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Winter 2008 Writing Workshops | ||||
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| **Due to Metro North Railroad platform replacement work at the Philipse Manor station, our Monday to Friday daytime workshops (those beginning before 3 pm) will be held at 35 South Broadway, Tarrytown, upstairs from the "Nearly New" shop of The Junior League of Westchester-on-Hudson. All other workshops will still be held at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center (Philipse Manor Railroad Station building) unless otherwise indicated. The location of each workshop is indicated below (following the time of the workshop).** Please
note that there is a nonrefundable $25 registration fee per workshop
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| Winter Workshops for Adults
One and Two-Day Workshops
Winter Workshops for Young Writers
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Winter
2008 Writing Workshops for Adults To register, click here. | |
| HOW
TO PLAN, WRITE, AND DEVELOP A BOOK 6
Mondays, January 28 - March 10 (skips Feb. 18) Whether you’re a nonfiction author, memoirist, or novelist, and whether you have a book almost finished or merely a concept for one, this 6 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 | |
| SCULPTING
A POEM 4
Mondays, January 28 - March 3 (skips Feb. 18 & 25) The hardest thing to do is write what you intended to write. In this concentrated workshop, you will shape and reshape poems, respond carefully to fellow class members, perhaps respond to an exercise, stretch yourself towards the new and the traditional, in your own work and in the pleasure of reading other poets. Note: this workshop is for more advanced poets. Status: completed | |
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GENERATING
POEMS 5
Mondays, March 10 - April 7 This is a workshop for those looking to generate a volume of new material, along with those looking to get out of a rut and write in fresh ways. Participants will be shown exercises and techniques for finding and developing poetic subjects.We will look at the challenges and benefits of writing in many genres: narrative, lyric, formal, persona poems, absurdist poems, poems of place, poems that attempt to say the unsayable. For each exercise we will examine models from the masters, but the emphasis will always be on new writing by participants. Note: this workshop is appropriate for all levels of experience. Status: completed | |
| MEMOIR
WRITING 8
Tuesdays, January 22 - March 18 (skips Feb. 19) 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: completed | |
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FICTION
INTENSIVE 6
Tuesdays, February 5 - March 25 (skips Feb. 19 & March 11) 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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WRITING
CHILDREN'S BOOKS & STORIES 4
Wednesdays, February 27 - March 19 Develop a strong narrative voice and distinctive style when writing for readers from middle grade to young adult. In this intensive course, unique writing exercises will help writers, both the inexperienced and the skilled, explore their writing strengths. Each session will focus on a different aspect of writing. Information about being published will also be addressed. Status: completed | |
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THE
ART OF THE ESSAY 6 Wednesdays,
January 30 - March 12 (skips Feb. 13) 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: completed | |
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EXPERIMENTS
IN POETRY 7
Thursdays, February 7 - April 3 (skips Feb. 21 & March 20) 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 and discuss issues of process and creativity. Required Textbook: Poetry Daily, edited by Boller, Selby, and Yost (Sourcebooks, 2003, paperback)
Status: completed | |
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BORDER
CROSSINGS: A Multi-Genre Workshop 7
Thursdays, February 7 - April 3 (skips Feb. 21 & March 20) This workshop allows you to experiment with several different genres—poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and hybrid forms. You’ll write and share brief assignments, read literary selections, discuss issues of craft and creativity, and receive general response on works-in-progress. Required Textbooks: Poetry Daily, edited by Boller, Selby, and Yost (Sourcebooks, 2003); Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction, edited by Judith Kitchen (Norton, 2005)
Status: completed | |
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HOW
TO WRITE PAGE-TURNING FICTION 8 Thursdays,
7 - 9 pm (at HVWC) We’ve all done it, stayed awake until three a.m. compulsively turning pages until we finish the book or our eyes betray us and we fall asleep. How do writers grab us like that and not let go? As writers ourselves we can learn from literary techniques of popular genres how to keep the story moving in a compelling fashion. Whether we write about the everyday dramas of ordinary life or the extreme situations of the detective novel or the pulse-pounding thriller, our work will benefit from consideration of how to develop compelling and sympathetic protagonists, disquieting antagonists, a unique voice, well-considered plots, conflict and tension. Our characters may or may not be seeking the Holy Grail, but everyday life with its quiet agonies and quiet satisfactions is equally sacred to the writer of intelligent fiction—and equally deserving of that special magic it takes to keep the reader turning “just one more page.” Status: completed | |
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CONTINUING
FICTION 6
Saturdays, February
2 - March 15 (skips Feb. 16) 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. Status: completed | |
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INTRO
TO FICTION: BEING THE CHARACTER 6
