Workshops & Events
From Blog to Book
Friday, May 24th, 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Many successful memoirs these days find their roots in the authors' personal blogs. But turning a blog into a book is not as simple as taking a collection of blog posts and moving them straight to the page. In this seminar we'll explore, through lecture and discussion, how to use your personal blog as a springboard for a memoir: finding the arc of your story, developing your narrative (vs. blogging) voice, and converting blog posts into scenes. We'll also touch briefly on how to use your blog to build your publishing platform.
- Instructor: Jane Roper
Jane Roper is the author of a memoir, Double Time: How I Survived– and Mostly Thrived– Through the First Three Years of Mothering Twins and a novel, Eden Lake. She received her MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and her writing has appeared on Salon, Babble, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus and elsewhere. Jane lives in the Boston area with her husband and twin daughters.
There are 5 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Get Published: The 800 Word Essay
Saturday, May 25th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In this one-day course, we'll look at the art of writing the 800-word essay. From op-eds, to personal essays, to the New York Times' "Modern Love" column, the modern essay is the best way to get your stories out into mainstream media. This class will include discussion of the art of the idea, practical guidelines, when a piece is a situation and not a story, and how to arrive at the right idea for this medium. By the end of the workshop, you will come away with a workable draft for your ideal essay.
- Instructor: Jennifer Mattson
Jennifer Mattson is a former producer for NPR's nationally syndicated program "The Connection" and worked as an editor for National Public Radio. She spent over six years as a producer for CNN, where she was responsible for CNN's daily live newscasts and producing CNN's international coverage. Jennifer came to CNN to work in the Washington bureau's political unit during the 1996 U.S. presidential election. She later moved to Atlanta, where she worked first as a writer and then as a newscast producer at CNN International. Prior to joining CNN, Jennifer worked as a reporter based in Budapest, Hungary covering Eastern Europe, where she reported on a number of regional stories for USA TODAY including a piece on George Soros and the Clinton-Yeltsin CSCE Summit. She has also reported, most recently, from Asia. Her work has appeared in TheAtlantic.com, USA TODAY, The Boston Globe, The Women's Review of Books, AsianCorrespondent.com, Tablettalk.com and CNN.com. She is the former Managing Editor of AsiaSociety.org. Follow her on Twitter at @jennifermattson
Sorry, this class is sold out. Please click here to be put on a waiting list.
Flash Fiction Marathon
Saturday, May 25th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
The market for flash fiction is booming, and this seminar is perfect for any writer ready to crank out some new short-short stories. At the end of the day, you’ll walk away with a brand new assortment of stories, each created through writing exercises designed to unleash your flash fiction genius. The seminar will also feature discussion of published flash fiction—which we’ll draw inspiration from—as well as quick, on-the-spot feedback on your own work.
- Instructor: Matthew Salesses
Matthew Salesses is the author of I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying (Civil Coping Mechanisms, Feb 2013), The Last Repatriate (Nouvella), and the chapbooks, Our Island of Epidemics (PANK) and We Will Take What We Can Get (Publishing Genius). His fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Witness, American Short Fiction, The Literary Review, West Branch, and over fifty other journals and anthologies. He is the recipient of awards and fellowships from Glimmer Train, Mid-American Review, HTMLGIANT, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Emerson College, the University of New Orleans, and IMPAC. Currently, he serves as the Fiction Editor and a Contributing Writer for the Good Men Project. On the web, he is matthewsalesses.com and @salesses.
There are 2 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95.00 register as a non-member $115.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
The Nonfiction Essentials Series: Effective Beginnings
Saturday, May 25th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In any story you need to capture the reader with the first page, on the first paragraph, in the first line. How do you do that? Not every story can lead with a natural disaster or a steamy affair. In this intensive, we’ll talk about the ways you convey mood, tone, and narrative voice in the opening lines. We’ll look at your story and see whether you are seeding the drama to come, where your sentences can be tightened, how you can do more to hook the reader. We’ll also talk more broadly about the work the first pages must accomplish in establishing the narrative arc, introducing themes, and framing the story so that readers continue turning the pages, even if the drama isn’t life or death.
- Instructor: Michelle Seaton
Michelle Seaton has been an instructor with Grub Street since 2000, teaching such classes as 6 Weeks-6 Essays, Tour of the Essay, and Master Narrative Nonfiction. She is also the lead instructor and created the curriculum for Grub Street's Memoir Project, a program that offers free memoir classes to senior citizens in Boston neighborhoods. The project has visited ten Boston neighborhoods and produced three anthologies. Twenty-two participants on Nantucket have also completed a Memoir Project class, and that anthology is forthcoming. Seaton’s nonfiction work has been published in Bostonia, Yankee, Robb Report and The Pinch. Her essay, “How to Work a Locker Room” appeared in the 2009 edition of Best American Nonrequired Reading. It is based on her experience covering the National Hockey League for National Public Radio's Only a Game, a program for which she has been a frequent contributor for 14 years. For the show, she has reported on topics ranging from asthma camp to professional wrestling to bird watching. Her fiction has appeared in the Sycamore Review and Quiddity International Journal. She is the coauthor of The Way of Boys (William Morrow, 2009). Her other book projects include The Cardiac Recovery Handbook, coauthored with Dr. Paul Kligfield, Medical Director of Cardiology at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center of the New York Presbyterian Hospital.
There are 7 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95.00 register as a non-member $115.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Provoking Thought: Writing a Nonfiction Book of Ideas
Thursday, May 30th, 6:30-9:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Nonfiction books about science, medicine, parenting, psychology, architecture, culture, technology, and politics are all books of ideas and require a different approach than fiction or narrative nonfiction. Fortunately, there's a big market for these book: all you need is a great idea--and a great proposal. In this seminar, you'll learn everything you need to know to market your book of ideas to an agent or publisher. We'll pay special attention to the single most important factor in selling your book: the framing. You'll learn about the state of the nonfiction publishing industry, what editors are looking for, what readers are looking for, how to find the best agent for your project, how to craft a winning proposal, and how to come up with the most effective framing for your book. We'll analyze successful and failed books of ideas published in the past few years (especially science books), giving special attention to the different styles of Malcolm Gladwell (author of Outliers) and Steven Pinker (author of Blank Slate). In addition, we'll discuss how ebooks are changing the industry and opening new opportunities for unpublished nonfiction authors. The class will consist of lecture and highly interactive discussion with plenty of opportunities to ask questions during and after class.
- Instructor: Ogi Ogas
Dr. Ogi Ogas received his PhD in computational neuroscience from Boston University and was a Department of Homeland Security Fellow. His writing has been published in the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Wired, and Seed Magazine. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker called his first nonfiction book, A Billion Wicked Thoughts, "a goldmine." His next book, A Billion Angry Brains, (Dutton, 2013) explores the misunderstood emotion of anger. He's presently collaborating with the president of the American Psychiatric Association on a popular book about contemporary psychiatry. He writes the Billion Wicked Thoughts blog for Psychology Today. He also used his knowledge of cognition to reach the million dollar question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and battle Ken Jennings in the finals of Grand Slam. For more information on Ogi, visit www.billionwickedthoughts.com.
There are 4 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Making Images
Thursday, May 30th, 6:30-9:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
What makes an image fresh, vivid, astonishing, memorable? What makes an image at all? In the first half of this seminar we'll take a hard look at some surprising and dazzling images in poetry and fiction to articulate a working definition of the image, to observe the choices involved in the making of great images, and to develop a list of image-driven strategies. In the seminar's second half we'll perform some exercises to practice and implement these strategies, and to rethink how we construct images in our own work. Participants are expected to bring an image that they would like to revise, which they'll work on and have the opportunity to share at the seminar's end.
- Instructor: Scott Challener
Scott Challener teaches writing in Boston University’s Writing Program and Metropolitan College and Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies, and volunteers for 826 Boston. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Narrative Magazine, The Rumpus, Mississippi Review, and elsewhere. His reviews of five past National Book Award winners appeared recently on the National Book Awards Foundation website. He lives in the Fort Point Channel area of South Boston.
There are 8 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
How to Create An Irresistible Narrator
Thursday, May 30th, 6:30-9:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Many a short story, novel, and memoir have gone unpublished because the author fails to create a strong narrator, one who can act as a wise and entertaining guide to the reader. In this class, we'll examine the work of Ford, Salinger, Austen and others -- and try an in-class exercise -- in an effort to make sure your next narrator isn't just strong, but irresistible.
- Instructor: Steve Almond
Steve Almond is the author of seven books of fiction and non-fiction, most recently the story collection God Bless America. Learn more at stevealmondjoy.com.
There are 10 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
The Nonfiction Essentials Series: Interviews and Observed Details
Friday, May 31st, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
At some point in your career as a memoirist or essayist, you do need to mine more than your memory; you need to venture from your writing desk and into the world to discover new territories and new information. For some people, this means interviewing relatives about sensitive family information or historical events. For others, it means observing a public scene or event or participating in an experience while taking notes like a reporter. In this workshop, we’ll work on two bedrock skills that reporters need to master in order to write complex pieces. The first is interviewing. We’ll talk about how to find experts to interview, the etiquette of interviewing, and the methods of capturing information accurately. The second skill is the ability to describe a place or a moment that’s unfolding in front of you. We’ll discuss and practice ways to include telling details and overheard dialog. We’ll look at some texts in which writers have used reporting and discuss how this information has enhanced each narrative. You’ll leave with some ideas for doing your own interviewing and reporting as a way of creating or strengthening your essays.
- Instructor: Michelle Seaton
- Michelle Seaton has been an instructor with Grub Street since 2000, teaching such classes as 6 Weeks-6 Essays, Tour of the Essay, and Master Narrative Nonfiction. She is also the lead instructor and created the curriculum for Grub Street's Memoir Project, a program that offers free memoir classes to senior citizens in Boston neighborhoods. The project has visited ten Boston neighborhoods and produced three anthologies. Twenty-two participants on Nantucket have also completed a Memoir Project class, and that anthology is forthcoming. Seaton’s nonfiction work has been published in Bostonia, Yankee, Robb Report and The Pinch. Her essay, “How to Work a Locker Room” appeared in the 2009 edition of Best American Nonrequired Reading. It is based on her experience covering the National Hockey League for National Public Radio's Only a Game, a program for which she has been a frequent contributor for 14 years. For the show, she has reported on topics ranging from asthma camp to professional wrestling to bird watching. Her fiction has appeared in the Sycamore Review and Quiddity International Journal. She is the coauthor of The Way of Boys (William Morrow, 2009). Her other book projects include The Cardiac Recovery Handbook, coauthored with Dr. Paul Kligfield, Medical Director of Cardiology at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center of the New York Presbyterian Hospital.
