Fall 2001

All classes are held at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center and
are limited to 10 students unless otherwise indicated.

Winter 2002 Class Schedule
Early Winter 2002 Class Schedule

--- Creative Non-Fiction with Rebecca McClanahan
--- Forms in Poetry with Richard Blanco
--- From Manuscript to Marketplace with Herbert Hadad
--- Introduction to Fiction: Level One with David Surface
--- Introduction to Fiction: Level Two with David Surface
--- Memoir Writing with Joan Potter
--- Screenwriting with Staton Rabin
--- Test-Driving Your Screenplay with Staton Rabin
--- Writing as Healing with Natalie Safir

--- Getting Your "Literary" Work Published: A Panel Discussion

FROM MANUSCRIPT TO MARKETPLACE
with Herbert Hadad
8 Wednesdays, Oct 3 - Nov 28 (no class Oct 31 and Nov 21)
7 - 9 pm
Fee: $460 ($425 for members)
Returning Hadad students deduct $20
Class limited to 8 students
NOTE: New students should submit a 1-2 page writing sample to the HVWC no later than 9/21 for use in determining eligibility.

An intensive workshop on the personal essay and related forms with a dual purpose: to make work as good as it can get, and to get expert advice on finding a home in print. Mr. Hadad will be joined in the last two classes by Marilyn Johnson, a professional editor who will assess your polished efforts and provide marketplace savvy. Ms. Johnson is a former senior writer for Life and a former editor for Outside, Premiere, Redbook, and Esquire. She has also written for Elle, New York Woman, and other such publications.

Mr. Hadad's work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Reader's Digest, Parenting, Yankee, Writers' Digest, Lear's, The Boston Globe, and Hudson Valley. They are also collected in several books, including The Random House Guide to Writing and Sephardic American Voices: Two Hundred Years of a Literary Legacy. He is a recipient of the 1998 CASE Gold Medal for magazine feature writing from the council for the Advancement and Support of Education. He won the 1991 New York Press Club Award for a New York Times article on Roger Kahn, and he serves on the board of governors of the Society of the Silurians, the oldest press club in America, as well as on the club's awards committee.

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This workshop will focus on shaping your creative nonfiction pieces for the reader's eye Although there will be brief weekly assignments and continuing discussion of issues surrounding creative nonfiction, the emphasis will be on close review of your drafts and helpful responses from the instructor and fellow students.

Rebecca McClanahan has extensive teaching experience at the secondary school and college levels and has published four books of poetry and three books of nonfiction, most recently Naked as Eve (2000) and Write Your Heart Out (2001). She has received a Pushcart Prize in fiction, the Wood Prize from Poetry magazine, and the Carter Prize for the essay from Shenandoah. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, Boulevard, The Best American Poetry 1998, and The Best American Essays 2001.

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MEMOIR WRITING
with Joan Potter
10 Fridays, Sept 28 - Dec 7 (no class 11/23)
10 am - noon
Fee: $335 ($300 for members)
Returning Potter students deduct $20
Class limited to 9 students

Write stories taken from your own memories and experiences and free your voice as you shape the stories you want to tell in a relaxed, supportive environment. Subjects may range from early childhood memories to the transforming events of adulthood. Participants will read aloud and discuss their work each week.

Ms. Potter is the author or co-author of three books, has published articles in numerous magazines and newspapers, and is co-owner of Pinto Press, a publishing company in Mt. Kisco. She edited Growing Up Strong: Four North Country Women Recall Their Lives, a book of memoirs produced in a writing workshop she led in the Adirondacks, and she has taught memoir-writing workshops for men and women of all ages. She is a regular contributor to Adirondack Life Magazine, for which her article about regional employment recently won a Public Issues award from the International Regional Magazine Association.

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Designed for writers at all levels, this course introduces you to various narrative strategies that help break through inhibitions and release a powerful, personal voice onto the page. You will look at how other writers have unlocked their imaginations and then try these techniques in writing exercises and peer-group critiques that sympathetically develop the skills needed to create more imaginative and emotionally rich work.

Mr. Surface's fiction has been published in numerous literary journals, including DoubleTake, North American Review, Crazyhorse, Fiction, Willow Spring, and Artful Dodge. Excerpts from his novel, A Good Life, have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He has taught as a writer-in-the-schools for the Lincoln Center Education Department and as a Visiting Writer at the College of Wooster.

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Mr. Surface's fiction has been published in numerous literary journals, including DoubleTake, North American Review, Crazyhorse, Fiction, Willow Spring, and Artful Dodge. Excerpts from his novel, A Good Life, have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He has taught as a writer-in-the-schools for the Lincoln Center Education Department and as a Visiting Writer at the College of Wooster.

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Traditional forms like sonnets often get a bad rap because they are perceived as confining and burdened with technicalities. But there are modern evolutions of these forms that are not as concerned with adhering to a strict rhyme scheme or the dreaded iambic pentameter. For example, a modern quasi-sonnet need not even have 14 lines! However, these modern equivalent forms do retain many of the less obvious benefits of structure and organization and help poets shape and draw on the subconscious. The course will focus on these and other benefits through guided writing and discussion of student work, and by examining the history and evolution of such traditional forms as sestina, villanelle, and sonnet into contemporary poetry by Elizabeth Bishop, Philip Levine, Dennis Johnson, and others.

Richard Blanco was born in Spain to Cuban parents and grew up in New York City and Miami. His first book of poetry, City of a Hundred Fires, was winner of the 1997 University of Pittsburgh Agnes Starrett Prize. His work has appeared in publications such as The Nation, Indiana Review, and anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2000. He is currently Assistant Professor and Poet in Residence at Central Connecticut State University.

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Learn a formula for evaluating work published by magazines and book publishers and become a good detective who can figure out who you are as a reader and writer and where your work belongs.

When a question about publishing comes up, everyone says, "Ask Amy!" Well, here she is, with her good friend and ours, David Surface. This brief but comprehensive overview may lead to more specialized sessions in the future depending on audience feedback.

Amy Holman founded The Publishing Seminars in 1995 at Poets & Writers, Inc., and now directs Literary Horizons, a program for the professional development of writers, which includes, A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers, panel discussions, publishing festivals, and classroom, e-mail, and audiotape seminars. She writes poetry and prose and has been published in numerous journals and anthologies in print and online, including The Best American Poetry 1999, The Second Word Thursdays Anthology, Poets On The Line, CrossConnect, Poet Lore, Failbetter, Mystic River Review, and Literal Latte. She is the Associate Editor of Get Your First Book Published, Career Press, 2001, and has written publishing columns for SideRoad, Poets & Writers Magazine, and Poets & Writers Online.

David Surface's fiction has been published in numerous literary journals, including DoubleTake, North American Review, Crazyhorse, Fiction, Willow Spring, and Artful Dodge. Excerpts from his novel, A Good Life, have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He has taught as a writer-in-the-schools for the Lincoln Center Education Department and as a Visiting Writer at the College of Wooster.

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Notes:

HVWC = The Hudson Valley Writers' Center, 300 Riverside Drive, Sleepy Hollow, NY. Classes and worshops are held in the restored Philipse Manor railroad station. For travel directions, visit our Directions page or see train schedules at Metro-North's Hudson River Line.

For further information about any of these classes or workshops, call the Writers' Center at 914-332-5953.

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