Literary Mama Blog

Mother Writer Workshops

MotherVerse is also launching an exciting new addition, mother writer workshops. These virtual workshops are designed to help facilitate mother writing by encouraging mother writers to come together to learn and guide one another. We will be offering two workshops "Writing Motherhood" and "Publishing a Blog" with will begin at the end of April and early May. If you are interested in joining please sign up as soon as possible as each workshop has a limited enrollment. We look forward to seeing you in one! Visit http://www.motherverse.com/workshops.

Have you heard about The Writer Mama Scholarship?

Are you a mom, who would love to take the Writing and Publishing the Short Stuff Class that starts April 16th with author Christina Katz, but you would not otherwise be able to afford it?

Then you qualify for The Writer Mama Scholarship!

The deadline for your short application is one week only: Saturday, March 8th - Saturday March 15th at midnight (please note, slight date change).

Please read the guidelines completely and double-check your work. The recipient will be announced by midnight, March 16th, in the Writer Mama Riffs blog and in the April The Writer Mama zine (you can subscribe at the blog by clicking on the envelope).

Please feel free to spread the word about the scholarship, even if you do not intend to apply!

Copy and paste the application: The Writer Mama

The Writer Mama scholarship

Christina Katz is pleased to announce that she is giving one full scholarship for each of her four scheduled Writing and Publishing the Short Stuff classes this year.

Information about the scholarship for the first class of 2008 is now posted. For complete guidelines, please visit: The Writer Mama scholarship.

The application deadline is one week only: Sunday, January 13 - Saturday, January 19 at midnight.

The recipient will be announced by midnight, January 26th

The recipient will be announced by midnight, February 26th in The Writer Mama blog and in The Writer Mama zine.

Please feel free to spread the word about the scholarship, even if you do not intend to apply!

This is a full scholarship (value $175.00). The recipient commits to participating fully in the class, delivering all six assignments on time.

Thanks for spreading the word!

In the writing-for-publication spirit,

Christina Katz

Want to Write a Novel?

Always wanted to write a novel? Does your parenting schedule keep you from attending a local class? The answer is here: Masha Hamilton's online novel writing workshops. You can take the class in your pajamas, while breastfeeding, even in bed.

There is still room in the Level I ten-week online classes which will open January 15th and run through March 25th, 2008.

Masha is a mother, a novelist and an inspiring, brilliant teacher. She teaches her workshops on two levels: one, for beginning novelists and the other for those who are well into a manuscript. Her teaching techniques are inspiring, her feedback is generous and insightful. She encourages building a warm and supportive community and truly bringing your writing to the next level.

Take a ten-week online novel-writing class from Masha!

Dates: Jan 15 through March 25.

Novel Writing I is right for any writer who has been thinking about starting a novel or is up to halfway through. The class will include weekly lectures, critiques, and exercises aimed at helping you see your work freshly. We’ll motivate you as we cover discovering the essence of your novel (and learning how to convey it in a single sentence), as well as the importance of the opening chapter. We’ll discuss where to start the story, how to create a strong protagonist, the dramatic arcs of major characters, choosing a point of view, and exploring the voice of your novel as well as individual characters within it. We’ll analyze scene and delve into the dramatic possibilities created by strong dialogue. We’ll also look at setting, pacing, profluence and psychic distance. Finally, we’ll consider the business end – where and how to market your novel manuscript – and you’ll get guidance on the next step. Limited to twleve students. $500 for ten weeks.

Classes are small to allow for lots of individual attention to manuscripts.

Questions?

Email Masha for more information, or to register!

Enthusiastically recommended by Susan Ito, Life in the Sandwich columnist, creative nonfiction co-editor and previous fiction co-editor.

The Secrets behind Writing and Selling Your First Book

Do you have a great idea for a book but don't know how to go about writing and selling it? Have you written a book that is collecting dust in your desk drawer? If you'd like to know what publishers and agents are really looking for, come to Laura Mazer's, (former Lm columns editor) one-day seminar at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco on October 21st. Learn the top 10 reasons book proposals are rejected and how to avoid those pitfalls. Learn how to promote yourself so you'll get noticed. This workshop will give you the tools you need to first book project written, sold, published and on the shelves in bookstores.

