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Summer 2007 Writing Workshops |
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All
workshops are held at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center (Philipse Manor
Railroad Station building) unless otherwise indicated.
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Summer Workshops for Adults
One-Day Workshops
Summer Workshops for Young Writers
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Summer
2007 Writing Workshops for Adults To register, click here. |
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HOW
TO PLAN, WRITE, AND DEVELOP A BOOK Whether you’re a nonfiction author, memoirist, or novelist, and whether you have a book almost finished or merely a concept for one, this 5 week class will help you get to know your book—what it is about, how to structure it, how to finish it! You’ll learn a step-by-step plan (including timetables, chapter grids, story-boarding, and other techniques) and ways to flow chapters, find holes in your material that need filling, organize research and concepts, and construct plots. You’ll also learn how to package your book for agents and publishers and gain essential tips on editing and evaluating your book at all stages. Status:
completed |
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INTERMEDIATE
& ADVANCED POETRY This workshop will make a distinction between editing and revising and will approach each poem with this difference in mind. Both are needed, so all levels of the poem from surface to depth are addressed. You will consider the many elements comprised by a poem: image, metaphor, diction, tone, voice, perspective, grammar, syntax, line breaks, form, etc., focusing on those issues that arise from this particular group of writers. Participants must have taken at least one poetry class previously. Status: in progress |
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MEMOIR
WRITING Writing is a solitary endeavor, and feedback is crucial to developing your voice and honing your style. Whether you are in the process of writing a memoir or just getting started, this workshop provides a supportive and constructive environment in which you will read your work aloud each week and receive responses. Your subjects may range from early childhood memories to the transforming events of adulthood, and finished pieces may be short or book-length. Several workshop members have published their work in The New York Times and various literary journals. For writers of all levels. Status: in progress |
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WRITING
CHILDREN'S BOOKS & STORIES 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 book or story for “easy readers” and up. Status: in progress |
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FICTION
INTENSIVE In this intensive class we will critique students’ work with the goal of publication in mind. Through close attention to characterization, dramatization, style, pacing and tone we will devote our attention to the turning of the nearly finished into the finished and of the well-crafted into the distinctive and memorable. For intermediate students and above. Status: completed |
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JUMP
START YOUR POETRY Give your poetry a jump start by exploring the basics of image and language. In this workshop, we will read poems, engage in writing exercises, and respond to one another’s work. For those just starting out as well as those who want to revive their poetic energy. Status: in progress |
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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. Status: in progress |
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FICTION
WRITING Whether you are an experienced or beginning writer, the techniques you’ll learn in this workshop will help make your work stronger. By combining writing exercises and traditional manuscript review, you’ll learn how to unleash your narrative voice, how to give your writing the texture and power of actual experience, and how to find and highlight the emotional core of your story. Status: in progress |
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One-Day
Workshops To register, click here. |
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HOW
TO PLAN, DEVELOP, & WRITE A BOOK Spend an intensive day getting to know your book—what it is about, how to structure it, how to plan to finish it! You’ll learn a step-by-step plan, including flexible timelines, chapter grids, storyboarding, and other techniques. You’ll look at ways to flow chapters, find holes in your material that need filling, organize research and concepts, construct plots, and bring your book into manifestation. You’ll also learn what editors and agents look for and gain essential tips on editing and evaluating your book in all its stages. Designed for nonfiction authors who have a book concept or a work in progress, and for novelists who need a fresh look at their material. Bring an SASE to Saturday’s class and up to fifteen double-spaced pages of work, and the instructor will mail you feedback. Bring a bag lunch. Status: canceled |
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THE
WHEEL OF TEN: Essential Tools to Make Memoir and Fiction Come Alive Spend a lively day exploring the ins and outs of ten essential writing tools that professional writers never leave home without. Even one, well used, will bring new vibrancy to a not-quite-there-yet memoir, short story, or novel. Fun writing exercises, short readings, discussion will help us see new levels of these basic tools—how to use them, how they influence a writer’s voice and the success of a piece of writing, and why they must be considered for any good storytelling (true tales, faction, or fiction): action, dialogue, pacing, point of view, backstory, chronology, setting, motive, closeness/distance, and change. Bring a bag lunch and short piece of writing in progress to use during the exercises or start something new in class. For all skill levels. Status: completed |
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TELLING
OUR STORIES: Exploring the Personal Essay A good essay opens a window and invites the reader into a writer’s beliefs about the world. But it also takes the reader on a journey of discovery—as the writer finds out more about these beliefs. So good essays start with strong feeling, thoughtful questions--and this desire to explore uncharted territory. Within this “risk on paper,” your essay can take multiple forms (linear, snapshot, collage, narrative) and endless subjects (from illness, loss, or trauma to nature to a neighborhood’s disappearing culture). In this one-day workshop we’ll learn the steps to explore, craft, and develop a personal or opinion essay. Using short pieces by well-known essayists, we’ll practice writing exercises to discover what our own essay really is about—what's the theme? the seed idea that will speak most clearly to the reader and deliver our point? Be prepared to explore deeply, write a lot, and go home with an essay to finish. Bring an essay-in-progress or an idea for one, as well as a bag lunch. For all levels of writers. Status: completed |
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Summer
2007 Workshops for Young Writers To register, click here. |
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CREATIVE
WRITING FOR THIRD, FOURTH & FIFTH GRADERS Using writing challenges, lively activities, and children’s literature, this workshop will inspire children to write from their hearts, tap their imaginations, and find their voices in their written words. The non-competitive and nurturing atmosphere, small group size, and a beautiful facility devoted exclusively to writing will all help stimulate young talent. Limit of 9 students per session. (Note that some sessions will be taught by Kate Gallagher and others will be taught by Charlotte Walsh.) Status: open; accepting registrations |
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CREATIVE
WRITING FOR AGES 11 - 13 What do George Lucas and J.K. Rowling have in common? They borrow from the best for their stories, and you can too! In this class, you’ll investigate different classic story plots and learn how to create riveting conflicts and people them with valiant heroes, loyal friends and unpredictable villains. Your stories are ready to be written, and this collaborative and supportive workshop will help you make them real page-turners. Status: in progress |
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CREATIVE
WRITING FOR TEENS AGE 14+ Four workshop sessions in which writers age 14 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. Status: in progress |
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To
register, click here. |
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| About Our Instructors | |
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 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 in 2006 was named the first poet laureate of the town of Greenburgh,
New York. She has had her work published and performed widely, and has just
completed a collection of poetry and a young adult novel and is working
on a novel. |
 Elizabeth
Sachs is the author of ten books for young adults and middle grade readers,
including The Boy Who Ate Dog Biscuits and Just Like Always.
