workshops - The Writer`s Center

Transcripción

THE
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Early Bird Workshop Discounts on Page 11
&
the Writer's
Center
workshop event guide
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Fall 2010
Managing Editor
Maureen A. Punte
Contributing Editors
Charles Jensen
Kyle Semmel
Contributing Writers
Francisco Aragón
Charles Jensen
E. Ethelbert Miller
Kyle Semmel
Copy Editor
Bernadette Geyer
Illustrations
Zachary Fernebok
Contact Us
p 301-654-8664
f 240-223-0458
www.writer.org
[email protected]
In the Workshop & Event
Guide, The Writer’s Center’s
triquarterly publication,
you’ll find a list of all our
upcoming workshops and
literary events, not to
mention the occasional
interview and craft feature.
Pick it up, pass it on.
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Memoir/Essay
Nonfiction
Stage & Screen
Songwriting
Fiction
Mixed Genre
Poetry
Adults Write for Children
Younger Writers
Professional Development
How 2
Workshops for
Military Veterans
Independent Study
McLean Workshops
DEPARTMENTS
1
2
10
26
29
35
36
Welcome
On Housekeeping
How to Choose
Your Workshop
Events at The Writer's Center
Workshop Leaders
TWC Insider
Thank You
FEATURES
3
Out of Denmark
4
Cave Canem +
Letras Latinas
A Brief History
4
An Interview with
R. Dwayne Betts
6
Celebrating
Edgar Allan Poe
8
Price Matters
11 Early Bird
Workshop Discount
WELCOME
The Writer’s Center
cultivates the creation, publication,
presentation, and dissemination of literary
work. We are an independent literary
organization with a global reach, rooted
in a dynamic community of writers. As
one of the premier centers of its kind in
the country, we believe the craft of writing
is open to people of all backgrounds and
ages. Writing is interdisciplinary and unique
among the arts for its ability to touch on
all aspects of the human experience. It
enriches our lives and opens doors to knowledge and understanding. The Writer’s
Center is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization. Donations are tax deductible. A
copy of our current financial statement
is available upon request. Contact The
Writer’s Center at 4508 Walsh Street,
Bethesda, MD 20815. Documents and
information submitted to the State of
Maryland under the Maryland Charitable
Solicitations Act are available from the
Office of the Secretary of State for the
cost of copying and postage.
PARKING
Metered parking is across the street from
our building. The meters require $1.00
per hour and are routinely monitored.
The meters are free on weekends.
WEB SITE
Our Web site is www.writer.org. It provides complete descriptions of workshops,
workshop leader biographies, interactive
workshops, event listings, resources,
Writer’s Center publications, and books
from our bookstore.
Social networks
You can now find us on
• First Person Plural
The Writer’s Center’s blog
www.thewriterscenter.blogspot.com
The Writer’s Center is
Sponsored in part by:
BOOKSTORE
Poet lore
DIRECTIONS
The Writer’s Center is located at 4508
Walsh Street in Bethesda, Maryland, five
blocks south of the Bethesda Metro stop.
Walsh Street is located on the east side
of Wisconsin Avenue. For more detailed
directions, please visit www.writer.org.
Director
Charles Jensen
Publications & Communications
Caitlin Hill
Maureen A. Punte
Kyle Semmel
Workshops & Events
Sunil Freeman
Business & Operations
Janel Carpenter
Zachary Fernebok
Anne Lacy
Jennifer Napolitano
Laura Spencer
Contact Us
The Bookstore carries one of the most
extensive collections of literary magazines
in the mid-Atlantic states. It also has a large
inventory of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction
titles by local and nationally recognized
authors.
Established in 1889, Poet Lore is the oldest
continuously published poetry journal in
the United States. We publish it twice a
year, and submissions are accepted yearround. Submission requirements are
available online at www.poetlore.com.
Writer’s Center Staff
The Writer’s Center gratefully acknowledges
assistance received from the Cultural Alliance of
Greater Washington’s Business Volunteers for the
Arts Program.