When: Sunday, October 21st, 10am-4pm.
Where: Meridian Gallery, San Francisco
How: www.mediabistro.com
Fee: $125

Making it Pop

MAKING IT POP: Translating Your Ideas for Trade, with Deborah Siegel
Tuesdays 11/6, 11/13, 11/20, 11/27, 12/4, 12/11, 12/18
8:00 - 9:15 pm ET
Format: Online forum + weekly conference call
Fee: $250

Public debate lacks a sensitive discussion of the complex forces shaping the lives of women and girls. Researchers, nonprofit workers, and savvy writers everywhere have the opportunity to frame public debate about these issues. Too often, however, important work fails to reach an audience outside the academic and advocacy worlds. Writing a trade book is one way to join the debate. To sell a book in today's competitive publishing climate, one must be able to write engaging, accessible prose that will appeal to a wide audience. These skills can be learned.

Participants will learn from exchanges with New York City-based agents and editors why it's essential to think about audience and market in a different way, and why you need a book proposal. We'll explore the differences between popular and academic writing, why a dissertation or a monograph is not a trade book, and how to write an effective book proposal-meaning one that has the best chance of being sold. We'll also consider the latest aspects of book publicity, focusing in particular on new media.

Want to Write a Novel?

Want to take the big plunge, and write a novel? Novelist and teacher Masha Hamilton is offering two online novel writing classes starting on September 4th, and is seeking both beginning and advanced students. Susan Ito, Literary Mama columnist and fiction editor, highly recommends this fabulous teacher.

Click here for details.

Novel Writing I is right for any writer who has been thinking about starting a novel or is up to halfway through. The class will include weekly lectures, critiques, and exercises aimed at helping you see your work freshly. We’ll motivate you as we cover discovering the essence of your novel (and learning how to convey it in a single sentence), as well as the importance of the opening chapter. We’ll discuss where to start the story, how to create a strong protagonist, the dramatic arcs of major characters, choosing a point of view, and exploring the voice of your novel as well as individual characters within it. We’ll analyze scene and delve into the dramatic possibilities created by strong dialogue. We’ll also look at setting, pacing, profluence and psychic distance. Finally, we’ll consider the business end – where and how to market your novel manuscript – and you’ll get guidance on the next step. Limited to 10-15 students.

Novel Writing II is for the writer who has more than half of a novel completed and is looking for a critical, helpful eye before the manuscript reaches the agent or editor. In this class, more of your work will be critiqued, and you will be called upon to write detailed weekly critiques yourself. Lectures will spring more naturally from the nature of the work. We’ll talk about motivation in the soggy middle of our manuscripts. This will be a chance to workshop a large portion of your completed work, and resubmit if you choose. We’ll focus on the skills of revision and layering your novel, as well as how to become our own teachers, learning by reading the work of others. The class also will include guidance on what to do once the manuscript is finished. Limited to 6-10 students.

Classes are small to allow for lots of individual attention to manuscripts. Please email me at masha at mashahamilton dot com for more details about either class.

Masha has taught novel-writing privately, on-line, and for Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City, 92nd Street Y/Makor in New York City, Ann Arbor Writers’ Workshop in Ann Arbor, MI, Pima Writers’ Workshop in Tucson, AZ, Willamette Writers in Portland, OR., Ocean Park Maine Writers’ Conference near Portland, ME., Poets and Writers League, Cleveland, OH, and others.

Masha’s students have gone on to get agents, get published, to be accepted to prestigious MFA programs in creative writing. Here are some comments:

Masha is a born writer—and a born teacher. I believe she can help writers on any level with story, character, even sentence structure. I’ve earned an MFA in writing but I turn to Masha for something that no academic environment offers: concise, practical advice that brings results immediately. Plus, her energy and enthusiasm inspires me to keep writing, which is the most important issue of all. She’s the best! — John, Brooklyn

Masha Hamilton gears her writing classes to suit varying skill levels without sacrificing the pace or content of her teaching. No matter how much you’ve written, there is always something to learn. Balanced, substantive critiques combine with meaningful exercises and readings to create a productive and memorable workshop experience. Masha’s ability to maintain open classroom camaraderie while facilitating rigorous analysis of student work is particularly impressive. If you want to sharpen your craft, and approach your writing and revision with greater depth and objectivity, look no further. — Maggie, New York

Writing and Publishing The Short Stuff, Especially For Moms!

