Marketing at the Speed of the Web with Angela Render

It always amazes me how much I have to change my classes from quarter to quarter. Granted, much of the information I impart is “evergreen”—wisdom that remains valid through the ages—but then much of it can change on a moment’s notice.

For example, my last class on Social Networking for Writers, happened scarcely a week after a major change in Facebook. Not content with merely updating the screenshots, I used live images in the class instead. It was a case of the instructor being a half-step ahead of the student, as nobody in the marketing community had yet to see a clear path through all the changes, and the ramifications had yet to be even touched upon.

Nonetheless, evergreen wisdom should prevail no matter what technological changes rock the boat. When marketing anything to anyone, two things remain constant:
1) The consumer is a human being.
2) You want to sell them something.

In my upcoming classes on November 12th--Blogging Tips and Tricks and Advanced Marketing—I’m going to impart to you both the foundations of promoting yourself online as well as the latest tools available to you. More importantly, I’m going to teach you how to select the best tools to use for yourself.

We’re constantly bombarded with experts claiming that if you’re going to be successful, you’ve got to do X or you’ve got to do Y, as if jumping on the latest bandwagon was the key to success. There is no magic bullet to get where you want to be. There are thousands of paths to success and constantly chasing after the latest thing will do nothing other than exhaust you.

What I plan to teach is not only how to find your own path to success, but how to pace yourself so that you can win the marathon that is self-promotion. Be sure to bring your questions with you.

I hope to see you there.

Angela

Testimonials:

“Confident, well-organized, substantive presentations—and patient to boot! She fielded every question and led to think about approaches to marketing we had never considered before.”

“This was a very helpful introduction to an overwhelming topic—it does not seem as daunting now, to establish a platform and presence, as it did before I took the class.”

“The information shared has inspired me to go home and take action!!”

Angela Render is the workshop leader for Blogging Tips and Tricks from 12-2 P.M. and Advanced Marketing from 3-5 P.M. on 11/12 at TWC. Sign up for her workshops here and here.

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Angela Render designed and maintained Web sites since 1994 and is the founder and owner of Thunderpaw Internet Presence Management. Her published work includes: Forged By Lightning: A Novel of Hannibal and Scipio, Marketing for Writers: A Practical Workbook, a Writers' Journal column, and ghost blogging. In addition to her classes through The Writer's Center, she teaches at-risk middle-school girls and has been a guest speaker at numerous local conferences.

Creating Space and Time to Hear the Muse: The Writing Staycation with Zahara Heckscher

Writing confession: I cannot write at home. Yes, I often knock off emails and short articles at my desk. But my real writing – my novel, my poetry, my creative nonfiction – seems to require a break in the space-time continuum.

My muse speaks to me more clearly the farther I am from the stacks of paper, the laundry, the kitchen. Hate to admit it, but she also demands distance from my family.

I’ve always wanted to go to one of those retreat centers where I could do nothing but write all day and stare at the mountains or ocean. But as a busy mom and educator, that ain’t happening. So I create mini writing retreats when I can. My most productive times are writing sessions with other writers around me. If someone else is in the room with me writing, I am less likely to read the paper or check my emails.

I created the Writing Staycation for like minded souls. I welcome anyone who prefers an out-of-home writing experience, and anyone who wants to have the time and space, outside the normal routine, to hear the muse clearly.

At the Writing Staycation, I nurture the body and spirit of the participants so they’ll have the stamina to focus on the writing. The event features healthy snacks, plenty of coffee and tea, inspiring speakers, and tons of time to write.

If you’d like a sacred time and space to listen to your own muse, I hope you’ll join us for the upcoming Writing Staycation, November 7-11.

Zahara Heckscher is the workshop leader for the Writing Staycation workshop, which starts Monday 11/7 and continues through Friday 11/11 at TWC. You can sign up for her workshop here. She has blogged previously about the Writing Staycation on First Person Plural here and here.

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Zahara Heckscher, M.A., is the co-author of the book How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas. She has also written numerous articles that have appeared in books and the online travel magazine www.TransitionsAbroad.com, where she serves as contributing editor. Heckscher teaches professional writing at University of Maryland at College Park. She is a breast cancer survivor who prefers to be known as a "cancer thriver." She blogs at cancerthriver.blogspot.com.

Finding Your Voice through the Slush (and Slush Monsters)

“I will wade through dim and perilous fens of slush for voice.”
Editorial Anonymous

You’ve been there, sitting in the third row on the left. The conference organizer introduces the next speaker- a Very Important Editor from a Major Publishing House. After the editor’s wise words on “Latest Trends in Publishing” or “Why Picture Books Are Really Truly Going to Bounce Back, Pretty Soon” she gets to the part everyone in the room wants to hear-

“This is what I want to acquire…”

And year after year, editor after editor, she says the exact same thing.

“I am looking for a manuscript with a fresh, strong voice.”

Wait. Stop.

We’re writers. We know all about voice, right?

