awards from Shenandoah, Columbia, and other journals. She teaches in the graduate writing program at The Johns Hopkins University and in the low-residency MFA program at Converse College. Her writing blog can be found at http://workinprogressinprogress.com/. ELIZABETH REES, M.A., has taught at several leading colleges, including Harvard University, the U.S. Naval Academy, Howard University, and in The Johns Hopkins University’s graduate program. She works as a “poet-in-the-schools” for Maryland State Arts Council. She has published more than 250 poems in journals such as Partisan Review, The Kenyon Review, AGNI, North American Review, among others. She has four award-winning chapbooks, most recently, Tilting Gravity, winner of Codhill Press’ 2009 contest.

ANGELA RENDER is the owner of Thunderpaw Business Intelligence & Network Systems Management, a rare combination of business intelligence, writing, analysis, Internet marketing, design, cybersecurity, consulting, training and programming. A published author, the second edition of her workbook, Marketing for Writers, is now available. Render has helped hundreds of authors learn how to use the Internet in self-promotion, most recently at the Self-Publishing Success Intensive. angelarender. com, thunderpaw.com PATRICK ROSS is an award-winning journalist, creative writer, and blogger. He has been a professional writer for 25 years, and has been published in newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, New Republic, and U.S. News and World Report. He has been published in several literary journals, and won the 2012 Sidney W. Vernick Award in Nonfiction. His blog The Artist’s Road was named a Top Ten Blog for Writing for 2011-2012, and he first began blogging in 1994, before the label “blog” existed. He is pursuing an M.F.A. in Writing with the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Visit his website at: patrick-ross.com. LYNN SCHWARTZ’s plays have been performed in Atlanta and NYC, including the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center. Her stories have appeared in literary journals, and she has authored numerous lifestyle features. She founded the Temple Bar Literary Reading Series in NYC and received an Individual Artist Award in Fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council. She is a graduate of The City College of New York, Columbia University, and The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater. She teaches fiction at St. John’s College. CARA SEITCHEK has written grant proposals for local, state and national nonprofit organizations. In addition, she evaluates proposals for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, American Association of Museums and the Maryland State Arts Council. She has an M.A. in writing from The Johns Hopkins University.

WORKSHOP LEADERS SARA MANSFIELD TABER was a William B. Sloane Fellow in Nonfiction at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. She is the author of Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy’s Daughter; Bread of Three Rivers: The Story of a French Loaf; Dusk on the Campo: A Journey in Patagonia; and Of Many Lands: Journal of a Traveling Childhood. Her short pieces have appeared in The Washington Post, literary magazines and on public radio.

New York at Binghamton, and Central Connecticut State University before moving to the Eastern Shore in 2006. She was awarded the 2010 Maryland Author Prize from the Maryland Library Association.

JUDITH TABLER writes books on animals and has received awards from the Dog Writer’s Association of America. She has written for DOG FANCY, Bark, Kennel Review, AKC Gazette, Middleburg Life and the National Geographic Society’s education department. Judith holds an M.F.A. in creative writing and teaches at a local university.

SUSAN TIBERGHIEN, an American-born writer living in Switzerland, has published three memoirs – Looking for Gold, Circling to the Center, and Footsteps, A European Album – and most recently, the best selling One Year to A Writing Life, along with numerous narrative essays in journals and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic. She teaches and lectures at graduate programs, C.G. Jung Centers, and at writers’ conferences both in the United States and in Europe, where she directs the Geneva Writers’ Group and Conferences. Her website is www. susantiberghien.com.

SUE ELLEN THOMPSON is the author of four books of poetry, most recently The Golden Hour (2006), and the editor of The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. Her work has been included in the Best American Poetry series, read on NPR by Garrison Keillor, and featured in U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s nationally-syndicated newspaper column. She taught at Wesleyan University, Middlebury College, State University of

PAMELA TOUTANT, is a personal essayist and occasional feature writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, Redbook, Ms. Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Washingtonian Magazine, Applause Magazine and Bethesda Magazine, among others. She was selected as a 2004 finalist for the Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award, was a 2006 Pushcart Prize nominee, and is a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow.