She has served as editor of Kidspace, the children’s section of the
paper, The News Times, 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. |
M.
Doretta Cornell taught writing and literature at Pace University, Pleasantville,
and is a member of Poetry Caravan. Her poetry has appeared recently in Earth’s
Daughters, Red River Review, Inkwell, Commonweal,
and the anthology (en)compass. |
 Liana
Scalettar’s fiction has appeared or will appear shortly in American
Short Fiction, Arts & Letters, Drunken Boat, Failbetter, Gutcult, LIT
and Washington Square; her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming
in Sentence and Nidus. She has taught at Boston and Fordham
Universities, Queens College and Gotham Writers’ Workshop. |
 Kate
Gallagher was a children’s book editor for many years and is now a freelance
editor and consultant. She has studied poetry at the University of Iowa
and has read her work at venues throughout NYC and Westchester. |
 David
Surface was awarded a 2005 Fellowship in Non Fiction Literature from
the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), and was also nominated for
the NYFA Prize. He has also twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize
in fiction. His essays and stories have been published in a wide variety
of print and on-line journals, including DoubleTake, North American
Review, Crazyhorse, Fiction and Slow Trains. He
is a founder of WriteMind, a creative language arts program for teachers
and students of grades 4 - 12, and is currently writer-in-residence at the
Bronx High School for Writing and Communication Arts. |
 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 out soon.
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 Charlotte
Walsh has taught poetry workshops at the Lakeland Schools Children’s
Center, in New York City schools in cooperation with the Lehman College
Art Gallery, The Scarsdale Young Writers’ Conference and the Armonk Library.
Her works have been published in “Into the Teeth of the Wind” and by other
small presses. |
 Mary
Carroll Moore has published ten nonfiction books (including How to
Master Change in Your Life: Sixty- Seven Ways to Handle Life’s Toughest
Moments). She has just finished her first fiction book, Breathing
Room, a collection of linked short stories, and a chapter from this
book won an honorable mention in the 2005 McKnight Awards. For twelve years
she was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, and over 200 of her
articles, essays, and stories have appeared in publications such as the
Boston Globe, American Artist, and American Health.
As an editor and book doctor for major publishing houses since 1986, she
knows what it takes to write a successful book. She teaches writing at Litchfield
Community Center in Connecticut, The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis,
and other locations around the U. S., Canada, and Europe. www.marycarrollmoore.com |
 Jane
Willis has written plays (her one-act Slam! has been performed
all over the U.S. and, most recently, in India), screenplays (including
The It Girl for Martin Poll Productions), and for daytime dramas
(garnering an Emmy Nomination along with her writing team for As the
World Turns). She taught play-writing for eight years at Sarah Lawrence
College and now focuses her teaching efforts almost exclusively on middle
school students. |
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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. The Hudson Valley Writers' Center - Home Page
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Kurt
Brown, the author of five chapbooks and four full-length poetry collections,
is founding director of the Aspen Writers Conference, now in its 30th
year, and the editor of three annuals which gather outstanding lectures
from writers conferences and festivals. He served for years on the board
of Sarabande Books and is currently on the board of Poets House. He teaches
in the MFA Program at Sarah Lawrence College and at writers’ conferences,
retreats and other venues across the U. S.
Joan
Potter's nonfiction writing has been published in numerous magazines
and newspapers, including The New York Times, the Westchester
County Times, Woman's Day, Family Circle, and Adirondack
Life, and in the anthologies Rooted in Rock and Living North
Country. She is the author of three books, including African American
Firsts: Famous, Little-Known and Unsung Triumphs of Blacks in America.
She has edited, among other books, 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 has also led workshops for prisoners
and Latino immigrants.