Finding My Voice

by: Carol Westreich Solomon

The Writer's Center's

2016 Undiscovered Voices Fellow

Seven years ago, on the first day of my retirement from teaching, I sat on my patio with
a glass of wine and began to write creatively after a 40-year hiatus. What I started that day
evolved into a self-indulgent teaching memoir revisiting my professional life. Though valuable
as a spiritual transition to my new life, my teaching memoir had an audience of one—me. I
wanted to write for a wider audience, but my creative skills had rusted, and the writing world
around me had changed.

I first ventured into creative writing instruction at the DCJCC Writing Retreat under the
direction of Michelle Brafman and Faye Moskowitz, both of whom provided tremendous
encouragement and pointed, constructive suggestions. Later I joined the DCJCC Writing
Workshop, in which participants critiqued each other’s work in three-hour sessions, but soon
the limitations of 900-1000 words read aloud chafed. I could craft three or four pages that
worked, but what about the structural issues of a full story or even a novel? Three of us in the
workshop created our own separate writers group focusing on longer works, and I thrived with
the critical commentary of my colleagues, producing a couple short stories that were published
in print and online.

However, after years of working with the same writing group, I needed a fresh critical
audience to identify different areas of concern in my work. A friend suggested The
Writer's Center, and I enrolled in Aaron Hamburger’s novel writing class. His detailed criticism
of a large chunk of my YA novel provided valuable feedback, as did the commentary of
classmates. As a result of substantial edits, my self-published YA novel Imagining Katherine earned a 2016 Notable Book Award by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

In Fall 2016, when I learned The Writer's Center, had named me an Undiscovered Voices Fellow, I was thrilled! With unlimited financial support to enroll in workshops, I knew my writing could continue to grow rapidly. I decided to focus on short fiction, taking John Morris’ workshop “Writing Short Stories,” Julie Wakeman-Linn’s “Write Off the Map,” and her extended workshop “Fiction II.” I also did literary cross-training with the dramatic format in Richard Washer’s single-session playwriting classes. John and Julie’s comprehensive written feedback, offered with encouragement and tact, led me to question assumptions about my writing and modify techniques.

One year later I have finished Echoes of Love, a compilation of short stories, many
written or substantially edited during the past year. But just as important, my teachers at The Writer's Center, as well as Michelle Brafman and Faye Moskowitz, have taught me
how to marry passion with technique. Now I’m ready to find a wider audience for my work.
Thanks, Julie, John, Richard, and the fabulous Writer's Center!

Announcing our 2017 Undiscovered Voices Fellow: Julia Tagliere!

by: B. Rae Perryman

The Writer's Center is pleased to announce our
Undiscovered Voices Fellowship
winner for 2017:

Julia Tagliere

Each year, The Writer's Center awards a Washington, DC area writer earning less than $25,000 per year with this exclusive fellowship. We believe that writers of all backgrounds and experiences should have an opportunity to devote the time and energy toward their craft. Of the many qualified applicants, this year's winner was Julia Tagliere, who submitted a short story that wow-ed our judges.

Ms. Tagliere is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Writer, The Bookends Review, Potomac Review, and Hay & Forage Grower (yes, that’s a thing), as well as in several anthologies, including Here in the Middle: Stories of Love, Loss, and Connection from the Ones Sandwiched in between; Candlesticks and Daggers—An Anthology of Mixed Genre Mysteries; the juried photography and prose collection Love + Lust; and The Way to My Heart: An Anthology of Food-Related Romance. Her short story, “Te Absolvo,” was named Best Short Story in the 2015 William Faulkner Literary Competition. Julia currently resides in Maryland with her family, where she recently completed her M.A. in Fiction Writing at Johns Hopkins University. To learn more, visit her at justscribbling.com.  

Our Development & Community Outreach manager, Bethany Perryman, caught up with Ms. Tagliere. 

Read her exclusive interview below:

Bethany: First of all, congratulations on winning our Undiscovered Voices prize for 2017! We are so excited for you to be a part of our prestigious cadre of writers and literature lovers. Your short story was selected by judges as the best of many qualified candidates. How does it feel?

Julia: I'm incredibly honored and excited to see what the year ahead will bring. 

BP: You've also won other prizes for your short stories. Can you tell us what you think makes a great short story? 

JT: As a writer, there's no way to answer that without sounding like far more of an expert than I consider myself to be at this point in my writing--I mean, if there is a formula, I'd certainly love to learn it. As a reader, however, I find that the stories I most appreciate, first and foremost, move me in a way that lingers long after I've finished reading. It could be a really well-developed character, an unexpected twist in the narrative, lush imagery or rich, vivid language; in the best stories, all of those elements are present.  