REFLECTING ON THE NOVEL

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

PHOTO GALLERY

OPEN-DOOR READINGS

THE NTER CE EoRr k'S Wa l lR2 0IT Event Guide & p o h s W 12 F

LYN VAUS, a longtime screenwriter and industry professional, is best known for his award winning Miramax romantic comedy Next Stop Wonderland. Vaus began his career as a story editor for a production company in Hollywood where he oversaw the script for New Line’s hit science fiction film ?The Lawnmower Man?. He has had numerous screenplays of his own optioned, and in some cases produced, by, among others, Imax, Fine Line, Sen Art and Miramax. MICHELE WOLF is the author of Immersion (selected by Denise Duhamel, Hilary Tham Capital Collection), Conversations During Sleep (Anhinga Prize for Poetry) and The Keeper of the Light, (Painted Bride Quarterly Poetry Chapbook Series award). Her poems have also appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, North American Review, Antioch Review, Boulevard, and numerous other literary journals and anthologies. She serves as a contributing editor for Poet Lore. Visit her new Web site. You can also read her posts “Getting Your Poems into Print with Michele Wolf” and “Poetry Readings: The Art of Creating a Poet-Audience Bond” at The Writer’s Center’s blog, First Person Plural.

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BOOK TALK BOOK TALK — PUBLISHED WORK, AWARDS & LITERARY NEWS Longtime Writer’s Center instructor John Morris is a contributor to the new volume from Continuum Press, Anatomy of a Short Story: Nabokov’s Puzzles, Codes, “Signs and Symbols,” edited by Yuri Leving. Morris’s essay, “Lost in Revision: The Editing of ‘Signs and Symbols’ for The New Yorker,” describes the sometimes surprising changes imposed upon Vladimir Nabokov’s most famous short story when it was first published in The New Yorker. Other contributors to the collection include John Banville, Michael Wood and Leona Toker. John will be teaching “Writing the Successful Short Story” this fall at The Writer’s Center.

Now available from the Johns Hopkins University Press is The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank, Inside Pyschoanalysis, edited by E. James Lieberman, M.D. and Robert Kramer, Ph.D. Lieberman is a clinical professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the George Washington School of Medicine. Kramer is an internationally recognized authority on action learning and consults on leadership development worldwide.

Gerard Marconi’s novel entitled Gods and Heroes was published in November 2011 by Booklocker and is available online as an e-book or in paperback.

TWC Insider is now Book Talk! Email us your book news along with a high-resolution image of the book cover & photo credit to mia.cortez@writer.org.

Lisa Couturier was awarded a 2012 Pushcart Prize for her essay Dark Horse. She also was cited as a notable essayist in Best American Essays, 2011.

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The deadline for the winter/spring issue is October 1, 2012.

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A Blog Routine: Getting the Most out of Your Writer’s Workout John Hamilton What do you do when you’ve hit the dreaded writer’s block? The common remedy, ‘just keep writing,’ seems counter-intuitive. How can you keep doing something you are unable to do? It requires some exercise. The writer’s mind requires activity just as much as the rest of the body. Whether you have several publications under your belt, or you have only just begun putting pen to paper, your abilities as a novelist need to be trained. And a great way for an author to hone their skills is through blogging. I have kept a daily blog for the past year, and I am not slowing down anytime soon. It keeps my mind fresh, busy and passionate. Everyone has a blog in them waiting to get out, even if their literary calling is in other genres. For the most beneficial results, here are five key elements to keep in mind when starting a blog. 1) Pick a clear, specific topic. The topic of your blog should be easily described in one sentence or less. Your topic should be something that interests you enough that you can talk about it at length. But you don’t necessarily have to be an expert in the topic you choose. Research is valuable; it keeps you engaged with your topic. 2) Any topic is worth writing a blog about, as long as it remains consistent. A common trap new bloggers fall into is treating their blog like a personal diary. Life is unpredictable. You never know what day will be good, bad, or, worst of all, dull. If you focus only on your daily activities, you’ll find yourself at a loss for what to write on those inevitable, uninteresting days. If you find yourself falling into this habit, find a constant element. Maybe you try a new flavor of tea every day or maybe you can describe the people you regularly see on your train commute. Some blogs manage to get away with inconsistent topics by having a distinct voice or point of view, rather than simply chronicling routine actions. But this voice is actually the constant element of the blog. A

