Women Writers on the Publishing Journey

Join us this Saturday, June 10, at 2 p.m. for a free panel discussion with six successful writers who met in our classrooms and have continued to support each other in life and work over the last 15 years.

By Kathy Ramsperger

In 2002, I was an aspiring novelist, taking a workshop at The Writer’s Center. Today, I’m the published author of The Shores of Our Souls, which then had another title, characters with no names, and a few chapters that didn’t know where they were leading. A love story with a social justice slant, my soon-to-be-published novel (August 2017, Touchpoint Press) is my answer to the discord and frequent tragedy of a world in conflict. 

I couldn’t have done it alone.

Formed by several women I met in classrooms at The Writer’s Center, my critique group has lasted more than a decade. 

“We met every Thursday for about four years, submitting articles and book chapters for critique, forming enduring friendships. We encouraged each other to keep writing and trying to publish,” says Anne McNulty. “With group encouragement, I wrote a book and then began to write for local magazines, where I found my niche. Without my first critique group, I never would have found the courage to begin my writing career. Thanks to these wonderful women, I can now say ‘I'm a writer.’”

At the beginning, all group members were in transition. Donna Anderson was a former flight attendant. Tami Lewis Brown and Alice Covington were attorneys. Cynthia Campbell was starting her own educational and editing business. Anne was teaching. I was writing and marketing for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent. All of us were straddling the divide of home, work, and creativity. Together, we forged a bridge, then a path to diverse, successful lives full of words.

The Writer’s Center resources offered us much more than support. “I took a creative writing class with Howard Norman (National Book Award nominee) at the University of Maryland,” Donna remembers. “My novel-in-progress Residuum got his attention. I asked for advice, and he told me that his class and others at UM were not sufficient for my level of writing. He suggested I go to The Writer's Center. That was quite the compliment for our old stomping grounds.”

Today, we are far flung, but we still meet to celebrate success in life and writing. Tami, with an M.F.A. from Vermont College, is an award winning children's author with a new contract with Disney. Cynthia went on to edit an award-winning nonfiction book that sparked the interest of three publishers, earned her PhD. and now has a career in adult literacy. When I want inspiration, I think of Donna. She was the adhesive in our group—she's a born storyteller, I know Residuum will someday be on my book shelf. 

Anne is a regional magazine journalist. Alice received her M.F.A and publishes her stories nationally and internationally. Her most recent story was published in The Louisville Review.

Me? I’m a creativity coach, publish nonfiction, and am revising my second novel. 

The Writer’s Center workshops, readings, and critique groups led me and my fiction to where we are today. This special critique group stands out for me; I’ve never found that kind of synergy again.

Cynthia sums it up, “Being part of this writing group contributed greatly to my writing and my confidence. I learned a lot from a great group of writers and friends. They are all my heroes.”

If you’d like to hear more about our journey, we’ll be panelists on June 10 at The Writer’s Center. Come with your questions; we’re thrilled to answer them and to support you.

  

Fantastic Tips & Takeaways from "Tell your Story, Then Write it" Panel

-By Pat Mcnees

We had a great turnout for our panel discussion, Tell Your Story, Then Write It, on October 1. Organizers Ellouise Schoettler and Solveig Eggerz were joined by panelists Dario DiBattista, Jessica Robinson, Len Kruger, and Pat McNees. We’re posting this blog to have the good information from the program available online. Thanks to Pat McNees for compiling these notes, and to all the participants for their contribution.

Panel organizer Ellouise Schoettler, a nationally known storyteller, currently performs two one-woman shows she created about women in the military who served in France during WWI. She has a sign hanging in her office: "Tell your story before someone else does it and gets it wrong."

Panel organizer Solveig Eggerz's process for developing true stories is to tell the story first, then write it--or tell, then develop it, then write it.  Important factors in good storytelling are voice, gesture, and facial expression, which she demonstrated. Solveig uses storytelling as a pre-writing activity in her memoir and personal stories workshops

Len Kruger noted that good storytellers avoid self-aggrandisement and pompous language; likeability is important.  He also observed that nobody wants to hear about a happy wedding.  They want to hear a good story about how a wedding went wrong. 

Many workshop participants value "writing prompts" as a vehicle for summoning memories to create a particular story.

Professional oral storytellers don't memorize their stories, says Ellouise. You want to remember "beats" and actions. She quoted Donald Davis as telling people to think of stories as crossing a creek -- you need to get six stones across the creek. You need to know what's supposed to happen -- what series of actions occur. You don't need to remember all the words. Davis offers workshops and has published two books. For more info go towww.ddavisstoryteller.com/

Panelist Jessica Robinson is founder of Better Said Than Done,  a venue for true-story-telling evenings and good storytelling workshops in Fairfax Virginia. Robinson is also author of a novel, Caged, which was recently published. : She said she finds stories through themes and soul-searching, and being on the lookout for stories. For example, if an important occasion goes wrong, think about how you can turn that into a story.

Dario DiBattista noted that It is okay to use bad language, and storytellers can start a sentence with "and." He also noted the  ways storytellers can use their voices to alter meanings in storytelling, using  “Mary had a little lamb,” to illustrate: MARY had a little lamb, or Mary HAD a little lamb.

