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| Fall 2005 |
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classes and workshops are held at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center (Philipse
Manor Railroad Station building) unless otherwise indicated.
Spring 2006 Class Schedule CLASSES
& WORKSHOPS Monday: Tuesday: Wednesday: Thursday: Friday: Saturday: One-Day
Workshop:
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SELF
SCRIPTING Work in a highly individualized way with a renowned writer and performance artist to heighten your imagination and create narrative in memoir, fiction, poetry, and performance or through interdisciplinary work.
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| LIVING
THE POET'S LIFE It’s now or never! Whether you are an experienced poet who feels “stuck” or one fairly new to the craft, this workshop will help you get your poetry life on track with exercises and advice designed to get you writing poetry—and keep you writing poetry.
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MEMOIR
WRITING 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. Class limited to 9 students.
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WRITEMIND:
A Special Creative Writing Workshop for Teachers By thinking and working like a writer, teachers of writing at all levels (older elementary and up) can acquire many new insights. Enjoy a personalized hands-on experience with the narrative technique method of creative writing and acquire the teaching and assessment tools you need to encourage your students to become more creative writers.
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CREATING
LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN Work with a much-published children’s writer and fellow students to refine your skills as a writer for young readers and to develop or kick-start your own children’s book or story.
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WRITING
CHILDREN'S BOOKS & STORIES
* * Please note that our Wednesday Children’s Literature class with author Jean Fritz is currently full, but we do maintain a waiting list of interested students from which we fill available openings. If you would like to add your name to the list, please call us at 914-332-5953 or e-mail info@writerscenter.org. Writing a book for children—or planning to? Don’t miss this chance to discuss your project with one of our country’s most honored writers of books for children. Come with some knowledge of what kind of children’s books you like and what good writers in this field are doing today. The sessions will be informal and tailored to the needs of the group.
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THE
ART OF THE ESSAY More than any other kind of non-fiction writing, the essay offers the opportunity to express, in a short and conversational form, the whole range of thoughts and feelings, from intimacy and grief to joy and epiphany. This once-neglected form, now in renaissance, allows for the most satisfying and polished examination of ideas, beliefs, troubles and pleasures by writers beginning, renowned, and (like most of us) in between. Class limited to 8 students.
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EXPERIMENTS
IN BRIEF NONFICTION This workshop focuses on creating brief nonfiction pieces and shaping them for the reader’s eye. However, participants are also expected to respond to other writers’ work as well as to read the textbook selections and be prepared to discuss them. Textbooks: Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction, edited by Judith Kitchen, (Norton, 2005); In Brief: Short Takes on the Personal, edited by Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones (Norton, 1999)
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EXPERIMENTS
IN POETRY This workshop focuses on writing contemporary poems in both traditional and free verse forms. Although some class time will be spent responding to works in progress, we will also study model poems, write exploratory drafts, and discuss issues of process and creativity. Textbooks: Poetry Daily, edited by Boller, Selby, and Yost (Sourcebooks, 2003, paperback.) Also suggested: The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms, edited by Ron Padgett (1987, paperback).
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CREATIVE
WRITING FOR THIRD, FOURTH & FIFTH GRADERS Each day you take in the world around you -- a fly perched on a leaf, the smell of spaghetti sauce bubbling on the stove, the sound of traffic rushing by on the street outside our window. How do use these things to create stories and poems? This class will help stimulate your senses, imagination, and emotions, and allow you to try out various writing techniques and share ideas in a comfortable atmosphere.
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VERSE
WITH VOLTAGE Through innovative exercises you’ll generate new energized work. Then you’ll work on conquering stage fright and gaining confidence in order to forge a strong connection with an audience. Whether you’re a fledgling open-miker or an established writer seeking a wider audience, you’ll get the help you need and have fun along the way. One class will be a trip to one or more “hot” spoken word venues.
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THE
CRAFT OF FICTION Both new and experienced writers can benefit from a review of such topics as characterization, plot, dialogue, description and point-of-view. The first four classes will be devoted to lectures, in-class and take-home exercises, and close readings of selections by master writers. In the remaining sessions you will put your new skills in practical criticism to use as you consider your fellow students’ manuscripts.