This project is supported in part by an award
from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Writer’s Center is supported in part by The Arts
and Humanities Council of Montgomery County,
and by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council,
an agency funded by the State of Maryland and
the National Endowment for the Arts.
p 301-654-8664
f 240-223-0458
www.writer.org
[email protected]
Board of Directors
Mier Wolf
Chair
Sally Mott Freeman
Vice Chair
Les Hatley
Treasurer
Ken Ackerman
Secretary
Margot Backas
Sandra Beasley
Ellen R. Braaf
Mark Cymrot
Neal P. Gillen
John Hill
Ann McLaughlin
E. Ethelbert Miller
Joram Piatigorsky
Bill Reynolds
Rose Solari
Linda Sullivan
Dulcie Taylor
Wilson W. Wyatt, Jr.
Honorary Board
Cicely Angleton
Kate Blackwell
Jim & Kate Lehrer
Alice McDermott
Ellen McLaughlin
1
ON HOUSEKEEPING
Photo by Shyree Mezick
One of my biggest disappointments in modern life is that we
have yet to invent a self-cleaning
house (or apartment, or car). I
find that no matter what I do,
my apartment simply messes
itself more quickly than I can
clean it. Just as all systems tend
toward chaos, so it goes with
my living space. Books end up
stacked haphazardly by my
bedside, tossed on the coffee
table, teetering off the bookcase, and in tilting towers stacked
on any empty flat surface. I’m a fervent recycler, but am
reluctant to get the bag into the bin. I leave scattered notes
and scribbles everywhere, and my writing desk looks like a
ferret nests there, so mussed is the area around my keyboard
and printer. The biggest disruption all this makes, of course,
is in my own writing life, where sweeping floors, washing
dishes, and doing laundry seem more insistent than sitting
down to read or write. And yet, I find I’m most creative when
I’m not surrounded by clutter. Perhaps there is something
to the old “I had to do laundry” excuse for not writing…
While writing time is necessary, housekeeping shouldn’t
be ignored for long, even among writers. That said, I hope
you’ll notice we’ve made some improvements around The
Writer’s Center. Our new Web site recently launched to
give you a better, more reliable online interface, as well
as high tech learning environments. For us, the Web site
provides an opportunity to enliven your browsing experience
with video, podcasts, an integrated blog, and up-to-date
information to help you find your way. Please let us know
what you think of it.
We’ve also added some new workshop packages for you.
Based on your feedback, we’ve created “HOW 2,” a series
of hands-on, skill-based workshops in response to our most
frequent questions. Want to know how to find an agent?
We’ve got that. Trying to sell a screenplay? We’ve got that
too. These low-cost and low time-commitment workshops
will spur you into action. We’re also starting an “independent
study” program to replace our old mentoring program. This
places you one-on-one with a seasoned writer who will give
you feedback on your work. We’ve standardized the pricing
and the duration to keep it simple for you. Look for more
options in the next workshop session as we pilot these new
offerings throughout the fall!
Last, but not least, The Carousel has gotten another cover
redesign and name change that we hope will help new people
find us and get involved in our workshops and events. We’ll
continue to bring you the interesting editorial content here,
right alongside our extensive selection of top-notch workshops,
three times a year.
If you like what’s happening at The Writer’s Center, please
tell your friends about us. Encourage them to take a workshop with you, or bring them with you to an event. When
you’re finished reading this issue, leave it in your local coffee
shop or pass it on to a neighbor.
We are so glad to have you in our community of writers. I’m
wishing you a fruitful season of writing—and keeping your
clutter under control!
All best,
In August, the Jane Fox Reading Room—the one with
the fireplace—will get a facelift thanks to the dedication
and generosity of Mier Wolf, Sally Mott Freeman, Ann
McLaughlin, Pat Burda, and the Donohoe Company. This
rejuvenated event space—as well as the new carpeting in the
upstairs workshop spaces—will brighten our Open Door
Reading Series and make you feel more comfortable while
you spend time with us.
Charles Jensen was named as a finalist for a Lambda
Literary Award, a prestigious prize given each year
to GLBT authors, for his first collection of poems:
The First Risk.
2
A few years ago, when I began translating Simon
Fruelund’s fiction and Pia Tafdrup’s travel essays, I
never would have dreamed that I’d help organize a
joint reading together with another of my favorite
authors, Naja Maria Aidt. Yet here I am. As a great
admirer of Denmark and the Danish language, it has
been my goal as a translator to bring Danish literature greater recognition here in the United States.
