workshops
Wordstock for Writers
Buy your tickets now through Tickets Oregon – Space is limited!
Wordstock for Writers workshops will take place Saturday and Sunday, October 10 and 11, 2009, at the Oregon Convention Center. Geared for writers of all levels, these two days of workshops are designed to provide writers with hands-on strategies for improving their prose and poetry as well as a chance to work with some of the finest writers in the country.
Wordstock for Writers is the only writing workshop in the Pacific NW housed within a major metropolitan book festival. The schedule allows students to see most of the world-class readings at Wordstock and attend classes without having to leave the building.
Buy your tickets NOW.
$35 for one workshop, $60 for two, and $20 for each additional.
Show your proof of workshop purchase at any information booth for free festival admission.
WORKSHOPS FOR SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2009
9:00am- 10:15am
Enliven Your Writing With Comparative Language
Amy Minato
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What does remorse taste like? What vegetable is love? Comparisons urge readers to leap emotional chasms. Learn lively ways to generate effective metaphors and weave these into your poetry, fiction or nonfiction. Writers of all levels and interests welcome.
9:00am-10:15am
Capture the Stories of Your Life: Tips on Writing Memoirs
Paula Slavens -The Association of Personal Historians
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Not everybody is an extraordinary storyteller, but everyone has an extraordinary story to tell. This task of a lifetime is often overwhelming. In this workshop we help you get started with organizing techniques, memory triggers, and creative approaches.
10:30am-11:45am
Writing the Life Poetic
Sage Cohen
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Poetry is one of the great pleasures in life, and no one needs an advanced degree in creative writing to reap its rewards. Participants will discover new ways to think and write about the subjects that interest them and get inspired to start capturing those observations on paper, in poetry, immediately.
10:30am-11:45am
How To Become a Successful Freelance Writer: The Business of Freelancing
Laurie Sandell
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This workshop offers a clear set of tools to aspiring writers to navigate the business of freelance writing. It will cover the reality of freelance life, building a clip file, getting a regular paycheck, ideas and pitches, rejection, acceptance and longevity.
12:00pm-1:15pm
Me and My Shadow: An Author, His Characters and Narrative Distance
Dan Chaon
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What’s a writer’s relationship to the fictional characters that he is creating? Is this a question of language and aesthetics? Of philosophy? Is it a psychological issue? A moral issue? All of the above? This workshop will discuss the decisions that an author makes as he sets out to create a character.
12:00pm-1:15pm
Marketing Yourself and Your Manuscript
Dennis Stovall & Ooligan Press Editors
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This workshop will explore the steps a writer needs to take to find the right publishing house as well as information on how to write an effective query letter and book proposal, plus author resources, tips for interacting with acquisition editors, marketing information, and so much more.
1:30pm-2:45pm
How to Write a Novel Without Losing: Your Job, Your Family, Your Mind
Carol Cassella
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Most novelists start in the middle of careers, raising families and juggling otherwise packed lives. Come to this workshop with a basic concept for your novel and learn how to organize your ideas into a layered structure that facilitates writing on weekends, vacations and small chunks of stolen time.
1:30pm-2:45pm
Fascinating but Marginal: How Much Researched Detail Belongs in Your Fiction?
Joyce Hinnefeld
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Is it possible to create authentic characters who live in a world—historical, geographical, professional—that it’s impossible for you, the writer, to know firsthand? What kind of research is the right kind of research, and how much of that research should end up in your story or novel?
3:00pm-4:15pm
Writing Short Memoir That Sells
Melissa Hart
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This workshop will cover how to identify topics for short memoir, what editors want in terms of style and content, how to structure memoir around a theme or current event, how to navigate the difficulties of writing from memory, how to approach editors and tips for marketing books through memoir.
3:00pm-4:15pm
Witch’s Brew: Combining Fact, Fiction and Family History
Kathleen Kent
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This workshop will explore how personal experience, family history and careful research, can enhance even a well known story, and making it unique. We will also discuss how personal stories and experiences can be used to promote a finished manuscript through marketing and publicity.
4:30pm-5:45pm
Show v. Tell: Demystifying the Rule
Liz Prato
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Show, don’t tell, is of the first writing rules we learn, yet it remains elusive to many writers. In this class we’ll look at clear examples of “showing,” discuss how, when, and why to do it, and demystify the sometimes blurry line between showing and telling.