Miriam-Webster defines it as “a musical sound produced by the vocal folds…”

?

When it comes to writing what exactly is “voice”?

Maybe voice isn’t so easy to define with “mere words,” but like Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said of obscenity, we “know it when we see it.” Sarah Aronson says “When I first started writing, I thought that voice was some mystical element I either had or I didn’t. Now I know that just like everything else, voice can be taught. It can be acquired. Through hard work, intention, and knowing all your characters, every writer can find an authentic voice for their book.” If voice is the thing that causes editors to wade- nay snorkel- through the slush we need to learn to spot it—but more than that we need to discover our own unique voices and begin to capture them in words on the page.

Join Sarah, me and Sarah Sullivan at our one day Writer's Center workshop “Writing for Young Readers: Finding Your Voice.” I’ll kick off the morning with an introductory talk- I HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR- Learning to open our hearts, minds, and ears. Sarah Sullivan will follow with KEEPING IT REAL- IS THAT MY VOICE OR IS IT MY EVIL TWIN. Sarah’s lectures and exercises have inspired writers to create award-winning work in voices they never suspected they had (REALLY! It’s true!). Sarah Aronson will round things out with DEVELOPING VOICE THROUGH DIALOGUE: How secondary characters can help you find your voice. Sarah is an expert teacher and her classes and workshops have yielded many debut novels and newly discovered talent. All day long we’ll have “talk breaks” and writing workouts. Plus there will be plenty of opportunity for informal questions on any topic from character development to publishing and marketing.

Sarah, Sarah and I look forward to seeing you there, loud, proud and ready to raise your voices!

Tami Lewis Brown, along with Sarah Sullivan and Sarah Aronson, will be leading the one-day workshop Writing for Young Readers: Finding Your Voice on Sunday 11/6. You can sign up for their workshop here.

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Experienced lecturers and teachers, within the last five years Sarah Aronson (above), Sarah Sullivan (center) and Tami Lewis Brown (left) have published nearly a dozen picture books and middle grade and YA novels with major publishing houses. They hold M.F.A.s in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Beginnings: Boot Camp for Writers with Beth Kanter

My grandmother was known for saying, “all beginnings are hard.” Although I don’t believe that she ever took pen to paper for the sake of storytelling, I most often think of this little pearl when I start a new piece of writing. Whenever I sit down to a new project be it a book, article, essay or, yes, even a blog post, my grandmother’s simple yet wise words remind me that it’s getting those first few thoughts out that can be writing’s most challenging task. It is with this in mind that I focus on beginnings when I lead workshops like my upcoming Boot Camp for Writers.

Since a blank page cannot be tweaked, edited or published, I like to give workshop participants the chance to start several different pieces and start the same piece several different ways. I open each session by asking participants to begin a story based on a prompt. One week the prompt might be to write about a time when something was not as it seemed while the next week it might be to write a story that centers on a word or phrase. The prompts help erase the worry of not having something to write about by sparking a memory or story that may otherwise not have been on the surface. I always hand out at least one non-fiction piece that I think illustrates the prompt well and then the work of finding those precious beginnings begins. Sometimes I might ask the writers to stop and start over by telling the same story from the ending thereby making the ending of the piece the beginning of the piece. Other times I encourage my students to start the same story from another point of view or in a different voice. We then compare, contrast and discuss the different versions and, more often than not, the strongest beginning is not the first one. Each approach gives way to a different kind of story telling and the writing tends to get crisper, stronger and more focused with each attempt. By the time the workshop ends, participants walk away with several in-progress pieces and usually have at least one that is screaming to be finished.

My grandmother didn’t have any expressions about endings (although she inexplicably liked to say “there is more than one way to skin a cat”) but I do know that you can’t finish a story without starting it. I hope to see you in Boot Camp for Writers so we can explore the hard but important work of beginnings.

Beth Kanter is the workshop leader for Boot Camp for Writers, which will be on Thursdays at TWC from 10/27-11/17. You can sign up for her workshop here.

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Beth Kanter is a freelance feature writer based in Washington, D.C., who specializes in parenting and travel stories. Beth’s essays and articles have appeared in a variety of publications including Wondertime, Parents, Mom, Kiwi, American Baby, Working Mother, Shape, Fitness and the Chicago Tribune. She is the author of Day Trips from Washington, DC: Getaway Ideas for the Local Traveler and the forthcoming Food Lovers’ Guide to Washington, DC: The Best Restaurants, Markets & Local Culinary Offerings, both from Globe Pequot Press. She also contributes to the Fodor’s and Michelin guidebook series. Beth has an M.S.J. from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. You can read samples of her work at www.bethkanter.com.

Exercise Is Good for You with Leslie Pietrzyk

Everyone knows that exercise is good for our health…whether we follow through on this good advice or not is another issue. Regular exercise burns calories and builds muscles.