Thanks to our partnership with George Mason University’s Fall for the Book Festival, The Writer’s Center
will host these authors—three of the biggest names
in contemporary Danish literature—on September
23rd. I encourage everyone reading this to come on
out for what will be a very special evening reading.
Look for my upcoming interviews with each of these
authors on First Person Plural in September.
Photo by Isak Hoffmeyer
Pia Tafdrup has published more than 20 books, including
the poetry collection Dronningeporten (Queen’s Gate), which
won the 1999 Nordic Council Literature Prize, Scandinavia’s
most prestigious literary award. She was named a Knight of
the Order of Dannebrog in 2001 and won the 2006 Nordic
Prize from the
Swedish Academy.
In 2007, she
appeared alongside writers Don
DeLillo, Nadine
Gordimer, and
Salman Rushdie at the PEN
American Center’s 2007 World
Photo by Camilla Hultén Fruelund
Kyle Semmel
Simon Fruelund is the author of two story collections, Mælk
(Milk) and Planer for sommeren (Summer Plans), and two
novels, Borgerligt tusmørke (Civil Twilight) and Verden og
Varvara (The World and Varvara). For nine years he worked
as an editor at Denmark’s largest publishing house, Gyldendal, but is now
writing full time.
In the U.S., his
stories—translated by The
Writer’s Center’s
Kyle Semmel—
have appeared or
are forthcoming
in Brooklyn Review,
The Bitter Oleander, A River
and Sound Review, Redivider, Absinthe, and The Portland
Review. Two of these translations have been nominated
for the Pushcart Prize.
Naja Maria Aidt won the Nordic Council Literature Prize
in 2008 for her short story collection Bavian (Baboon).
The collection also earned the 2006 Danish Kritikerprisen
(Critics’ Prize). In
addition to her
fiction, she has
published eight
collections of
poetry, beginning
with Sålænge jeg
er ung (As Long
as I’m Young) in
1991; several plays
and children’s
books; and the
screenplay for the 2005 movie Strings. Her story “Bulbjerg”
was included in the anthology Best European Fiction 2010.
Photo by Morten Holtum
OUT
OF
D e n mark
Voices Festival. Her latest collection of poetry in English is
Tarkovsky’s Horses and Other Poems.
Kyle Semmel has been selected to translate the next
novel by Norwegian author Karin Fossum. It will be
published by Harvill Secker in England next year, and in
the U.S. by Harcourt.
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Cave Canem
Letras Latinas
a brief history
Francisco Aragón
The reading at The Writer’s Center on September 17th
featuring Latino and African American poets is the result of
a relationship that began years ago. But even before I had
the pleasure of befriending Cornelius Eady upon his arrival
at Notre Dame, Cave Canem had already, in a way, been
mentoring Letras Latinas: when it came time to launch the
Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize in 2004, Cave Canem’s director at the time, Carolyn Micklem, had already provided
crucial advice over the phone. In short, the Letras Latinas
initiative that supports the publication of a first book by a
Latino poet was modeled after the Cave Canem Prize.
One of the beliefs Cornelius and I arrived at during our talks
was that there seemed to be a lag time between the African
American poetry community and the Latino poetry community in terms of visibility in mainstream venues. In other
words, the relative success that African American poets were
enjoying (due, in large part, to Cave Canem) was not the
case with Latino poets. And so Cornelius and I discussed
ways in which our two organizations might work together.
When I approached Alison Meyers, Cave Canem’s current
Executive Director, about joint programming in the D.C.