BP: I'm personally curious: What's your process when you begin a new story? Do they come to you in a flash or inspiration, or...?

JT: Flash implies a much speedier process than what I normally experience. Sometimes the inspiration comes from an image or a feeling, a face I see, maybe something I see on the news. That thing, whatever it is, gets stuck in my mind like a grain of sand in an oyster, and I find myself coming back to it over and over again, worrying at it. It either drives me crazy, or it starts to grow and take shape into what I think might be a workable piece--usually both, if I'm being totally honest. 

BP: What are your plans for your next year at The Writer's Center? Any books or stories in the works?

JT: I have a novel in progress I've been twiddling away at for a while now, and I'm planning to use this next year with TWC to finally complete it. 

BP: What's the biggest setback you've encountered in your writing career? How do you deal with it?

JT: My biggest setback was probably being rejected repeatedly by a particular M.A. program some years back. It really stung for a while, to keep applying and keep being rejected. But I understand now that I wasn't prepared at that time--I had a lot of growing I needed to do as a writer to be ready for a program of that nature. I dealt with it by spending the next several years after my third and final rejection doing a lot of reading, independent studying, and connecting with other writers to try to reach a point where I felt comfortable applying again. 

BP: What's your favorite type of writing to do, and why? Tell us a little more about what turns your gears.

JT: I used to think I preferred writing novels, but since I've been working more in shorter forms lately (short stories, flash), I must confess, I enjoy the greater frequency of those moments of gratification that come from actually completing a story. Those moments take so long to arrive when writing a novel; it's easy to become discouraged. 

BP: Any last words of advice for students at the Center and other aspiring or emerging authors? What about for writers who are hoping to enter contests and fellowships? What's your secret, besides great work?!

JT: Writing can be a very lonely business, if you let it be. Step away from your keyboard for a while and engage with other writers. Take classes, attend conferences, engage with folks online via social media, form a writing group of your own, support local writers in their endeavors. Those connections not only can sustain you when you get down in the dumps about a given work-in-progress--and you will--but they can also help you learn about opportunities that will contribute to your growth as a writer. That's what it's all about, isn't it? 

For more information about the Undiscovered Voices Fellowship, please contact Bethany at b@writer.org.

Undiscovered Voices Fellowship: Call for Submissions.

I noted this call for submissions last week, but here I'm going to post the whole thing. This is a busy week at The Writer's Center. We're doing the final prep on our fall workshops and events, and fine-tuning our workshop brochure. If you'd like to learn more about the first recipient of the Undiscovered Voices Fellowship, click here.
 
The Writer’s Center seeks promising writers earning less than $25,000 annually to apply for our Undiscovered Voices Fellowship.  This fellowship program will provide complimentary writing workshops to the selected applicant for a period of one year, but not to exceed 8 workshops in that year.  We expect the selected fellow will use the year to make progress toward a completed manuscript of publishable work.  
 

The Writer’s Center believes writers of all backgrounds and experiences should have an opportunity to devote time and energy toward the perfection of their craft. 

The selected fellow will be able to attend writing workshops offered by The Writer’s Center free of charge.  In addition, the fellow will give a reading from his or her work at the close of the fellowship period (June 2011) and will be invited to speak with local high school students on the craft of writing.

To apply, candidates should submit 

a)       a cover letter signed by the candidate that contains the statement: “I understand and confirm I meet all eligibility requirements of the Undiscovered Voices Fellowship.”  The cover letter should include information on the impact this fellowship would have on the candidate.

b)      contact information for two references who can speak to the candidate’s creative work and promise

c)       a work sample in a single genre:

·         8 pages of poetry, no more than one poem per page

·         10 pages of fiction, double-spaced, no more than 1 work or excerpt

·         10 pages of nonfiction (essay, memoir, etc), double-spaced, no more than 1 work or excerpt

OR

·         15 pages of a script or screenplay

These items should be sent in hard copy to The Writer’s Center, Attn: Undiscovered Voices Fellowship, 4508 Walsh St, Bethesda MD 20815.  The deadline is July 1, 2010.

To learn more 

Mark Twain and Two Calls for Submissions

You may have seen the discussion of Mark Twain's autobiography at The Writer's Center's Facebook page yesterday, or not. Either way, here's some information on what amounts to an incredible thing: 100 years following his death, Twain's autobiography will see the light of day. Why stipulate the 100-year wait? We'll soon find out! Learn more about this book here.

Though we've not yet announced the winners of the Fall 2010 Emerging Writer Fellowships (we're down to the finalists which the EWF will select from next week), we're ready to announce our Spring 2011 call for Emerging Writer submissions. You can learn more about that here.