Saturdays, February
2 - March 15 (skips Feb. 16) Fictional characters (like the rest of us) make choices based on who they are, what they want most, and what they’re afraid of. When you hear writers talk about their characters “taking over,” you know they understand their characters well. In this workshop you will learn specific practical techniques to put you deeply into the minds of your characters and help you use those insights to produce original and compelling writing. The techniques can help you start new stories as well as improve existing material. Status: completed | |
| One
and Two-Day Workshops To register, click here. | |
| JUMPSTART
YOUR POETRY WRITING LIFE Saturday,
January 26, 2008 Want to get writing and keep writing? This special one-session version of one of our most popular workshops presents exercises and advice to jumpstart your poetry life. We will workshop one of your poems. Bring 11 copies, and practice seeing it for what it is: a springboard to your next poem, and your next! Status: completed | |
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IMPROVE
YOUR CHANCES OF GETTING YOUR CHILDREN’S BOOK PUBLISHED 2
Wednesdays, February 6 & 13, 2008 You’ve always wanted to write a children’s book? You’ve got an idea? Even better, you’ve actually written something down? This workshop will help you examine your writing in the light of the children’s publishing market; what editors look for, whether you need an agent, how to recognize which genre you’re best suited to, and most importantly, how to shape your own story to be the best it can be. Come to class prepared with a picture book manuscript or the first chapter of a book for older readers. Status: completed | |
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INTERVIEWING
TECHNIQUES Friday,
February 1, 2008 Interviewing is arguably the single most essential skill for any journalist or writer of non-fiction -- without quotes, anecdotes, context, analysis and history, a story or book remains a dry pile of data, facts without meaning. But interviewing is also one of the writer's toughest tasks. It looks social, easy, conversational, and it's not. It's a carefully planned and controlled interaction, with a clear set of goals. And your subjects may be profoundly different from you in every way: political views, race, gender, age, education, culture or ethnicity, while it remains your task, sometimes within only minutes, to gain trust and elicit candor from someone who has never met you and perhaps never might, as many interviews are now done by phone or email. This workshop, led by a former reporter for three major dailies, including the New York Daily News, a National Magazine Award-winner and author of a non-fiction book including 104 original interviews with men, women and teens from 29 states, will teach you how, when, where and why to conduct thoughtful interviews. Specific topics for discussion will include: gatekeeper sources and how to work with or around them; where and how to find sources; how to persuade reluctant sources to speak to you; clarifying on the record/off-the-record/background. Note-taking or tape recorder? At the end of this workshop, participants will have learned both basic skills and more advanced techniques for interviewing subjects from all backgrounds. Ample time is included for discussion and questions. Status: completed | |
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MEMOIR:
A WINDOW INTO A LIFE Sunday,
February 10, 2008 Memoir has been described by the writer William Zinsser as “a window into a life.” Unlike autobiography, which moves chronologically through an entire life, memoir tells the story of a portion of a life. And in telling the story, the memoirist also muses upon it, reflecting upon how she now understands it. In this three-hour workshop, we will discuss the various aspects of memoir, such as theme, voice, truth, and structure. Each participant will then write a short memoir, read it aloud, and receive feedback from others in the class. This workshop is open to writers of all levels—those in the process of writing a memoir and those who need help getting started. Status: completed | |
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THE
WHEEL OF TEN: Essential Tools to Make Memoir and Fiction Come Alive Friday,
February 29, 2008 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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| WRITEMIND:
A Special Creative Writing Workshop for Teachers 3
Sundays, March 2, 9 & 16 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. Please note that the nonmember workshop registration fee does not apply to this workshop. Status: canceled | |
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Winter 2008 Workshops for Young Writers To register, click here. | |
| CREATIVE
WRITING FOR THIRD, FOURTH & FIFTH GRADERS 6
Thursdays, January 24 - March 6 (skips Feb. 21) 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. (Note that some sessions will be taught by Kate Gallagher and others will be taught by Charlotte Walsh.) Status: completed | |
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CREATIVE
WRITING FOR TEENS AGE 14+ 6 Saturdays,
January 26 - March 15 (skips Feb. 16 & 23) Six 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: completed | |
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To
register, click here. | |
| 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. |  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 |
 Joanne
Dobson is the author of the Professor Karen Pelletier mystery series from
Doubleday and Poisoned Pen Press. In 2001 she was named Noted Author of the Year
by the RAAS section of the New York Library Association. Until recently she taught
literature and creative writing at Fordham University, and she now writes full
time. |  Joan
Potter’s nonfiction writing has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers.
