WELCOME TO THE HVWC CALENDAR: home of all our upcoming readings, events and workshops. You can view by list or calendar (see right menu to choose). Click the colored tabs below to show only specific options. Our workshops run as multi-session series or one-day “intensives.” Note, we list the multi-session courses on the first day they meet only. The full dates of the session are described in the course descriptions. You would need to scroll back to the start date if you needed to enroll for something already underway. But do let us know if you want to join something in midstream since we need the blessing of the instructor. Questions? Email us.
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.
July 2019
An Evening with David Baker, TR Hummer, and Page Starzinger
David Baker is the author of twelve books of poetry, including Swift: New and Selected Poems (2019, W. W. Norton), Scavenger Loop (2015, Norton), and the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize Winner,Never-Ending Birds (2009, Norton), as well as six books of prose. Among his awards are prizes and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Society of America, Mellon Foundation, and the Society of Midland Authors. Baker holds the Thomas B. Fordham Chair at Denison University in Granville, Ohio…
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. NEW: We're adjusting the policy to balance the demand at the door and online: There are now 10 performer slots up for sale online, placing you on the list in order of your purchase. The other 10 slots…
Find out more »Improv for Actors, Writers, and Bored People with Lynne Lori Sylvan
Join Lynne Lori Sylvan as she teaches you all the improv techniques in her toolkit. This fun supportive class will gently lead you to creating more authentic dialogue, either as a writer or an actor or a person navigating the world. Some of the games will focus on active listening, and others on crystallizing the essence of your idea. You will be amazed at what you can come up with after a relaxed warm-up! This class is for 18 and…
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. NEW: We're adjusting the policy to balance the demand at the door and online: There are now 10 performer slots up for sale online, placing you on the list in order of your purchase. The other 10 slots…
Find out more »Saying the Unsayable—How to Write Complex Emotions with Amanda Stern
Feelings are hard to describe, much less write. Most writers rely purely on the physical to get their emotional point across. To indicate loss to the reader, the writer might rely on subtext, and by doing so they write about things on the surface: a bereft father catches sight of a man swinging his young daughter around on the beach. We understand and feel the gulf between what one man has lost and the other takes for granted. The more…
Find out more »Defining and Assembling Your Memoir with Susan Hodara
You’ve been writing your memories and stories and chapters, and you’re wondering how it all fits together. In this four-hour intensive, through in-class writing and discussion, we will uncover pervasive themes that connect your pieces, consider possible beginnings and endings, begin to define your narrative arc, and better understand what your work is about. For memoirists at any stage of their writing.
Find out more »SHLF Saturday
In the spirit of the Sleepy Hollow Lit Fest, we proudly launch our new semi-annual showcase of local and self-published authors. Krista Madsen hosts. First event is scheduled for Saturday July 27 at 7 pm, featuring: Camilla Calhoun, author of the evocative memoir The White Moth Herbert Hadad, HVWC teacher and author of the memoirs Tender and Tough: 60 Years of Storytelling and Finding Immortality: The Making of One American Family Margaret Winslow, author of two award-winning travel memoirs…
Find out more »An Evening with Chaya Bhuvaneswar & Jennifer Baker
Join Chaya Bhuvaneswar and Jennifer Baker for a remarkable night of readings and a discussion about diverse voices by women of color in contemporary American fiction. NB: The first twenty people who purchase full-price tickets for this event online will receive a signed copy of Bhuvaneswar's book, White Dancing Elephants, at the event on July 31st. Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a practicing physician, writer, and PEN American award finalist whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in many national and international…
Find out more »August 2019
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 host 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 you need to successfully…
Find out more »HVWC Published Student Reading
Join Program Director, Jennifer Franklin, as she welcomes current HVWC poetry students: Vincent Bell, Ellen Devlin, Jack Powers, and current fiction students : Rob DelVecchio, Alexandra M. Matthews, and Eileen Tomarchio as they read from their recently published work.
Find out more »Writing Past Grief with Gardner McFall
This one-day Master Class will explore how powerful emotion impels a poem and, in the case of loss, can lead, through craft, to a poem or even a series of poems. Oscar Wilde said: "Form is everything. It is the secret to life. Find expression for a sorrow and it will become dear to you". How do we find the right expression in a poem? During this four-hour class, after looking at some examples of elegies, we'll read and discuss…
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 Michelle Thomas and Cassie Cartaginese 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 »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. NEW: We're adjusting the policy to balance the demand at the door and online: There are now 10 performer slots up for sale online, placing you on the list in order of your purchase. The other 10 slots…
Find out more »September 2019
Creating Hyperrealities with Shane Cashman
NB: This is a six week class. It will start on Wednesday September 11th and end on Wednesday October 16th. Make-up week is Wednesday October 23rd. The second session will begin on Wednesday October 30th. The focus of this course will be to sharpen and harness our senses through journaling, freewriting, daydreaming, people-watching, sketching, and more. All ways in which we can add many depths to our writing as we translate our ideas onto the page—no matter the genre—so that we…
Find out more »October 2019
Humor Writing Class with Patricia Marx
NB: This is a one-day Master Class, capped at 17 students. Slots will fill quickly so please register now if you want a spot. Patricia Marx is a staff writer for the New Yorker and a former writer for Saturday Night Live and Rugrats. Her two novels (Him Her Him Again The End of Him and Starting From Happy) were Thurber Prize Finalists. Her children’s book Now Everybody Really Hates Me was the first and only winner of the Friedrich…
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