I can’t say that writing exercises will burn calories (if only!), but writing exercises definitely will develop and stretch and build your writing muscles. That’s why I put together a one-day class composed entirely of guided writing exercises: Flex Your Creative Muscles.

The idea is that these exercises will challenge your mind in a new and exciting way, pushing you to come up with a forgotten memory, perhaps, or an insight into the characters in the novel you’ve been working on, or the opening of a story that you can’t wait to finish at home, or a new way of viewing the familiar. Many of these exercises are easily replicated at home, so you can keep going on your own long after our day together is done.

Writing exercises are all about taking chances and trying new things, so it’s important that the class environment is one of acceptance and support. To that end, while all are encouraged to share their work, we will not be critiquing our writing during this session. Instead, we’ll applaud our bravery and admire our results…after all, getting words on the blank page means that there’s something to revise and improve later. So don’t be afraid if you’re a beginner—and if you’re an experienced writer, I promise you’ll uncover some muscles you didn’t know you had.

While I’m always excited about every class I teach at The Writer’s Center, this one is secretly my favorite because I participate along with everyone as much as I can, working on the exercises along with everyone else. There’s something magical about sitting in a room filled with creative people avidly writing, lost in their imaginations. Exercise is more fun with a buddy next to you, inspiring you to push yourself, and so is writing. I can specifically point to a big discovery about a character that I unearthed while taking—er, I mean teaching—this class. Trust me, writing exercises pay off: and we don’t even have to build up a sweat.

Leslie Pietrzyk is the workshop leader for Flex Your Creative Muscles: A 1-Day Workshop, which takes place at TWC on Saturday 10/22. You can sign up for her workshop here.

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Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of two novels, Pears on a Willow Tree and A Year and a Day. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in many journals, including Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, Shenandoah, The Sun, and The Washington Post Magazine. She teaches at The Writer’s Center, in the graduate writing program at Johns Hopkins, and in the low-residency M.F.A. program at Converse College. She is the editor of Redux, an internet literary journal that features previously published work not available elsewhere online, and she blogs regularly at Work in Progress.

Getting Your Poems into Print with Michele Wolf

In my 20s, when I was a new poet and a copy editor, working first for Scribner’s and then Simon & Schuster, I spent many lunch hours tucked away in my sanctuary, my shrine: the cluttered, respectably shabby Gotham Book Mart, on Manhattan’s 47th Street, in the heart of the diamond district.

Here you would find—once you headed down a few steps, beneath the black-on-white “Wise Men Fish Here” sign—an eclectic, comprehensive poetry section, featuring loads of out-of-print books; architecture, art, and dance books; literary fiction; an iconic framed photo of a 1948 gathering at the shop (some attendees: W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, and Tennessee Williams); and, way in the back room, the finest literary journal selection in North America. Plus, it wasn’t a newsstand, with new issues bumping the older ones off the shelves—it was more of a library. You could read five years’ worth of The Bennington Review, for example. Back then I had a particular fondness for The Bennington Review.

At that point in my poetry life I had no stirrings—it would have seemed too fantastical—of wanting to bring my own book of poems into the world. All I was thinking was that I would like to publish pieces in some of these journals. After a few years of studying the possibilities and submitting, I got my wish. My first poem in a nonstudent journal appeared in Cottonwood, which comes out of the University of Kansas. My poems were also accepted by several anthologies. Eventually I placed close to 100 poems in print and on the Web. But before I hit that number, in 1995 I won a contest and published The Keeper of Light, a chapbook—a short, limited-edition poetry book. A couple of years later I won another contest, the Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and published Conversations During Sleep, my first full-length book. And this year I published a second full-length book, Immersion, selected by Denise Duhamel for the Hilary Tham Capital Collection. Little by little I learned how to publish poems—from friends, Poets & Writers Magazine, and all those hours in Gotham Book Mart. But how helpful it would have been to have taken a workshop like “Getting Your Poems Into Print” when I was a rookie at sorting out where and how to send my work.

Much has changed since I started out. The biggest developments have been the Web—both as a publication platform and a research tool—and social media; the proliferation of journals, independent presses, and M.F.A. programs; and the sheer volume of writers submitting their poems. The competition has become more intense, but the basic goal has remained the same: to locate editors with whom you share a poetic sensibility. In “Getting Your Poems Into Print” I offer tips on how to achieve this and what to avoid; when contests are worth their admission fees and when they’re not; the etiquette of submission; where to find information about journals, anthologies, and presses soliciting work; how to connect with peers who are also looking to publish their work; how to cope with rejection; and the pros and cons of self-publishing. I leave time for a generous Q&A period, because inevitably there are lots of questions. The workshop is designed to be useful for poets at all levels of writing experience and all levels of getting their poetry published.

In 2007, I was saddened to hear, Gotham Book Mart closed, after 87 years as a New York literary fixture. But fortunately the D.C. area is blessed with The Writer’s Center, where you can peruse around 190 different journals. And if you have access to the Web, you can sample not only these but another few hundred journals. Let me tell you where to look.

