Friday Workshops 1:00-2:00pm

View Workshop Tracks Schedule

Track/Presenter	Workshop	Description
Beginner Writing Jeanne Veillette Bowerman	How to Break Into Magazine Writing	Breaking into any type of creative endeavor is never easy, especially journalism. Despite the challenges, it's still possible to get paid for your writing! Learn tricks on getting your first published clips, querying editors, networking and more. A website to hold all your treasured writing is key, so we'll cover Author Website 101 tips, too. By the end of the class, you'll have action items to tackle to get your writing career started!
Writing for Screen Peter Dunne	Writing for Social Change in Film and Television	Throughout history, writers, musicians, dancers, sculptors, composers, and artists of every stripe have led the call for social justice and reform by using their art to raise awareness and encourage engagement. Today’s cultural and political turmoil calls for the creative community to once again use its talent and passion to advocate for social consciousness and effective change. And this means you, too, in all your writing, but especially if you intend to write for TV and Film where your voice can be heard across the land and around the world. It is never easy, of course, but since when has any writing ever been easy? Are you willing to assume your place in the pantheon of artists who’ve made a difference? If you haven’t given this thought before, it’s time to do so now.
Poetry Laure-Anne Bossellar	The End, Right? Right!	There are countless ways to end poems, and yet the great majority of endings do one of two things: greatly contract the focus of the poem, or expand it wider than any first time reader could anticipate. By taking a close look at some poems we’ll discover how the use of imagery, line-breaks, quotes, leaps, surprises and other “tricks” lead to their satisfactory conclusions. (Handout will be provided)
Memoir/Novels Carly Gelsinger	How to Write a No-BS Memoir that Readers Will Love	It’s easy to write memoir. It’s hard to do it well. Readers have great bullshit detectors. They smell flat characters, one-sided stories, and they definitely can sniff out a protagonist with a victim-or-hero-complex. In this workshop, we will use honest self-reflection and the Enneagram to capture ourselves as compelling nuanced protagonists. Learn to identify the five signs of a flat protagonist, and replace it with a robust and deep character that readers can relate to.
Historical and Non-Fiction Mark Arnold	Researching and Writing the Historical Novel	Research techniques for winnowing out the false and incorrect information from the accurate, substantive. How to best make use of that information in a novel as opposed to a biographical or academic publication.
Business Lisa Abellera	Introduction to Publishing: A Primer on Publishing and Querying Agents	Lisa will introduce authors to the world of traditional publishing and the process to getting a literary agent. She will briefly discuss the four publishing paths and their differences, but mainly focus on traditional publishing and what it means to partner with a literary agent. She will explain in detail what a literary agent is and does for the author, along with advice on querying and steps to writing a good pitch for their query letter.
Marketing Paula Margulies	The Tao of Book Publicity: Book Promotion Strategies that Work!	In this workshop, book publicist Paula Margulies will cover techniques that help authors successfully promote their publications. Workshop topics include: how to build an author platform, guidelines for creating blog tours, how to set up a successful speaking tour, and how to obtain interviews with the media. Margulies will also discuss social media, book pricing and promos, and building an engaging author website, along with how to develop targeted publicity material, including front and back cover text, press releases, and Q&As, and tips for creating newsletter and media lists. Margulies is also happy to answer questions about practical topics such as publicity costs, timing, and considerations when hiring a publicist.
Technique Kate Gale	How to Create a Writer's LIfe	Learn how to create a writer's life with practice, with care, and with an intention to setting up a meeting between the intellect and the imagination. How to live a sustainable writer's life that includes publication.