4:30pm-5:45pm
Project Management for Creative Types
Dawn Prochovnic
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In business, project management tools help prioritize and organize work. These same tools can help writers prioritize and accomplish the many tasks necessary to fulfill our goals. Come to workshop for practical tips that will help bring a sense of order to the demands of your creative life.
WORKSHOPS FOR SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2009
9:00am-10:15am
The Thrill of It All: 47 Ways to Keep the Pages Turning in Your Manuscript
April Henry
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Come learn from a New York Times bestselling novelist some of the tricks that can keep any novel – but especially crime fiction – fast-paced. April Henry will share 47 proven ways to create a page-turner.
9:00am-10:15am
The True Business of Writing: Starting a Career
Marie Mockett
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Beginning writers often miss out on a true nuts-and-bolts explanation of how to start and build a career. Find them here! Through a realistic look at what steps you can take to build a career, you’ll walk away knowing how to build a standard query letter and develop good submission habits.
10:30am-11:45pm
A Great Story: Without it You’re Nothing
Maria Semple
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How many novels do you start but don’t finish? Gorgeous language, snappy dialogue, complex characters, fascinating subject – none of it matters without a compelling story. Learn how to push and strengthen your narrative to make sure your reader keeps furiously turning those pages.
10:30am-11:45pm
The Playground of Words: Creative Warm-Ups and Exercises to Jumpstart Your Writing
Kim-An Lieberman
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Time for recess! This workshop will present a variety of fun word games and literary warm-ups that can help spark creativity, work through writer’s block, or energize a writing group or classroom session. Writers from all genres and levels are welcome.
12pm-1:15pm
Torrrrture the Heroine: Creating Robust Characters in Fiction
Mary Jane Beaufrand
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Real characters have flaws – and that’s why readers love them. But before you can create a character that attracts your audience, you need to understand “Point of View.” Master the tools essential to developing point of view and well-rounded fictional characters that transcend “autopsy” descriptions.
12pm-1:15pm
The Path to Publishing: An Author’s Journey
David Michael Slater
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Slush piles. Rejection letters. You know the story. Learn how to overcome the obstacles every writer faces on the path of publication by exploring theories, tips, and suggestions. Bring your questions and prepare to be inspired!
1:30pm-2:45pm
Character and the Seven Deadly Sins
Rosanne Parry
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Every story needs conflict. And the strongest conflicts come from characters with habits and attitudes that tend to get them into trouble. Learn how to craft dynamic characters by capturing their inner tension, escalating the conflicts in their plot and add drama to the climax of their story.
1:30pm-2:45pm
The Art of the Ending
Joni Sensel
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A powerful ending remains with the reader long after beginnings are moot – and a poor ending can ruin the entire experience. Explore a variety of ending structures and styles, discuss strong and weaker endings in published work, and find out how to create endings that make that aftertaste sweet.
3:00pm-4:15pm
Write What You Don’t Know: Using Risk and Experimentation Can Make You a Better Writer
Brian Christopher
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Conventional wisdom says to write what you know. But the quickest way to progress as a writer is to head in unexplored (and sometimes uncomfortable) directions. Go to unpredictable places where you will learn new things about yourself and what you can accomplish as a writer.
3:00pm-4:15pm
Fire & Ink: A Social Action Writing Workshop
Francis Payne Adler
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Want to write activist poems or stories or memoir but there’s something holding you back? This is the workshop to shake it loose. Frances Payne Adler, co-editor of the new anthology of activist writers, Fire & Ink, will help you cultivate your social justice writing and find allies in this work.
4:30pm-5:45pm
Get Known Before the Book Deal: A Platform Development Checklist
Christina Katz
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Becoming visible is more crucial to landing a book deal than ever. This lively presentation shows you how to see the bigger picture so you can name, claim, cultivate and explain your all-important writer’s platform from scratch – and land that book deal.
4:30pm-5:45pm
How to Market Your Book to Tweens
Dale Basye
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It’s more challenging than ever to get your book into a kid’s hands. But don’t despair! It’s just a question of thinking like your audience. Learn how to connect with kids with the power of technology and relevant, consistent messages.