Michele Wolf is the workshop leader for Getting Your Poems into Print, which takes place at TWC on Sunday 11/6. You can sign up for her workshop here.

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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 website. You can also read Michele Wolf's post "Poetry Readings: The Art of Creating a Poet-Audience Bond" at The Writer's Center's blog, First Person Plural.

What's Your Story? Intermediate Life Story Writing with Lynn Schwartz

Flannery O’Connor said that anyone who survived childhood has enough information to write for the rest of his or her life. It’s true. We all have stories. The question is: what stories do we want to tell? The process of writing life stories guides us to dig deep and examine what is important and unique to each individual. This excavation requires a sharp focus and propels both beginning and advanced writers forward. Life Story writing lets us know ourselves and others, gives us direction, and offers up the seeds of inspiration.

I have taught Life Stories for several years and have been fascinated to witness the tremendous support and encouragement that evolves within a group exploring this kind of writing. My students wanted more and asked for the next level. The Life Stories: Intermediate is the result of those requests. The five-session workshop begins Thursday, November 3 and will be held at The Writer’s Center, Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis. Students will learn how to make their story accessible to the reader including the use of fictional techniques — character development, dialogue, plot and endings.

We will also address a dilemma I often encounter. Life story writers tend to amass several disparate pieces and are unsure of how to put them all together. For that reason, we will concentrate on discovering the themes and threads that tie many stories into a unified whole.

Whether you choose a memoir, blog, letter to your granddaughter, or want the impetus to begin a short story or novel, life story writing gathers together what is worth telling. It is the tale of where we come from and who we are.

Lynn Schwartz is the workshop leader for Life Stories: Intermediate, which will take place on Thursdays in Annapolis from 6:30-9 p.m. beginning 11/3. You can sign up for her workshop here.

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Lynn Schwartz’s plays have been performed in Atlanta and New York City, including the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center. Her stories have appeared in literary journals and she has authored numerous lifestyle and life story features. She founded the Temple Bar Literary Reading Series in New York City and received an Individual Artist Award in Fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council. She holds a M.A. from The City College of New York, is a graduate of The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater, and teaches at St. John’s College. Visit her Web site: www.writerswordhouse.com

Jim Mathews on the Importance of a Clear 'Inciting Incident'

Have you ever started reading a short story (or started writing one) where the prose is flawless and the characters believable but halfway through you realize…you’re just reading flawless prose with believable characters? I mean, don’t we already have that in real life (give or take a flaw)? And isn’t that why people turn to fiction? To get something they can’t get from life? Or from a well-written newspaper article?

Chances are what’s probably missing is a clear “inciting incident,” the precise moment where your protagonist’s routine is interrupted, setting him or her on an upward path of tension and complication, toward that all important climax and, one hopes, a fully satisfying denouement. In other words, a plot.

If you consider the Aristotelian plot model – or “bell curve on acid” as a workshop instructor once termed it – the inciting incident should occur early, at the starting edge of the curve, at a point where the story’s tension separates from the linear and spikes upward on a jagged ascent to the climax. It is the break from the routine, the ordinary. More important, it signals to your readers that they are not going to be reading a character study or even a flawless character study, but a story. They are going to read about a character whose life or immediate circumstances have dramatically changed. Everything that happened before the inciting incident is the “ordinary world” (the world we all share and know and read about in newspapers) while everything that happens after the inciting incident is the fiction we crave to escape from the ordinary world.

One prime benefit of a crystal clear inciting incident is that when you do begin to apply flesh and add background to your characters, even their routine (whether in flashbacks or exposition) takes on added heft for the reader.

In my workshop, through reading assignments and critiques, we spend time learning to spot the inciting incident and then ask, is it in the right place? Has the writer waited too long to introduce it? Has the writer given readers a clear picture of what’s different about the protagonist’s today (the extraordinary) compared to his or her yesterday (the ordinary)?

Being the clumsy writer that I am, I usually stumble upon my inciting incident halfway through a story draft – which explains a Rubbermaid container in my den filled with, er, story drafts! Try not to make this mistake. In a short story, the absolute best place for the inciting incident is, in my opinion, the very first sentence or at least the first paragraph; for a novel, your readers should at least get a whiff of it in the first paragraph or by the end of the first chapter.

Here’s a great example of an inciting incident from the T. Coraghessan Boyle’s short story, “King Bee”:

"In the mail that morning there were two solicitations for life insurance, a coupon from the local car wash promising “100% Brushless Wash,” four bills, three advertising flyers, and a death threat from his ex-son, Anthony."

What you’ve just read is the story’s first sentence, complete with a clear and compelling (if disturbing) inciting incident. Boyle could have spent several paragraphs describing a day in the life of Ken -- Anthony’s father and our intrepid protagonist -- perhaps by showing him shuffle down the driveway in bathrobe and slippers, grumbling about his neighbor’s shabby lawn, casting a wave at his wife who is hunched over a patch of petunias in the front garden. We would have read it, of course, because Boyle’s such an exquisite craftsman. But that would have been time and energy wasted on the ordinary world and Boyle understands we’ve come to him to escape all that. So he immediately delivers the moment where Ken’s ordinary world has ended and his new normal begins.