reader should be able to read any post and understand what your entire blog is about. 3) Don’t be afraid to write about what others write about. I have a friend who writes a jewelry blog. A quick Google search for “jewelry blog” yields over 600 million results. Her topic may not be unique, but her writing style is. Your personality is going to be what separates you from the rest of the internet. Find a voice you are comfortable with and grow from there. 4) Keep a steady writing schedule. Starting a new project is easy. Finishing one can be near impossible. Like any exercise routine, a blog only works if you devote time to it regularly. I suggest trying not to go longer than two weeks without writing a new post. Something is always better than nothing. 5) Don’t worry about your audience. This is of utmost importance. The beauty of maintaining a blog is that your writing is instantly available to the world. While you are used to working carefully on your novel, scrutinizing over every detail before it goes to print, here is an opportunity to let go of that stress. Not everyone may like what you write. Not everyone may read what you write. But these are not your concerns. This is writing for the sake of writing. You may get off to a rough start, and you may publish a few, dare-I-say-it, poorly written posts, but don’t be discouraged. The only person you need to impress is yourself. Websites such as Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr, have opened the doors for anyone to share their writing with the world. They are free and include step-by-step instructions on maintaining your new blog. Gym memberships aren’t even this easy! All these sites need are your words. Your mind will thank you. To read John Hamilton’s analysis of the works and creations of puppeteer Jim Henson, visit “A Much Deeper Level” at amuchdeeperlevel.blogspot.com.

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THANKS TO OUR DONORS  FOUNDER’S CIRCLE— CONTINUED  John Monagle • Deborah Monroe • Peter Montgomery • Magdalena Mooers • Velda Moog • Jean Moore • Jenny Moore • Elizabeth Moore • Alix Moore • Brandon MooreMcNew • Ashlee Morley • Lauren Morris • Bruce Mortenson • Alison Moser • Leigh Mosley • Stewart Moss • Atousa Motameni • Cantwell Muckenfuss and Angela Lancaster • Yasmeen Mughal • Ilse Munro • Elisabeth Murawski • Christine Muth • Michael J. Myer • Bonnie Naradzay • Merri Nelson • Sabrina Neptune • Judith Neri • C. W. Neuhauser • William and Louisa Newlin • Mary Neznek • Xuan L. Nguyen • Elizabeth North • Terry Northcutt • Leslie Norton • Patrick Nugent • Terrance O’Connor • Matthew O’Brien • John Odonnell • Joe O’Keefe • Susan Okie • Howard E. O’Leary • Hannah O’Malley • L.P. 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TWC like we do? Support our Annual Fund. We greatly appreciated your generous support during the past fiscal year. You helped us keep our doors open and serve you better with a wide array of excellent workshops and exciting readings and events.

How about helping us again in the new fiscal year? We could brighten the restrooms with a fresh coat of paint … even offer you better coffee!

As a literary community, we’re in this together. Please give to the annual fund and support the place that means so much to all of us. The Center thanks you.

www.writer.org (‘Support’ tab) • 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD, 20815 • (301) 654-8664 44

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If TWC cancels a workshop, participants who have already signed up and made payment will receive a full refund, or they can use their payment as a credit toward another workshop and/or a membership. Workshop participants who have enrolled in and paid for a workshop and choose to withdraw from it within the drop period (see page 12) will receive full credit (but not a cash refund) that can be used within one year to pay for another workshop and/or a membership. Workshop participants who have enrolled in and paid for a workshop and choose to withdraw from it after the drop period has ended will forfeit their full payment and will not receive any credit to be used to pay for another workshop and/or a membership. Exceptions may be made in the case of serious illness or other extenuating circumstances, such as relocation out of the area; in such cases, a formal request in the form of a letter or an e-mail must be submitted to the Executive Director. No refunds or credits will be given for individual classes missed. To receive a credit, you must notify TWC by e-mail (post.master@writer.org) within the drop period. Please conﬁrm receipt of the message if you do not hear back from TWC within two business days.

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Return Service Requested CONTAINS DATED MATERIAL

They gave up their only son... for what they believed to be his destiny. A lush, historical novel of Mexico, based on a true story... that begins in Washington D.C. Praise for the writing of C.M. Mayo

“Mayo’s work is reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor’s.” -- Booklist -“C.M. Mayo writes some of the most exquisitely fashioned, perfectly measured prose alive in the world today.” -- Naomi Shihab Nye --

For more information and to read an excerpt, please visit unbridledbooks.com and cmmayo.com