Pat McNees uses writing prompts but also encourages her memoir writing students to try to find the names of the people and the stories behind old family photos. These can be particularly helpful if you are trying to collect stories from people who may be shy or inarticulate – whom she interviews at length to get the material to turn into the stories within the story of a memoir. When she is collecting stories from experts, she does NOT (as journalists do) deeply research the subject before an interview; she asks dumb questions (What is an X?) because she wants experts to explain their field in their own language, not assuming that their audience understands the jargon of their field.  

The panelists mentioned several other resources:

• Telling Your Own Stories by Donald Davis (memory prompts and more)
• Writing as a Second Language by Donald Davis. From experience to story to prose. When we talk about language arts in our school, we focus on reading and writing instead of nourishing the whole oral and kinesthetic package that is our spoken language. Davis argues that we must step back into our familiar “first” language―the spoken word―as our creative medium and learn to “translate” into that new foreign language called writing. He argues that talking and writing need not be mutually exclusive in language development.

Kevin Allison's Risk is a podcast of true stories told aloud. 
http://risk-show.com/listen/

Before people try out for that storytelling venue it is helpful to hear the storytelling training seminar available through his website:

https://thestorystudio.org

https://www.udemy.com/intro-to-storytelling-wow-your-crowd/

Panelists recommended Neil Hilburn, who tells stories about mental illness, lightening heavy themes with his self-deprecating sense of humor and willingness to not take himself too seriously. He emphasizes the importance of having a range of emotions. One of his stories, OCD, went viral. You can hear it on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnKZ4pdSU-s

  

Panelists recommended the following books:

• From Plot to Narrative by Elizabeth Ellis (step-by-step process for creating and enhancing stories)
• Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories by Loren Niemi and Elizabeth Ellis. A difficult story can powerfully alter not only he who tells it but also they who hear it.

The Narrative Nonfiction section of Pat MeNees’ website, Writers and Editors, has a partial list of venues for stories told aloud to a live audience:

http://www.writersandeditors.com/narrative_nonfiction_57378.htm#bookmark9c

and another on digital and radio storytelling:

http://www.writersandeditors.com/narrative_nonfiction_57378.htm#bookmark9d

Dario DiBattista leads writing workshops with The Veterans Writing Project. He is editor of a just published anthology Retire the Colors: Veterans & Civilians on Iraq & Afghanistan.

I Want to Smell, Taste, and Feel You (on Paper, Anyway)

Because I'm traveling from western New York today--after a mighty fine weekend of sun, cool weather, and family talk--and have neither the time nor the energy to write a new post, I'm going to repost this oldie but goodie from December 15th of last year. Look for an interview with Washington Post Book World's contributing editor Dennis Drabelle tomorrow.
_________________________

This may be the world's most obvious post.

This may be silly.

This may be lame.

But this needs to be said.

If you don't want to hear this again, stop reading right now.

When you write fiction (or for that matter prose) of ANY kind--YA, "literary," erotica, mystery, thriller, you name it--then readers need to use their 5 senses to get the full picture. I remember reading a piece by Lewis Nordan, and in it he wrote that he goes through each page and makes note of all the places he could add sensuous detail. I remember thinking how much sense his idea made: literally going through your pages just looking for ways to enrich it through the senses. In my opinion, it's the sensuous matter that elevates good writing to great writing.

If I'm going to spend money on a book followed by time reading it, I definitely want the story to sound different than the newspaper, which is heavily weighted by facts. Let's look at an example, from Dennis Lehane's new novel The Given Day (this is the second time I've used this great book, I know, but it's perfectly illustrative). This is how Lehane starts chapter 33 (pg. 559 for those of you who have the book):

Danny met with Ralph Raphelson at the headquarters of the Boston Central Labor Union on the first Thursday in August. Raphelson was so tall he was one of the rare men with a face Danny had to look up into as he shook his hand. Thin as a fingernail, with wispy blond hair racing to depart the steep slope of his skull, he motioned Danny to a chair and took his own behind the desk. Beyond the windows, a hot-soup rain fell from beige clouds and the streets smelled like stewed produce.

Notice how easily this scene provides information that feeds our senses. We get a sense of how tall this Raphelson is in relation to Danny (sight); we get a sense how this man looks; we get a sense of the smell ("like stewed produce"); and we even get a sense of what the rain outside feels like: it's a "hot-soup rain." This is pretty vivid stuff, and it sets up the scene to come really quite well. How great is that? Three senses touched in, what, 60 or 70 words?

Whenever I read a manuscript, I look for this stuff. Word of warning to anyone who ever gives me anything to read!

Now, you don't have to cover all five senses on every page--the uses should always seem organic and not additions for the sake of it--but if you can make your words leap out at the reader and seem true to the experiences YOU certainly feel and see and smell and taste and hear when walking down the street, then you're on to something. Remember this: This is the writer's one real chance to make poetry out of his art, to describe the world surrounding her or him in new ways that make the reader say that's it, yes, that's exactly it.

Try imaging how you'd describe being IN the snowy cold image at the beginning of this post. Those of you who, like me, grew up with lots of snow know exactly what this experience is like. But it's hard to describe it, to get it right for others. Yet that's exactly what motivates me to try.