Openings – How Do You Know How and Where to Begin?
with Bren McClain
March 27th 9- 12 Noon
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How we open our stories is absolutely critical. It teaches readers what’s important, what to pay attention to. Plus, it sets their expectations right off the bat about what this story is about, the scope and who is telling it – along with giving the reader the roadmap to start the story.
We’ll look at some openings from published novels and talk about the expectations they set and what we can learn from each one. We’ll also look at some of your openings, if you’re willing to share. I invite you to bring your first two pages. Oh, your story doesn’t get good until page 10?
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Cost $50
Writing in Scenes
with Bren McClain
March 27th 1-4 PM
Scenes are the building blocks of stories. Readers want to be set down inside the world you are creating, want to experience this world through their senses. I think of it as turning a drinking glass upside down on the moment and holding it still so it can unfold for the reader.
Scenes are moments, isolated, fully explored slowed down moments – vs. flying over in summary, which robs the reader of the full experience of unfolding.
In this class, we’ll examine a few published scenes to study what the writer is doing on the page. And then, we’ll turn our attention to your work with the goal of applying what you’ve learned. So, come with either an idea for a story – or something you’ve already written.
Cost: $50
So You Want to Write
with George Weinstein
and Kim Conrey
March 27th 1-4 PM
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Award-winning authors and Atlanta Writers Club officers Kim Conrey and George Weinstein will help you focus on what you want to write, why you want to write it, and how. They'll give you ways to overcome any obstacles impeding your progress, develop writing discipline and commitment, and come to grips with the process and mechanics of writing and editing.
By the end of this workshop, you'll have a plan for achieving your writing goals.
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Cost $50
Poetry in Two Parts!
With Jennifer Horne
March 27th 1-4 PM
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PART ONE: GIVING CHARACTERS A VOICE:
USING FIRST PERSON IN POETRY AND SHORT FICTION
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Some of the most memorable American writing has been written in the first-person voice: “Call me Ishmael.” “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” “My mother is a fish.” “I've known rivers: / I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. /My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
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Using examples from her own and others’ work, Horne will discuss using first-person narrators—the advantages and the potential pitfalls. Participants will have the chance to do exercises in first-person writing and brainstorming and will leave the workshop with a better understanding of how and when the first-person works and with ideas for going forward with a story or poem of their own.
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PART TWO: "WRITE WHAT YOU'VE LEARNED"
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Ernest Hemingway famously said, “Write what you know.” Most take this to mean that you should write about your family, where you grew up, went to school, and so on. But even Hemingway did a lot of writing about things that he consciously, intentionally, learned and experienced: what it was like to be in World War I, to be on safari, to go deep-sea fishing.
This workshop will teach you how to make use of bodies of knowledge that you have acquired to enrich your poetry or short prose, using particular experiences or a specialized body of knowledge as subject matter, as a language trove, as a source of metaphor, and as a way of increasing the specificity of your writing
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Cost $50
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