There are 6 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95.00 register as a non-member $115.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Writing and Pitching the Op-Ed
Saturday, June 1st, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Get your op-ed out of your head and into the headlines! You have ideas and opinions about Middle East foreign policy or parenting trends; you feel strongly about health care reform or Red Sox reform; or you have a poignant story about your or your parents' experience with the health care system (or the Red Sox). Whatever the topic, in this seminar you'll learn the basics for writing and submitting the standard 600- to 900-word op-ed column. Via lecture, discussion of great examples from op-eds, short exercises, and Q&A, we'll show you how to 1) recognize and find great, timely, marketable topics for your op-eds that editors want; 2) how to leverage your personal experience and expertise; 3) where to publish your op-eds; and 4) how to pitch them to newspapers, magazines, online publications, and blogs. We'll look at exemplary pitch letters and go over standard protocol for working with editors. For any writers with an axe to grind or strong opinions who are looking for practical tips to get their op-eds into the marketplace.
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 10 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95.00 register as a non-member $115.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Happy Neurons: Writing Sensory Detail That's Truly Sensory
Saturday, June 1st, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
A recent article in the New York Times outlined the ways in which the reading mind responds to sensory detail in written language: neurons trace more or less the same paths they would when reacting to actual sense-impressions. In case anybody needed convincing, here is scientific evidence to back up the idea that creative writing is greatly enhanced by rich description and evocative word choices. But getting to this level of writing doesn’t necessarily come naturally. How can you create a sensuous linguistic landscape in every essay, story, or chapter―one that will keep your readers’ neurons jumping? In this weekend intensive we’ll do close readings of inspirational examples of rich sensory description and do in-class exercises. We’ll discuss the dampening effect of cilches and predictable phrasing, as well as the value of idiosyncratic or slightly unexpected turns of phrase. In-class exercises will help us identify less than exciting descriptive techniques and possible ways to replace them with more vivid, distinctive, and memorable language.
- Instructor: Kim Adrian
Kim Adrian's short stories, essays, and memoir excerpts have appeared in Tin House, Gettysburg Review, Agni, Raritan, Crazyhorse, New England Review, /nor, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a P.E.N. New England Discovery Award, an Artist's Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Editor's Prize in Nonfiction from the New Ohio Review, as well as residencies at the Edward Albee Barn, Ragdale, and the VCCA. She teaches creative writing at Grub Street, reads nonfiction for Agni magazine, and serves on the admissions board for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her essay, "Questionnaire for My Grandfather" will appear in the upcoming anthology YOU: Essays in the Second Person (Welcome Table Press, 2012). Currently, she is at work on a book-length memoir. More at kimadrian.com.
Kim is the founder of Thumbtack, a website production company for authors.
There are 7 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95.00 register as a non-member $115.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, June 4th, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
Scenes and Dialogue in Nonfiction
Thursday, June 6th, 6:00-9:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Writers often struggle with the best and most efficient way to use scenes in essays and memoir. How many scenes is too many? How much description is necessary? Using examples from both essay and memoir, we'll look at effective use of scenes and micro-scenes in creative nonfiction. We'll discuss the differences between direct and indirect dialogue and do some exercises to get you generating scenes that generate emotional resonance in your work.
- Instructor: Michelle Seaton
- Michelle Seaton has been an instructor with Grub Street since 2000, teaching such classes as 6 Weeks-6 Essays, Tour of the Essay, and Master Narrative Nonfiction. She is also the lead instructor and created the curriculum for Grub Street's Memoir Project, a program that offers free memoir classes to senior citizens in Boston neighborhoods. The project has visited ten Boston neighborhoods and produced three anthologies. Twenty-two participants on Nantucket have also completed a Memoir Project class, and that anthology is forthcoming. Seaton’s nonfiction work has been published in Bostonia, Yankee, Robb Report and The Pinch. Her essay, “How to Work a Locker Room” appeared in the 2009 edition of Best American Nonrequired Reading. It is based on her experience covering the National Hockey League for National Public Radio's Only a Game, a program for which she has been a frequent contributor for 14 years. For the show, she has reported on topics ranging from asthma camp to professional wrestling to bird watching. Her fiction has appeared in the Sycamore Review and Quiddity International Journal. She is the coauthor of The Way of Boys (William Morrow, 2009). Her other book projects include The Cardiac Recovery Handbook, coauthored with Dr. Paul Kligfield, Medical Director of Cardiology at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center of the New York Presbyterian Hospital.
There are 9 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
How to Make Your Characters Snap, Crackle & Pop!
Thursday, June 6th, 6:30-9:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Ever read (or write) a story where the hero or heroine just doesn't seem to pop? I have. Like a thousand times. In this intensive (but fun-filled!) seminar, we'll look at why some characters leap off the page, while others just sit there. We'll discuss the perils of passivity, the allure of action, and look at examples of both from writers way more talented than the instructor. We'll also do an in-class exercise to bring the lesson home.
- Instructor: Steve Almond
- Steve Almond is the author of seven books of fiction and non-fiction, most recently the story collection God Bless America. Learn more at stevealmondjoy.com.
There are 8 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Dealing with the Dilemmas of Memoir Writing
Saturday, June 8th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
The art and craft of writing memoir is full of pitfalls. In this workshop, we'll examine some of the memoirist's unique challenges, such as: how to create a character out of oneself; how to create characters out of loved ones; how to keep your memoir separate from the sort of emotional work best done in a therapist’s office; how to handle issues of shaping, structure, chronology, and plot when your material is “real life”; how to negotiate the fine line between fabrication, or lying, and writing an honest but engaging nonfiction narrative; how to prevent your memoir from turning into a "me-moir"; how to provide anonymity to certain characters or events as needed; and, perhaps most important of all, how to cultivate an attitude of mature retrospection that's capable of transforming personal memory and experience into a rewarding narrative journey for your readers. This one-day intensive will include an overview of useful terms and concepts in memoir-writing, in-class readings (of both memoirs and texts about writing memoir), discussion, and in-class exercises designed to illuminate potential solutions to some of your own memoir-writing challenges. Please bring a brief synopsis (up to 300 words) of your memoir project, which may be either in progress or in the planning/exploration stage.
- Instructor: Kim Adrian
- Kim Adrian's short stories, essays, and memoir excerpts have appeared in Tin House, Gettysburg Review, Agni, Raritan, Crazyhorse, New England Review, /nor, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a P.E.N. New England Discovery Award, an Artist's Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Editor's Prize in Nonfiction from the New Ohio Review, as well as residencies at the Edward Albee Barn, Ragdale, and the VCCA. She teaches creative writing at Grub Street, reads nonfiction for Agni magazine, and serves on the admissions board for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her essay, "Questionnaire for My Grandfather" will appear in the upcoming anthology YOU: Essays in the Second Person (Welcome Table Press, 2012). Currently, she is at work on a book-length memoir. More at kimadrian.com.
Kim is the founder of Thumbtack, a website production company for authors.
Sorry, this class is sold out. Please click here to be put on a waiting list.
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, June 11th, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
Micro-Editing
Thursday, June 13th, 6:00-9:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Before an editor evaluates your manuscript’s themes, plot, characters, or voice, he or she judges its sentences. The best way to impress any reader is to write clear and efficient prose. Good sentence-level editing can increase the pace, enhance the description, and deepen the mood of your work. In short, it can make your writing more compelling. In this workshop, we will take apart and reassemble sentences and paragraphs from both fiction and nonfiction drafts. You will learn to read like an editor, to question every word and remove abstraction in order to take your writing to the next level.
- Instructor: Michelle Seaton
- Michelle Seaton has been an instructor with Grub Street since 2000, teaching such classes as 6 Weeks-6 Essays, Tour of the Essay, and Master Narrative Nonfiction. She is also the lead instructor and created the curriculum for Grub Street's Memoir Project, a program that offers free memoir classes to senior citizens in Boston neighborhoods. The project has visited ten Boston neighborhoods and produced three anthologies. Twenty-two participants on Nantucket have also completed a Memoir Project class, and that anthology is forthcoming. Seaton’s nonfiction work has been published in Bostonia, Yankee, Robb Report and The Pinch. Her essay, “How to Work a Locker Room” appeared in the 2009 edition of Best American Nonrequired Reading. It is based on her experience covering the National Hockey League for National Public Radio's Only a Game, a program for which she has been a frequent contributor for 14 years. For the show, she has reported on topics ranging from asthma camp to professional wrestling to bird watching. Her fiction has appeared in the Sycamore Review and Quiddity International Journal. She is the coauthor of The Way of Boys (William Morrow, 2009). Her other book projects include The Cardiac Recovery Handbook, coauthored with Dr. Paul Kligfield, Medical Director of Cardiology at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center of the New York Presbyterian Hospital.
There are 9 seats remaining in this class.
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Swinging Singles: The Art of the Single Scene Story
Thursday, June 13th, 6:30-9:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
The ultimate challenge for any story writer is how to pack the maximum pathos and humor into the minimum space. We'll look at the work of masters such as Tobias Wolff, Carolyn Forche, and others to figure out how a single, sustained scene can prove even more dramatically satisfying than stories that leap around. Bonus: awesome in-class exercise included!
- Instructor: Steve Almond
- Steve Almond is the author of seven books of fiction and non-fiction, most recently the story collection God Bless America. Learn more at stevealmondjoy.com.
There are 14 seats remaining in this class.
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Kickstart Your Writing Mojo with A Random Exercise
Saturday, June 15th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Write a story in 100 words or less. Write an essay as it it were captions to a personal museum exhibit. Write a poem as an instructional manual. Without fail, arbitrary exercises like these refresh your writing mojo and force you to produce unexpected, shimmering work in a voice or style you never thought you could pull off. In this 6 hour writing workshop, the instructor will throw at the class a series of 15 to 30 minute, in-class writing exercises -- prose (both fiction or nonfiction), as well as a fun poem or two. The idea? To get you to try as many modes and voices as possible, using arbitrary rules and emulating writers we love. There will be minimal sharing, but no workshopping. You'll leave the workshop with new energy and excitement about your work, having generated a series of starts on a variety of projects.
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 4 seats remaining in this class.
