Hudson Valley Writers Center
Located at the Philipse Manor Station (still an operating local stop on Metro-North Hudson East line, but we inhabit the historic building!) the Hudson Valley Writers Center offers unique classes and a versatile performance space.
March 2019
Reading Poetry: The American Poet: a Seminar with Michael Collins
Join poet and scholar, Michael Collins for a seminar on the "American Poet. The class will begin with Emerson and Dickinson and continue with Roethke, Bishop, Berryman and Plath. Discuss in weekly readings and writing prompts the way the American poet is located in a unique place of quiet agency somewhere in between myth, philosophy, politics, and daily life. This class is designed for both readers and writers. It will expose you to a syllabus of past and contemporary poets and will…
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Workshop in Pure Critique with Peter Bricklebank
Whether writing in a garret, ivory tower, or a fever pitch of blind faith, at some point a writer needs to see other people, preferably equally deranged. For people writing fiction or nonfiction who need regular, astute feedback on ongoing projects of any length, this class provides that hothouse work environment. We’re going to put our manuscripts on the table and ask what works, what seems less effective, and why? Are there several narrative possibilities to the draft? Is the…
Find out more »Where to Publish Your Marvelous Poetry Collections with Amy Holman
The goal of this class is to gather, create, and disseminate poems to magazines and anthologies. Participants will learn to evaluate their writing style and choose finished poems for publication, write new poems from prompts aimed at completing a submission selection or series, as well as assess editorial interests at magazines and presses. If there is interest, manuscript composition and publishing assessments can be extended to small and university presses.
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Writing for Stage, Screen, and Television with Bill Bigelow
This is a course designed for writers looking to create screenplays, stage plays, and teleplays for one-hour televisions shows. Paramount in this effort, we will focus on an approach which is necessary in all dramatic writing -- the importance of conflict. How we define, pinpoint and create interesting, unusual characters. How structure is the backbone of a dramatic piece, and how narrative drive and the understanding of the elements of the construction of a story are critical to any piece…
Find out more »SHP Presents the Sanger-Stuart Reading with Rebecca Doverspike & Melissa Atkinson Mercer
Rebecca Doverspike, winner of the 2018 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest for emerging poets, is completing her Mdiv. degree at Harvard Divinity School. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from West Virginia University. She will read from her newly published chapbook Every Present Thing, a Ghost (SHP, 2019). She will be joined by her mentor, Melissa Atkinson Mercer, the author of the full-length collection Saint of the Partial Apology and five chapbooks.
Find out more »I Am Not A Real Writer with Kirsten Bakis
This is a five-week version of Kirsten Bakis' popular one-day class. "I am not a real writer" is what I hear most often from people who almost take a class, but don't. This fiction writing intensive is for everyone who is concerned about having what it takes, whether the issue is "not being a writer," "having no good ideas," or anything else. No experience required. Through exploratory exercises, light readings and discussion, this class will help you find some of…
Find out more »Open Mic
Our Open Mic Nights are held from 7:30-9:30 pm on the 3rd Friday of each month. Doors open at 7 pm for event starting at 7:30. Due to popular demand to participate, we've had to limit the amount of readers to 20; so show up early to get a five-minute spot at the mic. OR, here's a new added incentive to signing up online: you can now reserve your spot to read first-come first-slotted, here with your purchase. Just add…
Find out more »Essay Writing with Herbert Hadad
Herbert Hadad is an award-winning essayist and former reporter for The New York Times, New York Post and Boston Globe who retired recently as a press liaison for the U.S. Department of Justice. Hadad is the author of “Finding Immortality: The Raising of One American Family” and is at work on a second non-fiction book. He has conducted his workshop at HVWC for more than 20 years. “The personal essay is the most flexible of all writing forms,” he says.…
Find out more »Defining and Assembling Your Memoir with Susan Hodara
You’ve been writing memories and stories and chapters for a while, and now it’s time to take stock of what you’ve produced and decide how it all fits together. In this 6-week class, you will use your own writing as we work on creating an inventory of your pieces; understanding and describing why you are writing your memoir and what it is about; defining your narrative arc; and structuring your material into a book. Max 6 students. Prerequisite for non-Hodara…
Find out more »Monday Night Poetry with Kathleen Ossip
Long-time HVWC teacher returns to the Center to teach her popular Monday Night Poetry Class. Kathleen Ossip is the author of The Do-Over, a New York Times Editors' Choice; The Cold War, which was one of Publishers Weekly's best books of 2011; The Search Engine, which was selected by Derek Walcott for the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize; and Cinephrastics, a chapbook of movie poems. Her poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Best American Magazine Writing, the Washington…
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One-Day Memoir Intensive with Susan Hodara
Are you inspired to write about the transforming events of your life? Are you drawn to explore the circumstances surrounding your most vivid memories? For those with a work-in-progress or those starting fresh, this four-hour workshop will offer a supportive environment where we’ll be talking about memoir writing, writing in class and sharing for constructive feedback. You will leave with a new work-in-progress and some insights into the stories you want to write.