area, we brainstormed local potential partners, including
The Writer’s Center. I’d already spoken to Charles Jensen
about possible collaborations with Letras Latinas so I knew
he was receptive. When it came time to curate a reading,
Letras Latinas proposed to fly in Paul Martínez Pompa
and Brenda Cárdenas. Paul was the current winner of the
Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize and I knew that Brenda’s
new book, Boomerang, would soon be out. She and Paul
are both dynamic performers of their work. My curatorial
counterpart, Kyle Dargan, a former Cave Canem Prize winner
himself and now poetry professor at American University, tapped local talent: Gregory Pardlo and Terri Cross
Davis. Pardlo is the 2007 winner of the Cave Canem Prize
and teaches at George Washington University, and Cross
Davis coordinates the Poetry series at the Folger. I am not
familiar with their work and that’s precisely the point:
we want to create situations for increased awareness and
appreciation between our respective poetry communities,
and invite the public, including readers of The Workshop
& Event Guide and the constituents of The Writer’s Center, to
come out and discover what happens when leading emerging
poets of two poetry constituencies share the stage. Ultimately,
we’re in this for the long haul and don’t expect miracles
overnight. These are small steps and part of the work that
our two organizations believe in—creating community. ¶
Francisco Aragón is the director of Letras Latinas, the literary program of
the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) at the University of Notre Dame, and
works out of the ILS office in Washington, D.C.
An Interview with R. Dwayne Betts
E. Ethelbert Miller: Looking at the success of an organization like Cave Canem, might one conclude that we have
witnessed the birth of a new generation of African American writers? If so, what defines their aesthetics? Might one
still apply the term "black aesthetic" at a time when our
society is trying to move beyond issues of race?
R. Dwayne Betts: Cave Canem (CC) is a bridge. It's not
only about young black writers finding support for what they
do as black poets, but also a place where Yusef Komunyakaa,
Toi Derricote, Cornelius Eady, Sonia Sanchez, Elizabeth
Alexander, Afaa Weaver, and many of their peers can watch
how a group of poets they helped usher into the world (A.
Van Jordan, Honoree Jeffers, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, Thomas Sayers Ellis, etc.) mentor the group of writers
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that I'm a part of, who are only beginning to publish now.
And what happens is we young writers begin to know the
elders in African American literature and have access to them
in a way that allows for the emergence of a generation.
In 2006 I met Lucille Clifton. I met Afaa, I met Elizabeth.
That doesn't happen without CC. I think about Ellison
meeting Wright, about the need for mentorship and guidance. I can't know Sonia Sanchez without knowing you, and
then I can't know you and Sanchez without knowing Hayden,
without knowing Baraka. This is the mark of a new generation
for me. An understanding of history. My son meeting Lucille
Clifton, hearing her read. CC has helped a generation emerge
by broadening the lines of communication among us. There
have always been writers like you and Marita Golden who have
made it a point to mentor young writers—CC has, in a way,
allowed writers who may not have the commitment of a
literary activist to still do some of that work.
And yet, even as these lines that connect us are more apparent, I wouldn't say that we have an aesthetic that can be
defined as broadly representing blackness. It's more of a
shared interest, a shared approach to believing the multitudes of blackness should make their way into poetry.
I don't think our society is moving beyond issues of race.
Race isn't disappearing from American society, it's becoming
even more complicated than before. Part of my excitement
about the younger writers is that we're coming into our
imagery works and metaphor works. I learned that in prison.
I guess though, the most important writing skill I learned
in prison was how to dig deeper into an idea, into one
thought, and let that drive me for two, three, or five pages,
for however long it takes to make the thought complete.
EEM: How have concepts of time and space affected your
thinking as a writer?
RDB: I'm not sure if this is a conscious thing, but so much of
prison is about time. Time and space. The dimensions of a
cell, the marking off of days by the space between counts,
between commissaries, between visits. In my memoir, I
structured the book around travel. Each of the three sections
I learned to write in prison. I knew how to build a sentence
before I went in, but the idea of writing as a means of thought
and articulation. I learned that in prison. How imagery works
and metaphor works. I learned that in prison.
own without any recognizable black political agenda—there
isn't a Jim Crow politics, Civil Rights movement, or black
power movement that undergirds what we do with our
art, and as a consequence we all have to deal with blackness
in a different way. We have to deal with our politics in a
different way, more nuance, more complicated.
is a movement deeper into prison. Many of my poems revolve
around time. But I like to think of these things as frames for
other issues. How does a focus on time, on the absence of
space, allow me to say something about hurt, about relationships? That's what I'm after in my work, a way to allow time
and space to open up room to discuss hurt, pain, etc.
EEM: How do you balance family life with your writing career?