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Prose with a Pulse: Techniques to Energize Your Work
Saturday, June 15th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Have you ever noticed how really good writing seems almost alive on the page? Have you sometimes sensed this kind of vitality in your own work, but been unsure how it got there, not to mention how you might reliably access this quality on a regular basis? In this class we'll use close readings to identify where and why the energy in a given piece of writing might rally or flag by examining issues of voice, authenticity, word choice, and sense of audience. We’ll discuss strategies for developing a clear feeling of purpose for any piece of writing, which is so essential to creating vital and engaging prose. In-class exercises and some soul searching about what drives us to write in the first place will round out the day’s activities. Please bring (and be prepared to share) a 3-4 page excerpt of your own writing to class, preferably one in which in which you detect—even if just faintly—that feeling of aliveness on the page.
- Instructor: Kim Adrian
- Kim Adrian's short stories, essays, and memoir excerpts have appeared in Tin House, Gettysburg Review, Agni, Raritan, Crazyhorse, New England Review, /nor, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a P.E.N. New England Discovery Award, an Artist's Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Editor's Prize in Nonfiction from the New Ohio Review, as well as residencies at the Edward Albee Barn, Ragdale, and the VCCA. She teaches creative writing at Grub Street, reads nonfiction for Agni magazine, and serves on the admissions board for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her essay, "Questionnaire for My Grandfather" will appear in the upcoming anthology YOU: Essays in the Second Person (Welcome Table Press, 2012). Currently, she is at work on a book-length memoir. More at kimadrian.com.
Kim is the founder of Thumbtack, a website production company for authors.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
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"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, June 18th, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
The Little People: Developing Minor Characters in Fiction and Memoir
Tuesday, June 18th, from 6:30-9:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
The greatest novelists in the English language—Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Herman Melville, Henry James, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald—gave them voices and cameos that make them hard to forget. They are the prophets and idiots, shepherds and choristers, financiers and secretaries, golfers and grandfathers of the short story and the novel. Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, George Orwell, E. B. White, and, more recently, Malcolm Gladwell made use of them, too, in their nonfiction, in an effort to give smaller but still significant moments and bizarre social patterns their due. And contemporary authors J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, and John le Carré have traded in the circus of obscurity and oddity which minor characters can provide. This seminar will ask you to examine the usual suspects of your stories (from fiction and from life), and start holding auditions for some new parts—the third-grade nerd with bad dandruff, the great aunt who never stops talking, the intellectual postman, the poker-playing nurse, and the pet ferret who ruled your days though he never said a word (think Sredni Vashtar). This workshop will ask you to give minor characters in your own writing their moment in the spotlight, whether that means being seen, or seeing the action. We will place the microscope on them; we will let them talk in monologues and in dialogues; we will construct their back stories; and most importantly, we will pay attention to their perspective on the main characters of your story or memoir. The aim will be to get you thinking about the ‘little people’ who already populate your consciousness, and to give them a larger life on the page.
This seminar will serve intermediate and advanced writers of literary fiction and creative nonfiction who are interested in broadening their subject matter, breaking “type,” and deepening realism in their narrative world. Come with a list of your favorite minor characters, if you have some, and in addition to the lecture, we will do a number of point-of-view and memory-jogging exercises toward generating a bunch of new voices/perspectives/figures for you to explore in your future writing.
- Instructor: Nicole Miller
Nicole Miller has published both fiction and non-fiction in the US and the UK, with two appearances in the May Anthology of Short Stories, edited by Jill Paton Walsh and Sebastian Faulks. After completing an M.Phil in English Literature at Oxford, she worked at The New Yorker and The Oxford English Dictionary, where she still serves as a scholarly reader for the department of etymology, with a specialty in British Dialects. At Emerson College, she held the Emerson Graduate Fellowship in Creative Writing for three years, gaining her MFA in 2012. She was also awarded a PhD in Victorian Literature from University College, London in 2012 and publishes criticism on the works of Charles Dickens. She has taught in the Harvard College Writing Center since 2010 and edits faculty manuscripts for Harvard’s English Department. Her interests span the novel, short story, essay, and memoir form and the translation of Modern Greek poetry. Nicole is thrilled to share her love of words, literature, story-writing, and life-writing with the students of Grub Street this winter.
There are 5 seats remaining in this class.
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Eye of the Beholder: Crafting Character through Description
Tuesday, June 18th, 6:00-9:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
He sees the remote and a Pats fleece thrown over an overstuffed recliner. She sees a worn easy chair, a busted seam revealing yellowed foam, and a sagging leg. They're headed for trouble. Intended for beginning or intermediate fiction and nonfiction writers, this seminar focuses on using description in a selective manner to develop characterization. No prior work is necessary. During the seminar, we’ll read a few examples, from fiction and nonfiction, to see how writers use description to develop character. Then we’ll spend some time writing, working with prompts. There will be some time to share and discuss the work you produce in class and to receive some feedback, though you won’t be required to share. Writers will take away some techniques for manipulating description to shape character.
- Instructor: Kim Freeman
Kim Freeman, author of Love American Style: Divorce and the American Novel 1881-1976, writes fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and literary criticism. She has published in The Long River Review, The Grub Street Free Press, New England Fiction’s Meeting House, The Bicycle Review, The Bare Root Review, and Prick of the Spindle, among other journals. Currently she teaches writing at Northeastern University, where is Interim Director of Advanced Writing in the Disciplines. She lives in Somerville. She also teaches yoga at O2 in Somerville and Boston.
There are 8 seats remaining in this class.
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Steal, Borrow, Channel: How Emulating Other Voices Can Energize Your Own Work
Wednesday, June 19th, 6:00-9:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Stealing -- OK, channeling or borrowing -- the style and tone and rhythm of prose writers we love can be like speed for writers. Inhabiting their voices and taking them out for a test drive can also be a fantastic way to get you out of your head and "un-stuck yourself" if you feel trapped in or bored by your writing moves. In this workshop, we'll examine exemplary "voice-y" passages by established writers -- from Geoff Dyer to Virginia Woolf, Jess Walter to Jamaica Kincaid, Keith Richards to Bill Bryson. Then, in a series of lightning-fast in-class exercises (with minimal sharing), we'll emulate these writers. Voila! You've broken out of your old patterns and tired voice and tried on some new ones for size. Students can apply these exercise to both fiction and nonfiction, depending on their interests. You'll exit the class with several beginnings to new essays or stories, and hopefully new and energizing voices bouncing around in your head to try out in future work. Feel free to come with a passage or chunk of writing that for you feel dull or stuck.
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 10 seats remaining in this class.
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How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book: Section B
Saturday, June 22nd, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Books often start with a simple yearning to explore new territory: fascinating topics, characters who won’t leave you alone, a good story. But manuscripts get unwieldy, fast. Nine out of ten writers never finish their manuscripts because most first-time book writers get lost without good structure and planning. Mary Carroll Moore, award-winning author of 13 books in three genres and a PEN/Faulkner nominee, will guide you through a simple and successful book-writing process that can take your book from idea to publication, a process using a three-act structure that eases organization and makes a manuscript vivid and engaging to readers. Find out why Aristotle believed that three acts formed a perfect structure for all stories, why humans lean toward beginning, middle, and end, and why we crave the emotional catharsis of that format in literature too. For all levels of writers working on nonfiction, memoir, or novels, at any stage from seed idea to draft. Learn why strong structuring is the key to selling a book in today's competitive publishing industry.
- Instructor: Mary Carroll Moore
Mary Carroll Moore’s twelve published books include the PEN/Faulkner nominated novel Qualities of Light (Bella Books); How to Master Change in Your Life: Sixty-seven Ways to Handle Life’s Toughest Moments (Eckankar Books); Cholesterol Cures (Rodale Press), and the award-winning Healthy Cooking (Ortho Publications). Your Book Starts Here: Create, Craft, and Sell Your First Novel, Memoir, or Nonfiction Book, based on her How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book writing workshops, will be released in fall 2010. A former nationally syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, over 300 of Mary’s essays, short stories, articles, and poetry have appeared in literary journals, magazines, and newspapers around the U.S. and have won awards with the McKnight Awards for Creative Prose, Glimmer Train Press, the Loft Mentor Series, and other writing competitions. She teaches creative writing in New York, Boston, New Hampshire, and Minnesota and writes a weekly blog for book writers at http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com.
There are 3 seats remaining in this class.
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Writing Dialogue
Saturday, June 22nd, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Writing dialogue can be one of the most difficult and significant tasks a writer faces. The techniques a writer learns along the way may prepare them for every kind of prose, but when faced with dialogue, the writer is lost. How do you create dialogue that feels and sounds real, yet also works to communicate your story? This workshop is designed for playwrights, screenwriters, novelists, and short fiction writers interested in writing crisp, realistic-sounding dialogue. We will study several great scenes from films, plays, and fiction to break down what makes the dialogue so effective.
Topics explored will include creating subtext, hiding exposition, working with slang, and how to get the characters in your head speaking with a voice of their own. You will learn how to break down a scene into beats and intentions, and approach the scene as an actor would. Most importantly, during the workshop portion, we will act out your dialogue so you may hear it the way dialogue is meant to be heard -- out loud. The first half of the class will be spent discussing techniques for creating effective dialogue. During the second session, students will use what they have learned to write a dialogue scene and receive peer and instructor feedback.
- Instructor: Mark Fogarty
Mark Fogarty is the president and Co-founder of the Rhode Island Film Collaborative (RIFC), a non-profit created to help local filmmakers find resources in the Ocean State. The RIFC has more than 1,900 members and has been involved in the production of dozens of films. For more information, visit www.rifcfilms.com. Mark started Exile Movies in 2003 and has worked as a director of photography and editor on feature-length and short films. Mark recently directed the feature-length epic, smalltown, from his screenplay. You can find out more about the film at www.smalltownmovie.com. As an actor, Mark has been in dozens of films and uses his knowledge of acting to inform his writing. Mark graduated from Emerson College with a degree in filmmaking, and works as a freelance editor and writer.
There are 8 seats remaining in this class.