But what about a much longer work? Here’s another Boyle opening (full disclosure--I’ve been a rabid Boyle fan ever since I figured out how to pronounce his middle name!) from his novel The Tortilla Curtain:

"Afterward, he tried to reduce it to abstract terms, an accident in a world of accidents, the collision of opposing forces – the bumper of his car and the frail scrambling hunched-over form of a dark little man with a wild look in his eye – but he wasn’t very successful. This wasn’t a statistic in an actuarial table tucked away in a drawer somewhere, this wasn’t random and impersonal. It had happened to him, Delaney Mossbacher, of 32 Pinon Drive, Arroyo Blanco Estates, a liberal humanist with an unblemished driving record and a freshly waxed Japanese car with personalized plates, and it shook him to the core. Everywhere he turned he saw those red-flecked eyes, the rictus of the mouth, the rotten teeth and the incongruous shock of gray in the heavy black brush of a mustache – they infested his dreams, cut through his waking hours like a window on another reality. He saw his victim in a book of stamps at the post office, reflected in the blameless glass panels of the gently closing twin doors at Jordan’s elementary school, staring up at him from his omelette aux fines herbes at Emilio’s in the shank of the evening.

The whole thing had happened so quickly…"

Again, Boyle could have spent more time showing us Delaney’s life, perhaps introduce his wife in a scene or his spoiled kids or insufferably nosey neighbors, but that’s Delaney’s ordinary world and, no matter how well-written, what fun would that be?

Not every inciting incident has to be as intense as a death threat or hit-and- run (unless you’re Boyle, of course!). And there are always exceptions to every rule – especially in fiction. But a clear inciting incident is usually key to a good read – and the start of an extraordinary relationship with your reader.

James Mathews is the workshop leader for Building a Page Turner, which will take place Wednesdays from 7-9:30 p.m. at TWC from 10/19 to 12/7. You can sign up for his workshop here.

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James Mathews is a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University Master of Arts 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 Web site is www.jamesmathewsonline.com.

Travel and Food Writing Workshop with L. Peat O'Neil

What’s your favorite food memory? What cuisine do you identify with? What do you eat when you travel? Come join us at Annapolis Center and learn about crafting culinary experience into a story, the life of the travel and food writer, and how to find publication outlets.

In the upcoming Food and Travel Writing workshop (Oct 4, 11, 18 at Annapolis Center), we’ll explore the types of travel articles and opportunities for food writers. Mindful of market trends and the current publishing environment, the group will brain-storm to develop and critique ideas for travel articles with a culinary theme.

Ideas are only part of the process. A travel writer with an interest in food needs a skill-set and knowledge base to handle the content effectively for various print and online publications. This might include how to locate and interview culinary experts, as well as the process of creating and testing recipes. On the writing side of the toolkit is honing a compelling voice. I’ll lead you through several in-the-moment writing exercises that lead to bright, energetic prose-craft.

You’ll bring a rough draft or notes of a travel and/or a food article to the first workshop meeting, and for three sessions, we’ll work on transforming manuscripts into articles, book chapters or essays. The goal is to help you project your point of view through vivid narrative. By the second meeting, you’ll bring copies of a revised draft for reading and feedback by me and the workshop group. I’ll also help class participants who are interested in blogging on to start a travel or culinary theme blog during the course, but this is optional.

Most writers are eager to discover strategies for reaching editors and securing publication opportunities. Throughout the workshop, we’ll cover aspects of article structure, marketing and promoting your work.

L. Peat O'Neil's workshop, Travel and Food Writing, will take place at the Annapolis Center on Tuesdays 10/4-10/18 and Thursdays 10/13-10/27. Sign up for her workshop here and here.

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A few words about me: I’ve taught food and travel writing for Smithsonian Resident Associates, the Graduate School USA, L’Academie de Cuisine and online at the University of California, Los Angeles. Sometimes the workshop is a small group of strong writers who seek guidance on voice, structure and pace. I’ve also worked with travel writers and culinary professionals who are shaping notes into finished articles or blog entries.

In addition to Travel Writing: See the World-Sell the Story, Pyrenees Pilgrimage and other books, I’ve written essays, short stories and poetry for literary journals and reviews. My professional writing background includes nearly two decades in The Washington Post newsroom, numerous freelance travel and food articles (Gastronomica, National Geographic News, Elle, Travel+Leisure, etc) and a four-year stint as a social media content writer for the U.S. Department of State.