Her personal essays appear in the anthologies Rooted in Rock, Living
North Country, the new collection, Illness & Grace, Terror & Transformation,
and in the online journal Perigee. 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. |
 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 taught creative writing for children, adults,
and the developmentally disabled. She is a member of Poetry Caravan and has read
her work at venues throughout NYC and Westchester. |  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 children’s librarian at Tuckahoe and
the head of technical services at Eastchester Public Library. |
 Douglas
Goetsch is the author of six collections of poems, most recently Your Whole
Life (winner of the 2007 Slipstream Prize). His work has appeared widely in
journals such as Poetry, The Iowa Review, and The American Scholar,
online at PoetryDaily and Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, on the air
at NPR, and in many anthologies. He is a veteran instructor who has taught at
writing conferences and programs around the country, including The Stonecoast
Writers Conference, The Frost Place, the Chautauqua Institute, and The Iowa Summer
Writing Festival. To find out more, visit www.janestreet.com.
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 Liana
Scalettar's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in American Short
Fiction, Arts & Letters, Drunken Boat, Failbetter, Gutcult, LIT, Nidus,
Sentence and Washington Square. Her awards include a Pushcart
Prize nomination, a Glimmer Train prize, and the Amanda Davis scholarship
given by the Wesleyan Writers' Conference, as well as residencies at the
MacDowell Colony, Santa Fe Art Institute, and Vermont Studio Center. She
has taught at Boston and Fordham universities and Gotham Writers' Workshop,
and currently works at Queens College. |
 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. |  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. |
 Marthe
Jocelyn of NYC and Stratford, Ontario, says she reads everything she can get
her hands on in children’s literature “where some of the best writing being published
today is found—and should be found.” She is the author-illustrator of several
picture books and the author of three chapter books (The Invisible Day,
The Invisible Harry, and The Invisible Enemy) and two works of historical
fiction, Earthly Astonishments, and Mable Riley: A Reliable Record of
Humdrum, Peril and Adventure. She also wrote a non-fiction book, A Home
for Foundlings, about the Foundling Hospital in London, England, and edited
an anthology of short stories for middle grade readers called Secrets.
In 2005, she was winner of the first annual TD Canadian Children’s Literature
Award for Mable Riley. |  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. |
 Caitlin
Kelly has worked as a newspaper and magazine journalist for more than 30 years
in Canada, France and the U.S. She writes regularly for The New York Times
and is the author of Blown Away: American Women and Guns (Pocket Books
2004.) She is on the board of the 1,300-member national American Society of Journalists
and Authors. Her work, and writing tips, can be read at caitlinkelly.com |  Estha
Weiner is co-editor and contributor to Blues For Bill: A Tribute To William
Matthews. (Akron Poetry Series, 2005) and author of The Mistress Manuscript
(Rivendell Press, forthcoming). Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies
and magazines, including The New Republic and Barrow Street. She
is a 2005 winner of a Paterson Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for “Discovery/
The Nation” Prize. Estha is founder and director of The NY Writers Nights Series
for Sarah Lawrence College, Marymount Writers Nights, and a Speaker on Shakespeare
for The New York Council For The Humanities. She is Adj. Assistant Professor of
English at City College of NY, and serves on the Poetry/Writing faculties of The
Frost Place, Stonecoast Writers Conference, Poets and Writers, Poets House, as
well as The Writers Voice. She also serves on the Advisory Board of The Hudson
Valley Writers’ Center’s Slapering Hol Press. In her previous life, Estha was
an actor and worked for BBC radio in the US. |
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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. Jr. League = The Junior League of Westchester-on-Hudson, 35 South Broadway, Tarrytown, New York. During Metro North's platform reconstruction project at the Philipse Manor station, our daytime workshops will be held at the Junior League building (upstairs from the Nearly New shop). The building is located at the intersection of South Broadway (Route 9) and West Elizabeth Street, north of the Tappan Zee Bridge.
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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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, Trick Pear, has just been published by Carnegie
Mellon.
Rebecca
McClanahan has published five volumes of poetry, three books about writing,
and a collection of personal essays, The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings,
which recently won the Glasgow Prize from Shenandoah. 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