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Moments of Being: Capturing Consciousness in Your Writing
Saturday, June 22nd, 10:30am-5:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
"The moment was all. The moment was enough," Virginia Woolf wrote in The Waves, bringing everything down to the pocket-sized glory of appreciating a single fine point of experience. Woolf was a master of the moment, and this seminar asks you to concentrate on this smallest of units in your writing and inhabit it. The moment can take the form of a thought, a dream, a fantasy, an epiphany, an observation, or a philosophical, religious, or scientific meditation that begins with a second and stretches out to form what Woolf called "a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope" over a series of pages. We will treat the moment both as an end in itself and as a way to illuminate your characters' outer or inner landscapes. The aim of this class is to give "the life of the mind"—reflection, realization, memory, mirage, wonder, or faith—a place to expand in your writing. The class is appropriate for all kinds of creative writers, from novelists who want to get into the heads of their protagonists, to memoirists who need to spend time contemplating a particular event, to essayists who wish to unravel a twist, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.
This class will divided into part lecture, with analysis and discussion of writing by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Eudora Welty, Frank Conroy, and Ethan Canin, and part workshop, in which you will experiment with moments, turning points, and consciousness to produce new scenes and passages.
- Instructor: Nicole Miller
- Nicole Miller has published both fiction and non-fiction in the US and the UK, with two appearances in the May Anthology of Short Stories, edited by Jill Paton Walsh and Sebastian Faulks. After completing an M.Phil in English Literature at Oxford, she worked at The New Yorker and The Oxford English Dictionary, where she still serves as a scholarly reader for the department of etymology, with a specialty in British Dialects. At Emerson College, she held the Emerson Graduate Fellowship in Creative Writing for three years, gaining her MFA in 2012. She was also awarded a PhD in Victorian Literature from University College, London in 2012 and publishes criticism on the works of Charles Dickens. She has taught in the Harvard College Writing Center since 2010 and edits faculty manuscripts for Harvard’s English Department. Her interests span the novel, short story, essay, and memoir form and the translation of Modern Greek poetry. Nicole is thrilled to share her love of words, literature, story-writing, and life-writing with the students of Grub Street this winter.
There are 8 seats remaining in this class.
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Creative Non-Fiction I: Section B
10 Mondays from 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters. Begins June 24th.
Tired of workshopping the same stories? Can't come up with new plots and characters? All writers go through this, but here’s a way to shake up your writing world. In this always-sold-out workshop, you will write both brand-new complete stories ranging from 300 to 1500 words or brand-new beginnings of longer stories. Each week, you'll be given a different exercise to explore an interesting and tighter way to write plot, character, setting, and language; you will get quick on-the-spot feedback on what you write from both the instructor and fellow students. Classes may also include some discussion of published short shorts and/or elements of craft. The goal is to leave the class with new beginnings, a few complete short-shorts, and at least one revised piece to submit for publication. Recommended for students who’ve taken Fiction I or an equivalent.
- Instructor: Trish Ryan
Trish Ryan is the author of two memoirs, A Maze of Grace: A Memoir of Second Chances (Hachette 2010) and He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After (Hachette 2008). This fall she will be an Evelyn Danzig Haas ’39 Visiting Artist at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. Trish lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband Steve and their genetically improbable mixed-breed dog. You can visit Trish online at www.trishryanonline.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
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The Lyric Essay
Monday-Thursday, 10:30am-1:30pm from June 24th-27th at Grub Street headquarters.
The personal essay is currently enjoying an exciting renaissance. Suddenly, everyone seems attuned to the apparently limitless possibilities of creative nonfiction. One of the great champions of the personal essay, John D’Agata, along with the late Deborah Tall, former editor of the Seneca Review, came up with the term “Lyric Essay” to describe a specific type of personal essay that expresses an almost jubilant sense of freedom as it moves between genres, often borrowing the condensed language and associative explorations of poetry, the plot-driven narrative force of fiction, and the love of facts and careful scrutiny that have always been the hallmarks of classic nonfiction. In this workshop, we will read some stellar examples of the Lyric Essay, discuss the merits and pitfalls of writing in this more experimental mode, and create our own lyric essays, finishing with a review of publication venues that embrace this unique and exciting hybrid form.
- Instructor: Kim Adrian
- Kim Adrian's short stories, essays, and memoir excerpts have appeared in Tin House, Gettysburg Review, Agni, Raritan, Crazyhorse, New England Review, /nor, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a P.E.N. New England Discovery Award, an Artist's Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Editor's Prize in Nonfiction from the New Ohio Review, as well as residencies at the Edward Albee Barn, Ragdale, and the VCCA. She teaches creative writing at Grub Street, reads nonfiction for Agni magazine, and serves on the admissions board for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her essay, "Questionnaire for My Grandfather" will appear in the upcoming anthology YOU: Essays in the Second Person (Welcome Table Press, 2012). Currently, she is at work on a book-length memoir. More at kimadrian.com.
Kim is the founder of Thumbtack, a website production company for authors.
There are 10 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $185.00 register as a non-member $205.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Jumpstart Your Memoir
6 Mondays from 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters. Begins June 24th.
One of our most popular courses has a very clear mission: to get you started on your memoir. Through a series of fun directed writing exercises, we will explore the terrain of memoir writing: mining for material, constructing characters and settings, shaping vivid dialogue, understanding point of view, and finding your voice. We will discuss the process of writing and the strengths and weaknesses of the work we produce in class. We may read and discuss some short published texts in regards to craft, then write exercises inspired by the texts. A supportive and generative experience for both new and practicing writers.
- Instructor: Michelle Seaton
- Michelle Seaton has been an instructor with Grub Street since 2000, teaching such classes as 6 Weeks-6 Essays, Tour of the Essay, and Master Narrative Nonfiction. She is also the lead instructor and created the curriculum for Grub Street's Memoir Project, a program that offers free memoir classes to senior citizens in Boston neighborhoods. The project has visited ten Boston neighborhoods and produced three anthologies. Twenty-two participants on Nantucket have also completed a Memoir Project class, and that anthology is forthcoming. Seaton’s nonfiction work has been published in Bostonia, Yankee, Robb Report and The Pinch. Her essay, “How to Work a Locker Room” appeared in the 2009 edition of Best American Nonrequired Reading. It is based on her experience covering the National Hockey League for National Public Radio's Only a Game, a program for which she has been a frequent contributor for 14 years. For the show, she has reported on topics ranging from asthma camp to professional wrestling to bird watching. Her fiction has appeared in the Sycamore Review and Quiddity International Journal. She is the coauthor of The Way of Boys (William Morrow, 2009). Her other book projects include The Cardiac Recovery Handbook, coauthored with Dr. Paul Kligfield, Medical Director of Cardiology at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center of the New York Presbyterian Hospital.
There are 11 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $280.00 register as a non-member $305.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, June 25th, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
Jumpstart Your Writing: Section A
6 Tuesdays from 6:00-9:00pm at Grub Street headquarters. Begins June 25th.
This course has a very clear mission: devote three hours of your week to writing. Through a series of fun directed writing exercises, we will explore the terrain of fiction and non-fiction: mining for material, constructing characters and settings, shaping vivid dialogue, understanding point of view, and finding your voice. We will discuss the process of writing and the strengths and weaknesses of the work we produce in class. We may read and discuss some short published texts in regards to craft, then write exercises inspired by the texts. A supportive and generative experience for both new and practicing writers. Note that this is not a course in the fundamentals of fiction and non-fiction, but an opportunity for beginners and advanced students to generate new stories and scenes.
- Instructor: Nadine Kenney Johnstone
Nadine Kenney Johnstone teaches at Framingham State University, Dean College, and Grub Street Inc. She received her MFA from Columbia College Chicago and recently completed her novel, DISTANCE. Currently, she is at work on a memoir about facing death while on her quest to create life through IVF. Nadine has been published in Pank, The Drum, Chicago magazine, and Hair Trigger, among other publications. She has worked in all aspects of writing: as a literary magazine editor, reporter, fiction contest judge, story performer, and creative writing instructor. Find her writing advice at Beyond The Margins, The Review Review, and at Grub Street Daily. A Chicago native and Massachusetts transplant, Nadine spends her free time exploring the outdoors with her husband and their dog. Follow her at http://www.facebook.com/NadineKenneyJohnstone or on Twitter @nadinekenney.
There are 11 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $280.00 register as a non-member $305.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Creative Non-Fiction I: Section A
10 Tuesdays from 6:30-9:30pm at Grub Street headquarters. Begins June 25th.
This course is an introduction to the craft of writing compelling creative non-fiction, with a focus on the memoir and personal essay genre. Topics discussed include voice, detail, perspective, and use of language. By the end of ten weeks, you will practice your writing style, learn the process of workshopping what you’ve written, and maybe even look at the world around you differently. Each student will workshop at least two manuscripts up to fifteen pages each. In the meantime, you’ll examine and discuss published personal essay to strengthen and hone your writing skills. This class is ideal for novice writers or more experienced writers looking to dive into a new genre.
- Instructor: Christopher Boginski
Christopher Boginski is a graduate from the MFA program at the University of Washington, where he taught creative writing and English as a second language and where he was a research assistant for David Shields. He lives in Jamaica Plain and is in the process of finalizing his first novel, The Etymologist, the story of a man reinventing himself during his impending divorce and deep fear of losing the one thing he still loves, teaching. He is also working on a collection of personal essays, What it Means to be Known, exploring memory loss and identity. To learn more, visit cjboginski.com and click on “Creative Writing.”
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $430.00 register as a non-member $455.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Master Memoir
10 Wednesdays from 6:00-9:00pm at Grub Street headquarters. Begins June 26th.
A ten-week workshop intended for writers who want to think seriously about memoir in the context of framing, structure, and how the relationship between the two clarifies or obscures the writer's intentions. We’ll work with prompts, exercises and strategies for revision to help participants see their memoirs in a new light. Each student will be expected to present a new or revised piece for workshop each week. While new writing is encouraged, interested writers should consider this an opportunity to work through problems that have arisen with an existing manuscript. Students should expect to generate a good amount of new writing during the workshop. Please bring the first two pages of your memoir to the first class. The class cost is $555 for non-members, $530 for members.
Apply via the form below or through this link by 12:00pm on Wednesday, June 12th. You will hear from the reading committee by Monday, June 17th.
- Instructor: Howie Axelrod
Howie Axelrod has been the recipient of a Michael C. Rockefeller fellowship, and has been awarded residencies in non-fiction or poetry from the Blue Mountain Center, the Ucross Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Hambidge Center, and the Anderson Center. His non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and Harvard Magazine, and his fiction has appeared in The Moral Intelligence of Children (Random House) and 25 and Under: Fiction (Norton/DoubleTake). He has held teaching positions at Harvard, University of Arizona, and Wentworth Institute of Technology.