Sue Ellen Thompson on Sound Effects in Poetry

When I first heard my teacher at Middlebury College read the opening lines of Wallace Stevens’s poem, “Autumn Refrain”—

The skreak and skritter of evening gone
And grackles gone and sorrows of the sun,
The sorrows of sun, too, gone…the moon and moon,
The yellow moon of words about the nightingale
In measureless measures, not a bird for me
But the name of a bird and the name of a nameless air
I have never—shall never hear…

--I knew that sound played a magical, musical role in poetry. In those two harsh, made-up words—skreak and skritter—lay the essence of autumn, of brittle leaves blowing over bare pavement. Stevens uses alliteration as well as repetition of whole words and phrases to underscore the melancholy and inevitable nature of the season, and in the end I cared less about what the poem meant than about how it felt in my mouth as I read it aloud.

When I started writing my own poems several years later, I failed to understand how sound could be used to embody and convey my feelings. I suppose I thought that if I occasionally threw alliteration or repetition into a poem, I had paid my dues. To go beyond that seemed forced and manipulative. I think it was because sound, to me, was merely a surface effect—not a deep, visceral one.

In my Oct. 9 workshop, “What Sound Effects Can Do for Your Poetry,” I will talk about some contemporary poems in which sound plays a crucial role. I will introduce workshop participants to the link between certain vowel or consonant sounds and human emotions, and I’ll explain how choosing words on the basis of not just what they mean but how they sound can help a poet convey his or her feelings in a more subtle, convincing way.

The sound effects I will examine in detail include assonance, consonance, alliteration, anaphora, internal rhyme, and onomatopoeia. These are among the most basic and essential tools that all poets should know how to use. Whether you’re new to poetry or have been at it for years, this workshop will give you something to think about the next time you sit down to write.


Sue Ellen Thompson is the instructor for the upcoming What Sound Effects Can Do for Your Poems workshop at TWC on Sunday 10/9. Sign up for her workshop here.

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Sue Ellen Thompson (www.sueellenthompson.com) 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 National Public Radio by Garrison Keillor, and featured in U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s nationally syndicated newspaper column. She taught at Wesleyan University, Middlebury College, Binghamton University, 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 and will be teaching at the University of Delaware in the spring.

Sue Eisenfeld on the Personal Essay

The first personal essay I ever wrote, in 2003, came out of me all in one sitting, with no warning. As I sat at my computer, my fingers typed a 700-word essay, plying the question of whether or not to have children. It was 13 paragraphs long and 30 sentences. When I finished, I sent it to Editor Bill O’Sullivan at The Washingtonian, and in short time he accepted it for the back page of the magazine.

The week it was published, The New York Times Syndicate contacted me and wanted to syndicate the essay for unlimited use by newspapers and magazines around the globe, for a year.

“Boy, that was easy!” you might say at this point about my maiden writing, submission, and acceptance experience. And, “Your writing career must have been set!”

Let me dispel these myths, gentle reader.

Writing that essay occurred after approximately 10 years of reading the back page essay in The Washingtonian, before I even considered myself a writer, plus reading other similar short personal essay columns on a regular basis. After all those years of absorbing the rhythms and flows of short essays—the structure, the pacing, the mix of scenes and summary, the tight arc of a story—the DNA of this type of essay had, apparently, integrated itself into my subconscious.

Also during the previous 10 years, I had been employed as a writer, working day-in and day-out writing beginnings, middles, and ends for newsletter articles, journal articles, brochures, fact sheets, Web sites, video scripts, white papers, proposals, and other less “creative” and more technical documents. I practiced using words for up to eight hours each day, playing with sentences, crafting transitions, improving the organization of paragraphs—perfecting flow and drama and story.

I was like a carpenter, experimenting with different ways of putting together pieces, learning new techniques, and improving my skill. I didn’t even know it was happening.

In addition, during the previous five years, I had been pondering this topic of pregnancy and parenting. It was a frequent point of discussion between my husband and me as well as between me and my parents. I had been searching for reasons and answers to explain my torn emotions, grappling with societal and familial expectations and whether my future self would disagree with my decision. I wracked my brain for understanding, hoping to unlock within myself the key to the mystery of what shaped me.

My voracious reading, the relentless practice, and my drive for self-discovery all converged one fateful night in the form of this one simple, honest essay, much to my great surprise.

But writing another essay is a whole new mountain to climb. Just because I wrote one that worked did not mean that the very next one to find its way to paper would come as easily or as quickly or would be any good. The slate is new again each time.

Though I’ve since had long and short essays published in many publications (and acquired a large pile of rejection letters too), each of them has only happened as a result of the same parameters that created the first one.

I must meditate on topics for months or years before I can write them, before I have found the interest or passion or angle that is sufficient and important enough to compel my writing. A writer of personal essays must be curious about the world, and her connection to it, and to people, and to what it all means; must continually tap the vein of interest that perplexes and confuses, turn issues around on all angles, and mine her life for the stories and scenes and similes that express the inexpressible emotions of living and being human. The moments of clarity and “brilliance” are few and far between and take time to cultivate.