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WRITING
PLUS (for High School students) Step into the stream of writing that has, and always will, exist in any vibrant society and help Karen Finley and the Writers’ Center build a program for area high school students. You will be encouraged to use your own personal truths as fuel as you work in different genres and disciplines in order to express what you want to say.
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FICTION
WRITING In this workshop, designed for beginning and experienced writers, you will go beyond the traditional elements of fiction writing as taught in English class (“plot”, “setting”, “conflict”, etc.) and will focus instead on what great writers actually do on the page, the techniques they use to capture the reader’s interest and create imaginatively and emotionally rich work. By combining narrative technique exercises with traditional manuscript review in a focused and supportive setting, we will help you create work that employs the fundamentals of fiction writing while also expressing your personal voice.
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CONTINUING
FICTION For this course, Mr. Surface has developed an entirely new set of writing exercises that challenge students’ imaginations at a higher level, expanding on the skills developed in the introductory fiction class. This course is recommended for people who have already taken Mr. Surface’s Introduction to Fiction workshop.
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CREATIVE
WRITING FOR TEENS Six workshop sessions in which writers age 11 and up can refine their “writer’s eye” and find their own voices. Participants will be challenged to use their imaginations and every sense of their being to get beyond the surface of things and to put on paper the stories and ideas that come to them. They will also celebrate the sound of words and the images they create. “It’s not like school,” says Connor-Bey, and the small groups allow for maximum individualization.
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TELLING
LIVES: Excursions in Memoir, Biography, and Culture Which stories are ours to tell, and which carry us into the terrain of others’ lives? Memoir often intersects with stories of family and friends as well as broader cultural narratives. This workshop will explore memoir and personal essay, journalistic profile, and travelogue and look at a range of nonfiction writing to examine style, voice and literary form. The class will create mosaics from yours and others’ stories and explore ways to develop and revise these first efforts.
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| For further information on any of our class offerings, call the HVWC at (914) 332-5953 or email us at info@writerscenter.org. |
| 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. |
KAREN
FINLEY ’s raw and personal performances, written and recorded work, installations,
and visual art have long provoked controversy and debate. She has an MFA from
San Francisco Art Institute, has won numerous grants, fellowships, and awards
(including MS. Woman of the Year in ‘98 and an Obie and Coaguala Artist of the
Decade in ‘99), and is currently a visiting professor at New York University,
Tisch School of the Arts in Art and Public Policy. Her published works include
Shock Treatment, Enough is Enough, Living it Up, and the memoir A Different
Kind of Intimacy. A novella George and Martha (think Bush and Stewart)
will be published by Verso in the spring. 
SUZANNE
CLEARY has an MA in Writing from Washington University and a Ph.D. in Literature
and Criticism from Indiana University in Pennsylvania. She is Associate Professor
of English at SUNY Rockland. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Georgia Review,
and other journals, and she recently won a Pushcart Prize. Her first book, Keeping
Time, hailed by Billy Collins, is now in its second printing, and her second
collection will be published by Carnegie Mellon in early 2007.
JOAN
POTTER ’s nonfiction writing has been published in numerous magazines, newspapers,
and anthologies. She is the author of three books, including African American
Firsts: Famous, Little-Known and Unsung Triumphs of Blacks in America, published
in fall 2002. She is the editor of Growing Up Strong: Four North Country Women
Recall Their Lives, a collection of memoirs produced in a writing workshop
she led in the Adirondacks. She recently edited Mountain Shadows: An Adirondack
Novel of Courage, Danger, and Love, published in August by Pinto Press, a
small publishing company of which she is co-owner. She is a regular contributor
to the Westchester County Times.
DAVID
SURFACE is a 2005 fellow in nonfiction literature from the New York Foundation
for the Arts (NYFA) and was a finalist for the NYFA Prize. He has been twice nominated
for the Pushcart Prize in fiction and has also been awarded residencies at the
MacDowell Colony for the Arts and the Dorland Mountain Colony. His stories and
essays have been published in DoubleTake, North American Review, Crazyhorse,
Fiction, and on-line in Slow Trains, Tatlin’s Tower and the Cortland
Review. He has developed and implemented writing curriculum and professional
development programs for school districts and state and national arts organizations
including the Lincoln Center Department of Education.