Jumpstart Your Writing: Section B
6 Wednesdays from 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters. Begins June 26th.
This course has a very clear mission: devote three hours of your week to writing. Through a series of fun directed writing exercises, we will explore the terrain of fiction and non-fiction: mining for material, constructing characters and settings, shaping vivid dialogue, understanding point of view, and finding your voice. We will discuss the process of writing and the strengths and weaknesses of the work we produce in class. We may read and discuss some short published texts in regards to craft, then write exercises inspired by the texts. A supportive and generative experience for both new and practicing writers. Note that this is not a course in the fundamentals of fiction and non-fiction, but an opportunity for beginners and advanced students to generate new stories and scenes.
- Instructor: Shuchi Saraswat
Shuchi Saraswat received her MFA from Emerson College, where she primarily worked on a novel. She is the recipient of The 2012 Gulliver Travel Research Grant from The Speculative Literature Foundation and has received fellowships to Writers Omi at Ledig House and The Writers' Room of Boston and scholarships to Tin House Summer Writers' Workshop and Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. While at Emerson, Shuchi served as the nonfiction editor and then the fiction editor at Fringe Magazine, and worked as an editorial assistant in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's adult trade division. She currently helps manage the fiction section and hosts author readings at Brookline Booksmith.
There are 11 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $280.00 register as a non-member $305.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Writing with Style
Friday, June 28th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
What's your writing style and how do you improve it? What makes Michael Ondaatje or George Saunders or Barry Hannah a stylist? Using examples from fiction and nonfiction, we will work out how (and when and why) to add music to your sentences. Students should bring with them the first page of a new story or essay. We will address issues of style in part through micro-editing: choosing the right verbs, using common words in new ways, cutting out unnecessary words and phrases, adding precision and specificity, and looking at how word order can transform a sentence. We'll also borrow poetic techniques, paying attention to the rhythm and cadence of a sentence, to meter and stressed syllables, and to the persona, or attitude, of the narrator. We will do a few in-class exercises and share some feedback on those pieces. You will leave with a cheat sheet of handy techniques that you can try in your own work.
- Instructor: Matthew Salesses
- Matthew Salesses is the author of I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying (Civil Coping Mechanisms, Feb 2013), The Last Repatriate (Nouvella), and the chapbooks, Our Island of Epidemics (PANK) and We Will Take What We Can Get (Publishing Genius). His fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Witness, American Short Fiction, The Literary Review, West Branch, and over fifty other journals and anthologies. He is the recipient of awards and fellowships from Glimmer Train, Mid-American Review, HTMLGIANT, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Emerson College, the University of New Orleans, and IMPAC. Currently, he serves as the Fiction Editor and a Contributing Writer for the Good Men Project. On the web, he is matthewsalesses.com and @salesses.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Intro to Magazine Writing
Friday, June 28th, 2:30pm-5:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Have you always wanted to write for magazines, but don’t know where to start? In this one-night seminar, we’ll cover how to come up with ideas for great magazine articles, what types of stories magazines are looking for, how to pitch your ideas to editors, and how to power through rejection. By the end of the night, you’ll have starts on three solid pitches and ideas on what magazines you might be able to sell them to. Students should bring a copy of at least one magazine they want to write for to class with them.
- Instructor: Calvin Hennick
Calvin Hennick’s nonfiction and journalism have appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, The Boston Phoenix, Runner’s World, Eating Well, Budget Travel, and Teacher magazine, among other publications. He has taught writing at UMass – Boston and in New York City’s public schools.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Narrative Flair in Memoir
Saturday, June 29th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
It seems that everyone is writing a memoir these days. But what will set yours apart from the others? Agents and editors are looking for memoirs that possess the narrative flair of fiction. In this class, we’ll read excerpts of successful memoirs and learn how to turn our own recollections into riveting reads. Come to class with a list of five memoir scenes you hope to create or write better. During the second half of class, we’ll develop one of those scenes through a guided visualization exercise and in-class writing time. You’ll leave with a newly written passage and a plan for how to turn your other memoir moments into tantalizing tales.
- Instructor: Nadine Kenney Johnstone
- Nadine Kenney Johnstone teaches at Framingham State University, Dean College, and Grub Street Inc. She received her MFA from Columbia College Chicago and recently completed her novel, DISTANCE. Currently, she is at work on a memoir about facing death while on her quest to create life through IVF. Nadine has been published in Pank, The Drum, Chicago magazine, and Hair Trigger, among other publications. She has worked in all aspects of writing: as a literary magazine editor, reporter, fiction contest judge, story performer, and creative writing instructor. Find her writing advice at Beyond The Margins, The Review Review, and at Grub Street Daily. A Chicago native and Massachusetts transplant, Nadine spends her free time exploring the outdoors with her husband and their dog. Follow her at http://www.facebook.com/NadineKenneyJohnstone or on Twitter @nadinekenney.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Writing and Pitching the Op-Ed
Saturday, June 29th, 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Get your op-ed out of your head and into the headlines! You have ideas and opinions about Middle East foreign policy or parenting trends; you feel strongly about health care reform or Red Sox reform; or you have a poignant story about your or your parents' experience with the health care system (or the Red Sox). Whatever the topic, in this seminar you'll learn the basics for writing and submitting the standard 600- to 900-word op-ed column. Via lecture, discussion of great examples from op-eds, short exercises, and Q&A, we'll show you how to 1) recognize and find great, timely, marketable topics for your op-eds that editors want; 2) how to leverage your personal experience and expertise; 3) where to publish your op-eds; and 4) how to pitch them to newspapers, magazines, online publications, and blogs. We'll look at exemplary pitch letters and go over standard protocol for working with editors. For any writers with an axe to grind or strong opinions who are looking for practical tips to get their op-eds into the marketplace.
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Finding Your Book
6 Sundays from 6:30-9:30pm at Grub Street headquarters. Begins June 30th.
Go on a six-week journey with literary agent Joanne Wyckoff of the Carol Mann Agency to “find your book” and start crafting a book proposal. Perhaps you have a number of essays that you think might be the beginnings of a book. Or you’ve written chapters of a memoir or nonfiction narrative. Or perhaps you’ve written a long article and are wondering if it can be expanded into a book. Through class discussion and sharing of manuscript material, students will explore their book idea to figure out if their concept or storyline is workable. The aim of the class is to help students find their book before embarking on writing a book proposal. We'll also discuss the importance of doing market research to determine the uniqueness of a book idea or storyline, as well as developing an author profile or platform. By the end of class, it is my hope that all students will have a workable synopsis/overview of their book and the beginnings of chapter-by-chapter summaries. This is a course that focuses on narrative nonfiction and memoir. The course is part lecture and part workshop. Students who wish to take this class should have taken writing classes before and should feel comfortable reading and critiquing other students’ work. Led by an instructor who has worked extensively as both a literary agent and an editor.
- Instructor: Joanne Wyckoff
Joanne Wyckoff is an agent with the Carol Mann Agency. Prior to joining CMA, she was an agent with Zachary Shuster Harmsworth. Before becoming an agent, Joanne worked as Senior Editor at Ballantine Books/Random House, and as Executive Editor at Beacon Press. As an agent, Joanne represents nonfiction and selected fiction. She has a particular love of the memoir and narrative nonfiction and is always looking for exciting new writing in these genres. She has a lot of experience working with academics and experts in diverse fields, helping them develop and write books for a broad market. Her nonfiction list includes books in psychology, women’s issues, education, health and wellness, self-help, natural history and anything about animals, religion and spirituality, and African-American issues.
There are 10 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $280.00 register as a non-member $305.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, July 2nd, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
Memoir Writers’ Summer Retreat
Monday-Thursday, 2:30-5:30pm from July 8th-11th at Grub Street headquarters.
This summer, go on a writing retreat—without leaving Boston! Monday through Wednesday, we’ll begin with writing exercises that focus on different craft aspects of memoir writing-- for example, character development, setting, shaping scenes, etc. Then we write. Typing (or scribbling) is less lonely when you do it together! The instructor will provide prompts to help keep you moving through generating memoir draft, as well as periodic breaks for stretching and inspiration. Bring whatever you need to work quietly—a laptop, headphones for music, the photo that keeps you centered. Wednesday afternoon we’ll break into small groups to share and workshop. Guidance will be provided on how to workshop such early stage work in a way that emphasizes creative inquiry, never critique—then we’ll use this feedback to deepen our work at the start of our last day together. We’ll conclude the week with a class reading, sharing and celebrating our new work, and each class member will articulate and commit to a plan for future work on his or her memoir.
- Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is writing a book of combined family memoir and literary journalism about a Louisiana murder, in support of which she has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation, as well as a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She earned her MFA at Emerson College and her JD at Harvard Law School. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Oxford American, Fourth Genre, TriQuarterly Online, Bellingham Review (as the winner of the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction), and elsewhere, and her fiction appears in Southeast Review and Minnetonka Review. She teaches creative writing at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, and at Grub Street. Visit her online at www.alexandria-marzano-lesnevich.com.
There are 6 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $185.00 register as a non-member $205.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, July 9th, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
Writing Social Justice
Friday, July 12th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
To change the world, first you've got to make people care. In this one-day class, we'll explore how writers have used the power of storytelling to give life to social justice issues in both fiction and nonfiction. What goes into such a narrative? What gets left out? And what strategies do writers use in researching and shaping their work? We'll look at published examples and do writing exercises to help you identify issues you're passionate about and get you started on the path of turning them into story. The instructor will also provide a list of suggested further reading in multiple genres and on multiple issues.
- Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
- Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is writing a book of combined family memoir and literary journalism about a Louisiana murder, in support of which she has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation, as well as a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She earned her MFA at Emerson College and her JD at Harvard Law School. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Oxford American, Fourth Genre, TriQuarterly Online, Bellingham Review (as the winner of the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction), and elsewhere, and her fiction appears in Southeast Review and Minnetonka Review. She teaches creative writing at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, and at Grub Street. Visit her online at www.alexandria-marzano-lesnevich.com.