Find out more »April 2019
An Evening with David Means & Amitava Kumar
David Means will read from his highly anticipated short story collection, Instructions for a Funeral (March, 2019). He has written several award-winning short story collections, including Assorted Fire Events, The Spot, and The Secret Goldfish. He is also the author of the 2016 novel Hystopia, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Amitava Kumar will read from his novel Immigrant, Montana. He has also written several works of literary nonfiction, including the prize-winning book A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook…
Find out more »Submission Sunday
Submission Sundays is a free service to members of HVWC. Space is limited to 20 participants each session so please reserve your spot. One Sunday a month, 12:30-2:30 pm. Join hosts Carla Carlson and Mary Ann Scott for two hours of insider information on where and how to send your best work. Members can reserve a seat at the table of like-minded writers with a room of journals, advice on where to submit, moral and technical support, and everything…
Find out more »An Evening with Karen Finley & Daniel Lawless
Karen Finley will read from her most recent book of poetry, Grabbing Pussy. She is a performance artist, musician and poet. Her performance art, recordings, and books are used as forms of activism. Karen Finley has written various books that focus on controversial topics. She wrote Shock Treatment, Enough Is Enough: Weekly Meditations for Living Dysfunctionally, and A Different Kind of Intimacy - a latter collection of her works. Her poem "The Black Sheep" is among her best-known works; it was displayed as public art in…
Find out more »The Call of the Wild with Fred Marchant
From fish in the sea to birds in the air and all the living things in between, the world of the wild has always been a source of poetic inspiration. And no doubt there is a streak of wildness inside us humans too. Hovering in the background of everything wild is the ecological crisis of our time, and its enormous implications for all of life. In our day-long workshop we will examine and discuss a number of relevant poems and…
Find out more »Open Write
Please join us for our warm and welcoming Open Write Nights, now at an easier-to-remember regular recurring monthly spot of Second Saturdays! Your hosts Melissa Ragsly and Natalie Mesnard will facilitate an evening of generative writing and community building at the Hudson Valley Writers Center. Prompts will be offered, refreshments served (that includes wine). Stories swapped. $10 for non-members; free for members (will be deducted at checkout when you log in). Become a member here.
Find out more »Picnic, Lightning: Transformative Strategies for the Short Poem with Sharon Kennedy-Nolle
“Picnic, Lightning”: Transformative Strategies for the Short Poem This workshop takes its cue from Vladimir Nabokov’s (in)famously concise description in Lolita: “My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three. . .”. Through close reading, craft talk and workshopping, we will explore strategies for (re) structuring short poems written in both formalist and informalist styles. These strategies include thematic elision, narrative compression, grammatical implosion, and syntactical collisions. Together, we will develop opportunities to transform…
Find out more »An Evening with Lee Bricetti, Betsy Scholl, and Estha Weiner
Lee Briccetti is a poet and has been the long-time Executive Director of Poets House. Her second collection of poetry, Blue Guide, was published in 2017. She won a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry and a Poetry Fellowship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her leadership of Poets House has built it into one of the premiere literary centers in the United States and one of the great poetry libraries in the world. She created…
Find out more »How to Write Persona Poems as if You’re Red Riding Hood and Know How to Skin A Wolf with Cynthia Manick
In this one-day intensive you will learn to write persona poems with craft and conviction. Bring ten copies of a persona poem-in-progress. Cynthia Manick is the author of Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). A Pushcart Prize nominated poet with a MFA in Creative Writing from the New School; she has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, the MacDowell Colony, Poets House, and the Saltonstall Foundation of the Arts among others. A winner of the 2016 Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry and the 2018…
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May 2019
Year of Your Book: Fiction with Kirsten Bakis
How long have you been saying you want to write a book? How much longer do you have to wait? Whether you have a partial draft, or just an idea and the desire to write, this class can help you reach that goal. In-class work will hone specific skills such as dialogue, scene construction, plot and structure; generative exercises will help you reconnect with your sense of creative play; deadlines and serious critique will keep you on track throughout the…
Find out more »June 2019
Four Week Introduction to Journalism Class with Michael Balter
What is journalism? What do reporters do? This is a beginner's course in how to be a reporter, concentrating on nuts and bolts journalistic skills but also delving into some of the burning issues that journalists face today. We will discuss how to find news stories, how to report them--including interviewing, records searches, and other basic shoe leather reporting techniques--as well as how to write them, including basic news story structure. Over the course of four weeks, you will report…
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