I must continue to read voraciously the kinds of essays I want to write, in literary journals, books, magazines, and newspapers. Reading is my constant teacher, not only because—like with any experiential, hands-on education—I don’t always know what lessons I am taking home, but also because I must constantly refresh my knowledge of markets—who publishes the kind of work that I like to write?

Above all, I must continue to sit down at the computer each day, doing hard time in front of the blank page—experimenting with language and ideas, revising and throwing out drafts, starting over, putting some things away and reviving others (knowing all the while that much of what I write will be rejected numerous times by the publications I most admire)—and let the combination of forces work their magic.

Sue Eisenfeld is leading the upcoming Personal Essay Workshop at TWC from 10/27-12/8. See the listing and sign up for her workshop here.

*
Sue Eisenfeld has been published twice in The Washingtonian, as well as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Gettysburg Review, Potomac Review, Under the Sun, Virginia Living, Blue Ridge Country, and other publications, and is forthcoming in Hunger Mountain. Her work has been twice listed among the notable essays of the year in The Best American Essays, and she is a two-time Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She holds an M.A. in Writing from The Johns Hopkins University. Her work can be found at: www.sueeisenfeld.com, and she can be reached at earthwords@earthlink.net.

Creating Great Articles for Web and Print with Lee Fleming

Speaking of "great articles," check out the details on Lee Fleming's upcoming workshop:

“Creating Great Articles for Print and Web” is based on the idea that fine writing is fine writing—whether your piece is fiction or nonfiction. The same principles of focus, organization, color, texture and balance should apply as much to blogs and articles as to short stories and novels. In the ideal world, we would astonish readers with our gem-like style and unique insights. But even experienced writers forget to take the time (or just don’t have it) to delve deeper into the elements that take good writing to a higher level. Helping people do this is where I come in.

As a successful freelancer and award-winning editor who has been both side of the writing/editing fence for more than 30 years, I know what sells, what won’t—and why. Giving participants my professional editor’s perspective on story ideas, article organization, blog topic interest and the rest adds another dimension to a workshop exploring publishing’s realities.

How do you begin, if you have never really written articles or blogs before? And how do you take your pieces to another plane, if you’re currently creating articles for print or Web? These questions drive this workshop. It takes nothing for granted, whether you’re a beginner who only writers papers for work, or a seasoned pro looking to brush up your skills or make a transition from one medium to another.

For example, the first session tackles that most persistent of problems, choosing one aspect of a broad subject that will make the best story idea for a particular site or publication. I like to tell participants about a friend who once proposed a history of Latin America to his editor. Luckily for him, the editor responded, “Not Latin America—just Noriega,” and a bestselling book was born. We aim for that in the workshop—breaking an overwhelming topic into facets that can become differently angled stories.

Later sessions touch on timing story pitches and negotiating fees with editors. After all, they’re people, too—grumpy in the morning, harassed by their publishers, but always looking for the killer idea. It’s easy to forget this, thinking of a Web site or print publication in monolithic terms rather than a something put together by people who might not have had a good morning when you call them. So we discuss how to approach editors, even down to what time of day to call someone on a daily versus a weekly, or how long to wait before following up on an e-mailed Web story idea.

And all along, we revisit and refine the basics: how to choose a subject, how to narrow a huge idea so that it becomes a manageable article or blog concept, how to pitch the story, how to organize and balance a piece and make it declare its message with your voice. Henry James, that consummate stylist, once said that style is defined not by what you can do, but by what you can’t—which makes perfect sense: if you shine at dialogue, it may be because you’re weak at describing, and vice versa. We work to discover your stylistic strengths and capitalize on them.

This is a tall order for a relatively short workshop, but somehow, the approach works. Over the years, participants have been published—often for the first time ever—on Web sites such as Slate and ask.com, and in newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Harper’s, The Nation and Washingtonian. They’ve been kind enough to tell me that the workshop helped. Perhaps it will do the same for you.

Lee Fleming is teaching "Great Articles for Web and Print" Mondays at 7:00 P.M., starting October 3. You can register here.

Lee Fleming has been writing, editing, and teaching for more than two decades. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, City Paper, and The Washingtonian, as well as other national newspapers, magazines, and Web sites. A former senior editor at Museum & Arts and Garden Design magazines, and managing editor/editor in chief of Landscape Architecture, Fleming has received a number of fellowships and awards for journalism and fiction.

Writing Dialogue for Actors by Richard Washer

Enough with the "he said-she said." It's time to show--not tell--your story. Playwright and TWC workshop leader Richard Washer on the collaborative experience that is dialogue and playwriting:



Writing Dialogue for Actors
by Richard Washer

Each genre of writing presents its own set of unique challenges for writers. Playwriting is no exception. Some of the basic tools and skills can be gleaned from reading one or more of the plethora of books on playwriting, or by taking workshops where a writer can practice, test, and hone such skills. But playwriting, at the end of the day, is a collaborative craft and as such playwrights write for other interpretive artists. The more a writer understands the craft of these artists, the better the blue print we call a play script is likely to be.