There are 10 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Writing Killer Pitch Letters
Saturday, July 13th, 2:30pm-5:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In this seminar, via lecture, discussion of packet materials, short exercises, and Q&A, you will learn how to write killer pitch letters (a.k.a. “query letters”) for submitting short-form nonfiction (essays, op-eds, articles, and feature stories) to editors of mainstream and trade magazines, newspapers, literary magazines, blogs, and online publications; we'll also discuss how to write pitch letters for submitting nonfiction book proposals to agents and editors. By examining pitch letters that actually worked, we'll go over different strategies for making sure your idea is sharp, focused, original, and targeted, and how to express your idea in a well-crafted pitch letter. We'll also go over the top mistakes writers make when pitching editors and agents. Even if you don't have much publishing experience, we'll talk about how to leverage your background and expertise to best present yourself. Sorry, there won't be time to critique your pitch letters or stories themselves, but we will do in-class exercises to help you fine-tune your pitch letter skills. Please bring questions about communicating with editors and agents, and any questions or problems about any pitch letters you're currently working on. For anyone looking to learn how to pitch their nonfiction projects and get them out into the marketplace. (NOTE: This seminar is NOT about submitting poems, short stories, novels, children's or YA lit, screenplays, or literary nonfiction to literary magazines.)
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, July 16th, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
6 Weeks, 6 Essays
6 Thursdays from 6:00-9:00pm at Grub Street headquarters. Begins July 18th.
Sometimes the smallest moment--or the shortest essay--holds the greatest revelation. In this class you will write six personal essays between 500 and 1000 words. You’ll generate a lot of material, refine your editing skills, explore challenges in style and voice, and take a fresh look at your life experience. By working in a shorter format, you’ll also find ways to tighten your prose and heighten your storytelling skills. Each week you will bring a finished essay into class for presentation and discussion. There will also be brief discussions of published essays provided by the instructor. This course is geared towards intermediate and advanced students.
- Instructor: Christopher Boginski
- Christopher Boginski is a graduate from the MFA program at the University of Washington, where he taught creative writing and English as a second language and where he was a research assistant for David Shields. He lives in Jamaica Plain and is in the process of finalizing his first novel, The Etymologist, the story of a man reinventing himself during his impending divorce and deep fear of losing the one thing he still loves, teaching. He is also working on a collection of personal essays, What it Means to be Known, exploring memory loss and identity. To learn more, visit cjboginski.com and click on “Creative Writing.”
There are 10 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $280.00 register as a non-member $305.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Essentials of Nonfiction: Scenes & Dialogue in Nonfiction
Saturday, July 20th, 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Writers often struggle with the best and most efficient way to use scenes in essays and memoir. How many scenes is too many? How much description is necessary? Using examples from both essay and memoir, we'll look at effective use of scenes and micro-scenes in creative nonfiction. We'll discuss the differences between direct and indirect dialogue and do some exercises to get you generating scenes that generate emotional resonance in your work.
- Instructor: Michelle Seaton
- Michelle Seaton has been an instructor with Grub Street since 2000, teaching such classes as 6 Weeks-6 Essays, Tour of the Essay, and Master Narrative Nonfiction. She is also the lead instructor and created the curriculum for Grub Street's Memoir Project, a program that offers free memoir classes to senior citizens in Boston neighborhoods. The project has visited ten Boston neighborhoods and produced three anthologies. Twenty-two participants on Nantucket have also completed a Memoir Project class, and that anthology is forthcoming. Seaton’s nonfiction work has been published in Bostonia, Yankee, Robb Report and The Pinch. Her essay, “How to Work a Locker Room” appeared in the 2009 edition of Best American Nonrequired Reading. It is based on her experience covering the National Hockey League for National Public Radio's Only a Game, a program for which she has been a frequent contributor for 14 years. For the show, she has reported on topics ranging from asthma camp to professional wrestling to bird watching. Her fiction has appeared in the Sycamore Review and Quiddity International Journal. She is the coauthor of The Way of Boys (William Morrow, 2009). Her other book projects include The Cardiac Recovery Handbook, coauthored with Dr. Paul Kligfield, Medical Director of Cardiology at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center of the New York Presbyterian Hospital.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, July 23rd, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
The Lie That Tells The Truth
Friday, July 26th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
A personal essay comprised of scenes that never happened. A memoir narrated by someone other than the writer. Perhaps the most controversial question about creative nonfiction is, just how much are you allowed to make up? We’ve all heard about the hoaxes and James Freys of the world, but what about the writers who use artful lying to explore deeper truths? In this class, we’ll examine how judicious use of lying might actually increase the truth-telling stakes of your work—without sacrificing your nonfiction cred. We’ll look at how different writers have signaled the reader that what she’s about to read is not strictly nonfictional, from the subtle phrase “I imagine” to using the title of a piece to undermine any veridical claims. Come with a nonfiction project in mind, whether essay or book, and together we’ll explore how to open up that work in ways you never imagined—by using what comes from the imagination.
- Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
- Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is writing a book of combined family memoir and literary journalism about a Louisiana murder, in support of which she has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation, as well as a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She earned her MFA at Emerson College and her JD at Harvard Law School. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Oxford American, Fourth Genre, TriQuarterly Online, Bellingham Review (as the winner of the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction), and elsewhere, and her fiction appears in Southeast Review and Minnetonka Review. She teaches creative writing at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, and at Grub Street. Visit her online at www.alexandria-marzano-lesnevich.com.
There are 11 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Micro-Editing
Saturday, July 27th, 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Before an editor evaluates your manuscript’s themes, plot, characters, or voice, he or she judges its sentences. The best way to impress any reader is to write clear and efficient prose. Good sentence-level editing can increase the pace, enhance the description, and deepen the mood of your work. In short, it can make your writing more compelling. In this workshop, we will take apart and reassemble sentences and paragraphs from both fiction and nonfiction drafts. You will learn to read like an editor, to question every word and remove abstraction in order to take your writing to the next level.
- Instructor: Michelle Seaton
- Michelle Seaton has been an instructor with Grub Street since 2000, teaching such classes as 6 Weeks-6 Essays, Tour of the Essay, and Master Narrative Nonfiction. She is also the lead instructor and created the curriculum for Grub Street's Memoir Project, a program that offers free memoir classes to senior citizens in Boston neighborhoods. The project has visited ten Boston neighborhoods and produced three anthologies. Twenty-two participants on Nantucket have also completed a Memoir Project class, and that anthology is forthcoming. Seaton’s nonfiction work has been published in Bostonia, Yankee, Robb Report and The Pinch. Her essay, “How to Work a Locker Room” appeared in the 2009 edition of Best American Nonrequired Reading. It is based on her experience covering the National Hockey League for National Public Radio's Only a Game, a program for which she has been a frequent contributor for 14 years. For the show, she has reported on topics ranging from asthma camp to professional wrestling to bird watching. Her fiction has appeared in the Sycamore Review and Quiddity International Journal. She is the coauthor of The Way of Boys (William Morrow, 2009). Her other book projects include The Cardiac Recovery Handbook, coauthored with Dr. Paul Kligfield, Medical Director of Cardiology at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center of the New York Presbyterian Hospital.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Writing About Work
Saturday, July 27th, 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Essayists like Sedaris got their start by making fun of it. Others, like Anthony Bourdain, have sold millions of memoir copies about it. Meanwhile, reality TV has exploded by highlighting odd sectors of it. Work: it’s where you spend the majority of your days. Why not transform that material into something read-worthy? Whether you have a hilarious, heartbreaking, or horrifying work experience, in this class you’re going to write about it. We’ll start by reading and discussing job-related essays and excerpts, then, during the second part of class, you’ll develop and write an essay-start of your own. You’ll leave with a plan for finishing and submitting your essay.
- Instructor: Nadine Kenney Johnstone
- Nadine Kenney Johnstone teaches at Framingham State University, Dean College, and Grub Street Inc. She received her MFA from Columbia College Chicago and recently completed her novel, DISTANCE. Currently, she is at work on a memoir about facing death while on her quest to create life through IVF. Nadine has been published in Pank, The Drum, Chicago magazine, and Hair Trigger, among other publications. She has worked in all aspects of writing: as a literary magazine editor, reporter, fiction contest judge, story performer, and creative writing instructor. Find her writing advice at Beyond The Margins, The Review Review, and at Grub Street Daily. A Chicago native and Massachusetts transplant, Nadine spends her free time exploring the outdoors with her husband and their dog. Follow her at http://www.facebook.com/NadineKenneyJohnstone or on Twitter @nadinekenney.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, July 30th, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
Finish It: Revising the Essay
Friday, August 2nd, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
You’ve been through the workshop, received constructive feedback or maybe confusing feedback. If at this point you feel stuck, you’re not alone. Many writers don’t know where to go from here. In this workshop, we’ll dissect your essay (literally) and take a look at its parts. How is the balance between scene and exposition? Is the beginning clear and compelling? Are you taking the reader on a journey? Does your ending resonate with the reader? We’ll address these questions and still have time for micro-editing, for punching up individual sentences. When you sign up for class, you’ll be asked to email the instructor a copy of your essay. Also plan to bring a copy of that essay-in-progress to class—along with a pair of scissors.
- Instructor: Michelle Seaton
- Michelle Seaton has been an instructor with Grub Street since 2000, teaching such classes as 6 Weeks-6 Essays, Tour of the Essay, and Master Narrative Nonfiction. She is also the lead instructor and created the curriculum for Grub Street's Memoir Project, a program that offers free memoir classes to senior citizens in Boston neighborhoods. The project has visited ten Boston neighborhoods and produced three anthologies. Twenty-two participants on Nantucket have also completed a Memoir Project class, and that anthology is forthcoming. Seaton’s nonfiction work has been published in Bostonia, Yankee, Robb Report and The Pinch. Her essay, “How to Work a Locker Room” appeared in the 2009 edition of Best American Nonrequired Reading. It is based on her experience covering the National Hockey League for National Public Radio's Only a Game, a program for which she has been a frequent contributor for 14 years. For the show, she has reported on topics ranging from asthma camp to professional wrestling to bird watching. Her fiction has appeared in the Sycamore Review and Quiddity International Journal. She is the coauthor of The Way of Boys (William Morrow, 2009). Her other book projects include The Cardiac Recovery Handbook, coauthored with Dr. Paul Kligfield, Medical Director of Cardiology at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center of the New York Presbyterian Hospital.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Get Published: The 800 Word Essay
Saturday, August 3rd, 10:30am-5:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In this one-day course, we'll look at the art of writing the 800-word essay. From op-eds, to personal essays, to the New York Times' "Modern Love" column, the modern essay is the best way to get your stories out into mainstream media. This class will include discussion of the art of the idea, practical guidelines, when a piece is a situation and not a story, and how to arrive at the right idea for this medium. By the end of the workshop, you will come away with a workable draft for your ideal essay.