And don't forget, we're still accepting submissions (until July 1) for our Undiscovered Voices Fellowship. Learn more about those fellowships--where you can take up to 8 free workshops a year--right here.

The Writer's Center Announces Undiscovered Voices Fellowship Recipient

The Writer’s Center is pleased to announce that Susan Bucci Mockler is the first recipient of its inaugural—and already highly competitive—Undiscovered Voices Fellowship. In this initiative, The Writer’s Center provides a one-year-long fellowship to a promising writer earning less than $25,000 annually. At a time when economic challenges make it difficult for many writers to pursue their literary goals, The Writer’s Center’s Undiscovered Voices Fellowship aims to provide that extra professional boost for talented writers like Bucci Mockler.

A mother of three, Bucci Mockler is a poet and writing instructor at Marymount University in Arlington, VA and a substitute teacher. For the last 20 years, she has honed her craft—while taking several workshops at The Writer’s Center—and her poems have been published in literary journals such as Sow's Ear Poetry Review, The Cortland Review, The Paterson Literary Review, Poet Lore, and The Innisfree Poetry Journal. Bucci Mockler is eager to get to work. “This fellowship will provide the atmosphere to write more and better poetry,” she says. “I will be challenged and motivated by the workshop leaders, other students in the workshops, and the feedback they give. To me, being around people who are taking their writing seriously is a tremendous inspiration.”

With her Undiscovered Voices Fellowship, Bucci Mockler will receive complimentary writing workshops for a period of one year. During the course of the year, she hopes to use The Writer’s Center’s workshops as a “place to be inspired, motivated, and pushed to write and revise with the goal of publishing a book of poetry.” In addition to receiving free workshops at The Writer’s Center, Susan Bucci Mockler will give a reading from her work at the close of the fellowship period (June 2010), and she will be invited to speak with local high school students on the craft of writing.

Here is a sample of her work, from her poem “Black Schist”:

When I saw the emptiness of that screen—
the blackness not pulsing, no life or breath
in it, I fell backward into someone else’s body.
The doctor said there were just membranes,
That sometimes the baby does not grow.
When I heard those words, I knew that the place
in me where you had been was already turning
to stone—shale and slate compressing
layer by layer over time.

Stanley Plumly, a workshop leader at The Writer’s Center and Maryland’s new poet laureate, says that her work “speaks with precision and defining understatement in poems that honor their archetypes as well as their strict language.”

Sarah Antine, a Writer’s Center member, was part of the selection committee for the fellowship. “Bucci Mockler’s poems are alive with sensory detail and emotional impact,” she says. “The music reverberates within the walls of each poem’s structure and story. Her voice holds out a hand and pulls the reader into her work.”

Other members of the selection committee for the 2009/10 Undiscovered Voices Fellowship included workshop leaders Peter Brown, Virginia Hartman, Adam Meyer, Cara Seitchek, and Gina Hagler; board member Sandra Beasley; and member Karla Araujo.

Undiscovered Voices Fellowship: Call for Applications

Dear Readers,

The Writer's Center is pleased to announce the following initiative. Please feel free to share it with others.

The Writer’s Center seeks promising writers earning less than $25,000 annually to apply for our Undiscovered Voices Fellowship. This fellowship program will provide complimentary writing workshops to the selected applicant for a period of one year, but not to exceed 8 workshops in that year. We expect the selected fellow will use the year to make progress toward a completed manuscript of publishable work.

The Writer’s Center believes writers of all backgrounds and experiences should have an opportunity to devote time and energy toward the perfection of their craft.

The selected fellow will be able to attend writing workshops offered by The Writer’s Center free of charge. In addition, the fellow will give a reading from his or her work at the close of the fellowship period (June 2010) and will be invited to speak with local high school students on the craft of writing.

To apply, candidates should submit
a) a cover letter signed by the candidate that contains the statement: “I understand and confirm I meet all eligibility requirements of the Undiscovered Voices Fellowship.” The cover letter should include information on the impact this fellowship would have on the candidate.
b) contact information for two references who can speak to the candidate’s creative work and promise
c) a work sample in a single genre:
• 8 pages of poetry, no more than one poem per page
• 10 pages of fiction, double-spaced, no more than 1 work or excerpt
• 10 pages of nonfiction (essay, memoir, etc), double-spaced, no more than 1 work or excerpt
OR
• 15 pages of a script or screenplay

These items should be sent in hard copy to The Writer’s Center, Attn: Undiscovered Voices Fellowship, 4508 Walsh St, Bethesda MD 20815. The deadline is September 15, 2009.