Instructor: Christina Katz

Class Maximum: 20

Finally, a writing workshop that fits into the busy lives of moms! The focus is on getting you into print sooner, rather than later, and without pulling all-nighters or paying a fortune in babysitter fees. You will learn how to write short, easy-to-write articles so that you will have an easier time working your way up to longer, more time-consuming articles (like features and profiles) later. You will try your pen at tips, fillers, short interviews, list articles, how-tos, and the short personal essays—all within six weeks. You will have the benefit of reading and learning from your classmates’ efforts. Opportunities for self-assessment and self-reflection are woven into the class.

Christina Katz has been putting writers through the writing and submitting paces since 2001. Personal attention from the instructor is offered throughout the class in the form of questions answered for the entire class, just like a traditional “live” class. Two detailed reviews of your drafts-in-progress are included at weeks three and six (you choose one of your pieces for an instructor critique each time). Because of the high volume of student productivity in this class, the instructor does not critique each and every student submission, but does share them with the entire class.

Busy dads and non-parents are also welcome, but should expect a course pre-designed to address and overcome the challenges busy moms face.

Duration: Six lessons with six assignments completed in six weeks

August 15 - September 26, 2007
October 3 - November 14, 2007

Prerequisites:

This may be your very first writing class or you may be an experienced freelancer. The only requirement is that you must be able to receive and create Microsoft Word documents to participate in this class (or text documents at the very least).

Cost: $160.00 for 2007 WPSS

Creative Non-Fiction, writing memoir

For those of you in the Charleston, SC area, Amy Hudock,
Editor-in-Chief of LiteraryMama, will be team teaching a memoir writing course this fall.

Lowcountry Writing Project
The Citadel
Charleston, SC

Advanced Institute on Creative Nonfiction: Writing Memoir
Co-teachers: Amy Hudock, Ph. D. and Tracey Merton, MA
Offering 3 hours of graduate credit

Tentative Schedule

September 5th-November 15th, Saturdays and Wednesdays. $300.

http://www.citadel.edu/writingproject/

Caught in the Creative Act: Writers Talk about their Writing

Nobel Prize recipient Salman Rushdie and National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Oates are among the featured writers who will participate in the popular series of free community readings and lectures at the University of South Carolina.

Caught in the Creative Act will take place 5:45-7pm Mondays and Wednesdays in Gambrell Hall auditorium. This year's course has two sessions: Sept.17th-Oct.3rd and March 17th-April 9th. Classes are free and open to the public but registration is required.

For more information, go online at www.cas.sc.edu/CICA/.

"Pencils and Whatnot: A Fiction Writing Workshop" with Ericka Lutz

Think ahead!

Now enrolling for Literary Mama Senior Editor Ericka Lutz's private Fall workshop in Oakland, California. "Pencils and Whatnot: A Fiction Writing Workshop" meets for eight sessions, and includes writing exercises, process work, critique sessions, and one private manuscript consultation with the instructor. Appropriate for intermediate and advanced fiction writers. Limited enrollment, by interview. Contact Ericka for more details.

8 meetings
Wednesdays, 6:30-9:30 pm
September 5 to November 14
(No meeting on 9/26, 10/31, and one other date TBA.)
Located in a private home in Oakland, CA

Ericka's teaching style is one of the most effective I've ever encountered. I would highly recommend her to anyone who is trying to become the best writer they can be. She is one of the sharpest teachers out there. -- Max Delgado

Ericka is truly a writer's teacher, insightful, perceptive, and -- perhaps most important -- deeply caring. She deftly guides writers in unlocking their own creativity. -- Camille J. Cusumano