- Instructor: Jennifer Mattson
- Jennifer Mattson is a former producer for NPR's nationally syndicated program "The Connection" and worked as an editor for National Public Radio. She spent over six years as a producer for CNN, where she was responsible for CNN's daily live newscasts and producing CNN's international coverage. Jennifer came to CNN to work in the Washington bureau's political unit during the 1996 U.S. presidential election. She later moved to Atlanta, where she worked first as a writer and then as a newscast producer at CNN International. Prior to joining CNN, Jennifer worked as a reporter based in Budapest, Hungary covering Eastern Europe, where she reported on a number of regional stories for USA TODAY including a piece on George Soros and the Clinton-Yeltsin CSCE Summit. She has also reported, most recently, from Asia. Her work has appeared in TheAtlantic.com, USA TODAY, The Boston Globe, The Women's Review of Books, AsianCorrespondent.com, Tablettalk.com and CNN.com. She is the former Managing Editor of AsiaSociety.org. Follow her on Twitter at @jennifermattson
There are 11 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Introduction to Food Writing
Monday-Thursday, 10:30am-1:30pm from August 5th-8th at Grub Street headquarters.
“Tell me what you eat,” said Brillat-Savarin, “and I will tell you what you are.” In recent years an increasing number of writers having been doing just that, turning to food writing to tell the stories of their lives. From the success of lush chef memoirs like Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones, and Butter; memoir-cookbook hybrids from beloved food bloggers like Luisa from The Wednesday Chef (My Berlin Kitchen), Molly from Orangette (A Homemade Life), and countless others; and food travelogues, food writing has never been quite this hot—or quite so accessible to writers. In this week-long class we’ll use a mix of readings and prompts to explore how to get started in food writing, with an emphasis on blogging, food-based personal essays, and food memoir. We’ll discuss the particular craft demands of this content—how *do* you find yet another word for delicious?—as well as where to publish it. Come ready to read and ready to write!
- Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
- Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is writing a book of combined family memoir and literary journalism about a Louisiana murder, in support of which she has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation, as well as a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She earned her MFA at Emerson College and her JD at Harvard Law School. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Oxford American, Fourth Genre, TriQuarterly Online, Bellingham Review (as the winner of the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction), and elsewhere, and her fiction appears in Southeast Review and Minnetonka Review. She teaches creative writing at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, and at Grub Street. Visit her online at www.alexandria-marzano-lesnevich.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $185.00 register as a non-member $205.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Creative Writing Weeklong Camp for Teens: Section B
Monday-Friday, 10:30am-3:30pm from August 5th-9th at Grub Street headquarters.
We'll have prompts, writing time, outdoor activities to get our sensory descriptions flowing, and workshop. By the end of the week, you'll have your toolbox full of ideas, beginnings, and some drafts to keep you going all fall. We will discuss the submission process/publication opportunities for teens, and end the week with a reading. Limited to students aged 13-18.SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Grub Street is happy to be able to offer a limited number of full scholarships for this course. You are eligible for one of these scholarships if you are in a household that receives benefits from Massachusetts SNAP or Massachusetts TANF, if you are a foster child, and/or if your household’s gross income is within the free limits on the Federal Income Guidelines.
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To apply for a scholarship, please complete and submit this online form describing why you want to take this class and stating that you meet the requirements above. The deadline to apply is 12:00pm on Friday, July 19th.
- Instructor: Nadine Kenney Johnstone
- Nadine Kenney Johnstone teaches at Framingham State University, Dean College, and Grub Street Inc. She received her MFA from Columbia College Chicago and recently completed her novel, DISTANCE. Currently, she is at work on a memoir about facing death while on her quest to create life through IVF. Nadine has been published in Pank, The Drum, Chicago magazine, and Hair Trigger, among other publications. She has worked in all aspects of writing: as a literary magazine editor, reporter, fiction contest judge, story performer, and creative writing instructor. Find her writing advice at Beyond The Margins, The Review Review, and at Grub Street Daily. A Chicago native and Massachusetts transplant, Nadine spends her free time exploring the outdoors with her husband and their dog. Follow her at http://www.facebook.com/NadineKenneyJohnstone or on Twitter @nadinekenney.
There are 11 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $315.00 register as a non-member $340.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, August 6th, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book
Saturday, August 10th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Books often start with a simple yearning to explore new territory: fascinating topics, characters who won’t leave you alone, a good story. But manuscripts get unwieldy, fast. Nine out of ten writers never finish their manuscripts because most first-time book writers get lost without good structure and planning. Mary Carroll Moore, award-winning author of 13 books in three genres and a PEN/Faulkner nominee, will guide you through a simple and successful book-writing process that can take your book from idea to publication, a process using a three-act structure that eases organization and makes a manuscript vivid and engaging to readers. Find out why Aristotle believed that three acts formed a perfect structure for all stories, why humans lean toward beginning, middle, and end, and why we crave the emotional catharsis of that format in literature too. For all levels of writers working on nonfiction, memoir, or novels, at any stage from seed idea to draft. Learn why strong structuring is the key to selling a book in today's competitive publishing industry.
- Instructor: Mary Carroll Moore
- Mary Carroll Moore’s twelve published books include the PEN/Faulkner nominated novel Qualities of Light (Bella Books); How to Master Change in Your Life: Sixty-seven Ways to Handle Life’s Toughest Moments (Eckankar Books); Cholesterol Cures (Rodale Press), and the award-winning Healthy Cooking (Ortho Publications). Your Book Starts Here: Create, Craft, and Sell Your First Novel, Memoir, or Nonfiction Book, based on her How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book writing workshops, will be released in fall 2010. A former nationally syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, over 300 of Mary’s essays, short stories, articles, and poetry have appeared in literary journals, magazines, and newspapers around the U.S. and have won awards with the McKnight Awards for Creative Prose, Glimmer Train Press, the Loft Mentor Series, and other writing competitions. She teaches creative writing in New York, Boston, New Hampshire, and Minnesota and writes a weekly blog for book writers at http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Creative Writing Weeklong Camp for Teens: Section A
Monday-Friday, 10:30am-3:30pm from August 12th-16th at Grub Street headquarters.
We'll have prompts, writing time, outdoor activities to get our sensory descriptions flowing, and workshop. By the end of the week, you'll have your toolbox full of ideas, beginnings, and some drafts to keep you going all fall. We will discuss the submission process/publication opportunities for teens, and end the week with a reading. Limited to students aged 13-18.SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Grub Street is happy to be able to offer a limited number of full scholarships for this course. You are eligible for one of these scholarships if you are in a household that receives benefits from Massachusetts SNAP or Massachusetts TANF, if you are a foster child, and/or if your household’s gross income is within the free limits on the Federal Income Guidelines.
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To apply for a scholarship, please complete and submit this online form describing why you want to take this class and stating that you meet the requirements above. The deadline to apply is 12:00pm on Friday, July 19th.
- Instructor: Drew Jameson
Drew Balfour Jameson has been telling stories all his life. He graduated from Reed College with a degree in English, writing a series of inter-connected short stories as his senior thesis. In 2003 he won the fiction contest of the IdeaFestival at the University of Kentucky. His short story “Drown” appeared in the April 2011 installment of The Drum. Currently he teaches 9th grade English Language Arts in Dorchester, Massachusetts and plans to complete his M.Ed at the University of Massachusetts in late 2012. He lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts with his wife, Minna.
Sorry, this class is sold out. Please click here to be put on a waiting list.
"Boosts" for Your Writing Project or Career
Tuesday, August 13th, 1:30-4:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In most workshops, instructors tend to focus on constructive criticism rather than constructive praise. Instructors do this mostly in the interest of time, and because constructive criticism is often easier to illustrate with examples or to compare with texts that are "working better." But these 1-on-1 Boost consultations work in a different way, focusing instead on what you are doing well. Choose from a 30-minute boost for $37.50 or a 60-minute boost for $75. You don't need to email any work in advance. All pages are looked at within the Boost session itself. If you're unable to meet in person, Boosts are available via a phone call or Skype session as well.To proceed, fill out the following form and Grub Street will follow up with you about payment and scheduling.
30-Minute Short Story/Nonfiction Boost (For a Short Piece of up to 3000 words)
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
In this consultation, the instructor will start by reading and reviewing one of your stories (or part of a story) that has already been workshopped and spend time discussing the strengths of the piece and, more importantly, why they are strengths. Not only will this bring you confidence, but it will also help you understand your strengths and how you might use them to best effect. If appropriate, you will also receive personally tailored tasks that seek to bring you confidence in areas where you need it. Short Fiction or Non-Fiction Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 60-Minute Book-Length Boost (For an Ongoing Novel, Novella or Book-Length Manuscript)
In this consultation, the instructor will look at an overview or outline of your project, along with an excerpt/excerpts from your manuscript in progress. The focus will be on your strengths so far and why they are strengths. Your instructor will also examine how you might best make use your talents in the rest of your project. Time will be taken to study any feedback that you received in class and put it to use in positive ways. Book-Length Boosts can also involve mini-tasks that will help you to work on your skills in a precise way, with the promise of motivational feedback. These Boosts can be booked one at a time, or as a string of ongoing consultations. 30- or 60-Minute Writing Career Boost
All writers deal with rejection. In fact, it is part and parcel of a successful writing career. But when it comes to getting published, it is all too easy to grind to a halt in the face of ongoing rejection slips. Yet submission is how we move forward, and as Pamela Painter advises, it can help to “keep hope in the mail.” In this Boost, you will discuss your career and/or aspirations with an instructor who has been an editor at a literary magazine and is a Senior Editor at an indie press. Not only will you discuss ways of dealing with ongoing rejection while continuing to write more rather than less, but you will also consider alternative ways of showcasing your work and receiving meaningful feedback as you move forward. This Boost can also involve a review of your cover letter and advice on researching markets/venues for your work.
- Instructor: Sue Williams
- Sue Williams is published in over thirty books and magazines, including Narrative, Night Train, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Smokelong Quarterly, Salamander, Gargoyle, and Hint Fiction: a Norton Anthology. She has garnered several literary awards, including first place in the 2009 Carolyn A. Clark Flash Fiction Prize and the Glimmer Train Best Start Award. She has worked as an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine and is a writing instructor at Grub Street in Boston. Sue can be found online at www.suewilliams.co.uk.