This is hard to convey in a workshop. I provide anecdotes from my experience as a writer, director, and dramaturge to convey a sense of how much an actor or designer can bring to all aspects of a play. While this is helpful, I can see in the eyes of everyone around the table the hunger to experience this. And in these moments I am reminded that the best instruction I received came from watching seasoned and talented actors take my words through the paces of rehearsal, previews, and production. However, as ideal learning experience as this might be, it’s not a practical one. It should come as no surprise that theatres are not likely to spend any of their budgets on helping a new playwright learn.

So, I started to look for a way to bring this experience to my playwriting workshops. I brought in actors for the last meeting of a workshop so that the writers in the group could hear their words performed. But the lack of follow-up always troubled me. There was no time to comment, discuss, or debrief on this experience and focus on lessons learned.

A while back a local high school invited me to offer some playwriting workshops and figuring there was safety in numbers I asked an actor (Hope Lambert) to join me. Hope not only brought her experience of working on new plays in New York, Washington D.C., and National Tours to the workshop, she also articulated and demonstrated the actor’s approach to the craft in a friendly, fun and inviting series of exercises. Watching her I realized that she brought my anecdotes to life and even more importantly, made the writers active participants in the lesson.
Hope and I now offer various presentations of this workshop (one-day or one-weekend seminars, short-term workshops of four to six meetings and longer-term workshops). In all of these the focus is on developing a basic understanding of the actor’s craft and using that knowledge to write dialogue that engages an audience in a story.

If you are new to playwriting or you are frustrated with trying to bring your dialogue and characters to life, this workshop will help you: better understand what the actor looks for in a new script; break out of the habit of TELLING the story and move into showing the story by appealing to the actor’s skills in your writing; have fun in a safe environment trying out some new acting skills and applying them to your plays; and along the way, add to your writing toolbox a deeper knowledge of the collaborative journey you take the instant you put dialogue on paper.

Richard Washer will be leading “Dialogue: A Practical Approach” at The Writer’s Center starting September 27.

Richard Washer, M.F.A., playwright and director. Richard was a co-founder of Charter Theater, a company devoted to developing and producing new plays. His recent productions include Quartet at the Hamner Theater and Getting It produced at the National Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. Richard is the Inaugural Playwright in Residence at First Draft Theater and a workshop leader at The Writer’s Center since 1994.

Freedom and Form in Poetry by Nan Fry

This week on First Person Plural, Tuesday is Fry-day. TGIF? I think so, and you will too after reading below!


Freedom and Form in Poetry
by Nan Fry

Ezra Pound has said that “…some poems have form as a tree has form, some as water poured into a vase.” For years, I preferred the organic form of the tree and saw symmetrical
structures as unnecessarily restricting. Why then am I teaching a workshop entitled
“Poetry Free and Formal”? I have come to realize that the terms “free” and “formal”
are not so much opposites as points on a continuum.

Several years ago, when I attended Westchester University’s Conference on Form and Narrative in Poetry, I told myself and others that I was there for the narrative only. Then I realized that I write riddles and that such poems do indeed have a form, albeit a flexible one, as they use metaphor, imagery, and sometimes paradox to present something familiar in a way that is mysterious. In this case, the form is more a model or a goal, rather than a confining structure. It gives me a direction to go in but does not limit the paths I can choose.

Form can also be liberating. Recently, in “Making It New,” a workshop I just taught at The Writer’s Center, I saw this principle in action. I’d suggested that the participants try a poem modeled on Wallace Stevens’ “Disillusionment of Ten O’clock,” a list of all the things that were not happening in the speaker’s neighborhood at night. One student came in the next week with a poem on the stock exchange—the things it cannot do. I think we were all surprised that she had written so well on something so timely yet seemingly unpoetic. As we discussed her work, she said, “Form is amazing—it gives you permission to do whatever you want.” Later, she said that she had been surprised by what she had written and that she probably couldn’t have done as well if she had approached the subject directly.

That is the delight of poetry—either free or formal—we surprise ourselves and discover our poems as we write them. As Theodore Roethke said, in his wonderful villanelle, “The Waking,” “I learn by going where I have to go.” In “Poetry Free and Formal,” we will explore ways to give our free verse shapeliness and musicality and will experiment with flexible and symmetrical forms that may suggest direction and perhaps open up new possibilities.

Nan Fry will be leading “Poetry Free and Formal” at The Writer’s Center starting September 22.

She is the author of two collections of poetry, Relearning the Dark and Say What I Am Called, a chapbook of riddles she translated from the Anglo-Saxon. She taught in the Academic Studies Department at the Corcoran College of Art + Design for over 20 years. Nan has poems forthcoming in the Delmarva Review and Spillway as well as an essay in the winter issue of Poet Lore. Her work can also be found online in the archives of the Poetry Society of America and of The Rambling Epicure.