ELIZABETH
SACHS is the author of ten books for young adults and middle grade readers,
including The Dog Who Ate Dog Biscuits and Just Like Always. She
has served as editor of the children’s section of the paper, Kidspace,
and has written book reviews for The New York Times and Kirkus and
articles for School Library Journal. Her extensive career as a teacher
and librarian includes several years as children’s librarian at Tuckahoe and she
is currently head of technical services at Eastchester Public Library.
JEAN
FRITZ of Dobbs Ferry is the author of over two dozen books for young people
and is particularly known for her historical biographies, which the School
Library Journal says have “blown like a fresh breeze across the children’s
book world...(she) has changed the face of the map.” She has also written an autobiography,
Homesick, about her childhood years in China, which was a 1983 Newbery
Medal Honor Book and the recipient of an American Book Award and many other awards.
Most recently, she was presented with the 2003 National Humanities Medal.
HERBERT
HADAD’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York
Times, Poets & Writers, Reader's Digest, Parenting, and Yankee. 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 has received several awards for magazine writing and the New York Press Club
award for feature writing. One of his essays was included as a “notable essay”
in The Best American Essays 2003. A collection of his essays, Home Fires,
will be published this fall.
REBECCA
MCCLANAHAN has published four volumes of poetry, three books about writing,
and a collection of personal essays, The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings.
Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, The Best American Poetry,
Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. McClanahan,
who received a Pushcart Prize in Fiction, the Wood prize from Poetry, the
Carter prize for the essay from Shenandoah, and a 2003 New York Foundation
for the Arts fellowship, lives with her husband in New York City and can be reached
at www.mcclanmuse.com.
KATE
GALLAGHER was a children’s book editor for many years and is now a freelance
editor and consultant. She has studied poetry with Marvin Bell and Jorie Graham
at the University of Iowa, and has read her work at venues throughout NYC and
Westchester.
PATRICIA
SMITH is a four-time national poetry slam champion, a performer on HBO’s Def
Poetry Jam and in spoken word venues throughout the U. S. and abroad, and the
author of three poetry volumes, Close to Death, Life According to Motown,
and Big Towns, Big Talk. Her manuscript Teahouse of the Almighty
was just selected by Ed Sanders as a National Poetry Series Open Competition winner
and will be published by Coffee House Press. Smith is also the author of Africans
in America (a companion volume to the ground-breaking PBS documentary) and
the children’s book Janna and the Kings. Fixed on a Furious Star,
a biography of Harriet Tubman, will be published by Crown in 2006. She has taught
at Georgia Tech and Cave Canem.
LIANA
SCALETTAR’s fiction has appeared in Arts & Letters, Failbetter, Gutcult,
LIT and Washington Square; her poetry has appeared in Nidus.
Recent awards include residencies at the Cat’ Art Center for Contemporary Art
in southern France and the MacDowell Colony, a Glimmer Train fiction award,
a Pushcart Prize nomination, and the Amanda Davis Scholarship given by the Wesleyan
Writers’ Conference. Liana has taught at Boston and Brown Universities and currently
teaches literature and writing at Queens College. She holds degrees from Columbia,
Brown and Sarah Lawrence.
BRENDA
CONNOR-BEY, the 2002 recipient of the Outstanding Arts Educator award from
the Westchester Fund for Women and Girls, has long been active in writer-residency
programs throughout the region, often through the Westchester Arts Council. She
is the recipient of many grants and awards (including four PEN awards) and has
had her work published and performed widely. She has just completed a collection
of poetry and a young adult novel and is working on a novel.
JOANNE
B. MULCAHY teaches and directs the Writing Culture Program at The Northwest
Writing Institute, Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She is the author
of Birth and Rebirth on an Alaskan Island, a biography of an Alaska Native
healer. Her essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including
The Stories that Shape Us: Contemporary Women Write about the West, These United
States, and Breaking Free: Woman of Spirit at Midlife and Beyond. Her
awards include fellowships from The Oregon Institute of Literary Arts, the New
Letters nonfiction award, and grants from The British Council, the Alaska Humanities
Forum, and the Oregon Council for the Humanities.