Short Essay, Big Topic: Tackling Major Themes in 1000 Words or Less
Saturday, August 17th, 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Nowadays, magazine editors want narrative non-fiction essays, and they want them short. So, how do you tackle life’s major themes like love and loss in less than 1000 words? The easiest way to do so is by using a "container". What’s that you ask? Learn more about it in this Grub post, and if it sounds enticing, explore the technique fully in this seminar. We’ll spend the first half of class reading and discussing published container essays. Then, you’ll spend the rest of the time developing and writing your own essay. You’ll leave with a plan for finishing and submitting your work.
- Instructor: Nadine Kenney Johnstone
- Nadine Kenney Johnstone teaches at Framingham State University, Dean College, and Grub Street Inc. She received her MFA from Columbia College Chicago and recently completed her novel, DISTANCE. Currently, she is at work on a memoir about facing death while on her quest to create life through IVF. Nadine has been published in Pank, The Drum, Chicago magazine, and Hair Trigger, among other publications. She has worked in all aspects of writing: as a literary magazine editor, reporter, fiction contest judge, story performer, and creative writing instructor. Find her writing advice at Beyond The Margins, The Review Review, and at Grub Street Daily. A Chicago native and Massachusetts transplant, Nadine spends her free time exploring the outdoors with her husband and their dog. Follow her at http://www.facebook.com/NadineKenneyJohnstone or on Twitter @nadinekenney.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Writing Dialogue
Saturday, August 17th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
"Writing dialogue can be one of the most difficult and significant tasks a writer faces. The techniques a writer learns along the way may prepare them for every kind of prose, but when faced with dialogue, the writer is lost. How do you create dialogue that feels and sounds real, yet also works to communicate your story? This workshop is designed for playwrights, screenwriters, novelists, and short fiction writers interested in writing crisp, realistic-sounding dialogue. We will study several great scenes from films, plays, and fiction to break down what makes the dialogue so effective.
Topics explored will include creating subtext, hiding exposition, working with slang, and how to get the characters in your head speaking with a voice of their own. You will learn how to break down a scene into beats and intentions, and approach the scene as an actor would. Most importantly, during the workshop portion, we will act out your dialogue so you may hear it the way dialogue is meant to be heard -- out loud. The first half of the class will be spent discussing techniques for creating effective dialogue. During the second session, students will use what they have learned to write a dialogue scene and receive peer and instructor feedback."
- Instructor: Mark Fogarty
- Mark Fogarty is the president and Co-founder of the Rhode Island Film Collaborative (RIFC), a non-profit created to help local filmmakers find resources in the Ocean State. The RIFC has more than 1,900 members and has been involved in the production of dozens of films. For more information, visit www.rifcfilms.com. Mark started Exile Movies in 2003 and has worked as a director of photography and editor on feature-length and short films. Mark recently directed the feature-length epic, smalltown, from his screenplay. You can find out more about the film at www.smalltownmovie.com. As an actor, Mark has been in dozens of films and uses his knowledge of acting to inform his writing. Mark graduated from Emerson College with a degree in filmmaking, and works as a freelance editor and writer.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Creative Writing Weeklong Camp for Teens: Section C
Monday-Friday, 10:30am-3:30pm from August 19th-23rd at Grub Street headquarters.
We'll have prompts, writing time, outdoor activities to get our sensory descriptions flowing, and workshop. By the end of the week, you'll have your toolbox full of ideas, beginnings, and some drafts to keep you going all fall. We will discuss the submission process/publication opportunities for teens, and end the week with a reading. Limited to students aged 13-18.SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: Grub Street is happy to be able to offer a limited number of full scholarships for this course. You are eligible for one of these scholarships if you are in a household that receives benefits from Massachusetts SNAP or Massachusetts TANF, if you are a foster child, and/or if your household’s gross income is within the free limits on the Federal Income Guidelines.
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To apply for a scholarship, please complete and submit this online form describing why you want to take this class and stating that you meet the requirements above. The deadline to apply is 12:00pm on Friday, July 19th.
- Instructor: KL Pereira
KL Pereira is a teaching artist who lives mostly in her head; she's interested in the creaky, creepy underbelly of life and whatever lies beyond. She holds a BA in Literature and Languages from Bard College, an MA in Gender/Cultural Studies from Simmons College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Mythic Deliruim, Jabberwocky, The Medulla Review, Bitch Magazine, Clamor Magazine, and other fine magazines, anthologies, chapbooks, and journals. You can read her column: Slaying Genre: A Monthly Column on Horror, Noir, Fantasy, and the Other Red-Headed Step-Children of the Literary World here. Pereira publishes erotic horror under a different name and is currently working on a collection of flash fiction fairy tales, a mytho-punk noir, and some zombie apocalyptica. For more information, visit www.darknesslovescompany.com.
There are 11 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $315.00 register as a non-member $340.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Freelance Writing Essentials
Friday, August 23rd, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
You want to write feature stories for glossies like National Geographic Traveler or Glamour or for newspapers like the Boston Globe or Cambridge Tab; essays for Salon.com
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
3 Hours, 3 Essays
Thursday, August 29th, 6:00-9:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In a hurry to write some wonderful, surprising nonfiction? This course is for you. We’ll look at published short essays and use them as inspiration to write beginnings of our own over the course of a single night. You’ll also share your essays with the instructor and in small groups to get feedback that will help you decide where to take your essays next. Expect to leave class with three great essay starts, a plan for finishing them, and a reenergized feeling about your writing.
- Instructor: Calvin Hennick
- Calvin Hennick’s nonfiction and journalism have appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, The Boston Phoenix, Runner’s World, Eating Well, Budget Travel, and Teacher magazine, among other publications. He has taught writing at UMass – Boston and in New York City’s public schools.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Provoking Thought: Writing a Nonfiction Book of Ideas
Thursday, August 29th, 6:30-9:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
"Nonfiction books about science, medicine, parenting, psychology, architecture, culture, technology, and politics are all books of ideas and require a different approach than selling fiction or narrative nonfiction. Fortunately, there's a big market for these books. In this seminar, you'll learn everything you need to know to market your book of ideas to an agent or publisher. We'll pay special attention to the single most important factor in selling your book: the framing. You'll learn about the state of the nonfiction publishing industry, what editors are looking for, what readers are looking for, how to find the best agent for your project, how to craft a winning proposal, and how to come up with the most effective framing for your book. We'll analyze successful and failed books of ideas published in the past few years (especially science books), giving special attention to the different styles of Malcolm Gladwell (author of Outliers) and Steven Pinker (author of Blank Slate). In addition, we'll discuss how ebooks are changing the industry and opening new opportunities for unpublished nonfiction authors. The class will consist of lecture and highly interactive discussion with plenty of opportunities to ask questions during and after class. I'd be happy to look over student query letters or proposals after class or offline.
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- Instructor: Ogi Ogas
- Dr. Ogi Ogas received his PhD in computational neuroscience from Boston University and was a Department of Homeland Security Fellow. His writing has been published in the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Wired, and Seed Magazine. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker called his first nonfiction book, A Billion Wicked Thoughts, "a goldmine." His next book, A Billion Angry Brains, (Dutton, 2013) explores the misunderstood emotion of anger. He's presently collaborating with the president of the American Psychiatric Association on a popular book about contemporary psychiatry. He writes the Billion Wicked Thoughts blog for Psychology Today. He also used his knowledge of cognition to reach the million dollar question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and battle Ken Jennings in the finals of Grand Slam. For more information on Ogi, visit www.billionwickedthoughts.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
The Lyric Essay
Saturday, August 31st, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Some of the most exciting and innovative nonfiction being written today falls into the category of the lyric essay. But just what is this strange new hybrid beast? How can you get started writing it-- and what can you do with your essays once they're finished? Throughout the day, we'll alternate looking at published examples of lyrics essays with doing fun writing exercises designed to get you started developing your own.
- Instructor: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
- Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is writing a book of combined family memoir and literary journalism about a Louisiana murder, in support of which she has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation, as well as a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She earned her MFA at Emerson College and her JD at Harvard Law School. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Oxford American, Fourth Genre, TriQuarterly Online, Bellingham Review (as the winner of the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction), and elsewhere, and her fiction appears in Southeast Review and Minnetonka Review. She teaches creative writing at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, and at Grub Street. Visit her online at www.alexandria-marzano-lesnevich.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Memoir: Making Smart Choices Behind the Scenes
Friday, September 6th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Capturing your story on paper requires dozens of choices, from the creative (Who are you as a character? How do you represent family & friends in a way that won't crush those relationships? How do you find the best narrative arc?) to the practical (What legal hurdles do you need to clear? How do you put together a winning proposal?) In this class we'll look at the "behind the scenes" aspects of writing memoir, and help you create a personalized strategy for for telling and selling your story. Class will include writing exercises, goal setting, and opportunities to share your work.
- Instructor: Trish Ryan
- Trish Ryan is the author of two memoirs, A Maze of Grace: A Memoir of Second Chances (Hachette 2010) and He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After (Hachette 2008). This fall she will be an Evelyn Danzig Haas ’39 Visiting Artist at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. Trish lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband Steve and their genetically improbable mixed-breed dog. You can visit Trish online at www.trishryanonline.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Workshop Your Website or Blog
Saturday, September 7th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Do you have a website and/or blog but want to learn ways to enhance the design and content? Looking to broaden your reach or boost your professional appeal? This class will offer a venue for receiving feedback on your online presence. Along the way, you’ll learn strategies for more effective design, navigation, usability, search engine optimization, and content. We’ll also do some writing exercises to help your work stand out. Note: this seminar is only for those who already have a designed website or active blog. Submit the URL(s) of your website and/or blog to lauren@grubstreet.org by noon on Wednesday, August 28th. If you have a blog, also submit two of your best posts that could be discussed in class. The instructor will prepare thorough critiques of each site before class so submitting URLs as early as possible is appreciated.
- Instructor: Kim Adrian
- Kim Adrian's short stories, essays, and memoir excerpts have appeared in Tin House, Gettysburg Review, Agni, Raritan, Crazyhorse, New England Review, /nor, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a P.E.N. New England Discovery Award, an Artist's Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Editor's Prize in Nonfiction from the New Ohio Review, as well as residencies at the Edward Albee Barn, Ragdale, and the VCCA. She teaches creative writing at Grub Street, reads nonfiction for Agni magazine, and serves on the admissions board for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her essay, "Questionnaire for My Grandfather" will appear in the upcoming anthology YOU: Essays in the Second Person (Welcome Table Press, 2012). Currently, she is at work on a book-length memoir. More at kimadrian.com.
Kim is the founder of Thumbtack, a website production company for authors.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!