RDB: I'm learning. My family is the center of my life. My wife,
my son. My writing is the way I am in the world. It's more
vocation than career, and it's demanding. The readings, the
need for silence, the need for time to read. So much of art
is connecting with community, and family is the central
aspect of community—so I consider how my art affects my
wife, my son. But it's difficult, the demands of a writing
life are rigorous ones. Being a writer isn't like being a doctor, lawyer, teacher, or construction worker. It's almost like
being a door-to-door salesman, a blues man who always
has a bus, train or airplane ticket in hand—and that kind
of traveling can do damage to the idea of family. So for me,
it's always about finding a way to be present at home and
in the world with my words. And I'm always working on
mastering the honesty needed to keep it all balanced.
EEM: Do you feel writing has given you the power to redefine
yourself? If so, what secrets of your old self might you reveal
in future books?
RDB: Honestly, I came to writing around the same time I came
to prison. Just 16 years old. I hadn't yet defined myself. That's
what people don't often get. I defined myself within the
walls of prisons. That's a dangerous thing, in that I firmly
believe that if it weren't for writing and literature I would
have defined myself in ways not conducive to being a father,
a husband. However, it may benefit me as a writer, in that
I don't have an old self to reveal in my work. Not having
that allows me to feel freer to explore the world as it is and
as I imagine it. ¶
EEM: What writing skills did you improve on while in prison?
RDB: I learned to write in prison. I knew how to build a
sentence before I went in, but the idea of writing as a means
of thought and articulation. I learned that in prison. How
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a Cave Canem fellow and recipient of the Holden
Fellowship from M.F.A. program at Warren Wilson College. His memoir A
Question of Freedom was published by Avery/Penguin. His debut poetry
collection, Shahid Reads His Own Palm, is forthcoming from Alice James Books.
E. Ethelbert Miller is a poet and literary activist, a board member of The Writer's
Center, and editor of Poet Lore. Since 1974, he has been the director of the African
American Resource Center at Howard University. His books include How We
Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love and The Fifth Inning.
5
ctober, with its falling leaves, chilled breezes,
and crisp evenings, is the perfect month to read
and celebrate the legacy of Edgar Allan Poe. Few
writers in America’s literary history are so closely
connected to the macabre and the melancholy
than the author of the classic stories “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” and the
mournful poems “Annabel Lee” and “The Raven.” The
Writer’s Center, in partnership with Pyramid Atlantic and
the National Endowment for the Arts’s Big Read series,
invites you to gather with us this fall as we pay tribute
to this writer who left an indelible imprint on our canon
over the course of his brief life.
Charles Jensen
Our Poe events kick off on October 28 at The Writer’s
Center when Poe’s mother, Eliza Poe, steps through time
to grace us with her presence and lively eyewitness testimony of her son’s life. As she hosts a reading of some of
his notable works, she’ll let our audience know exactly
what impact she personally had on his famous literary
career. As time travel among dead persons requires a
considerable amount of energy and experience, we’re
sure you’ll understand this is a one-night only, oncein-a-lifetime opportunity.
The fun continues as we host “Poe-Palooza.” Seven poets
from our region will read one of their favorite poems by
Poe, then share one of their own that has some kind of
connection to Poe’s piece. Our spectacular readers for
this event will be Smartish Pace editors Clare Banks and
Stephen Reichert, Busboys and Poets Poet-in-Residence
Holly Bass, Lambda Literary Award finalist Reginald
Harris, widely-admired performer Alan King, poetry
coach Deanna Nikaido, and The Writer’s Center’s own
poet/editor Rose Solari.
The Big Read initiative encourages everyone in a community to read and discuss one book or author, usually
for a month. The Writer’s Center is thrilled to work
with Pyramid Atlantic on their Edgar Allan Poe
project and look forward to seeing you there!
6
Illustration by Zachary Fernebok
NEW WEB SITE
THE WRITER’S CENTER’S
www.writer.org
Sign up for events and
workshops without getting
error messages
Discover new workshops and
events based on your interest
and past participation with us
Easy access with log-in
and log-out features
Your giving history will identify
overall giving and individual gifts,
and will be easily accessed for you
Listed below are just a few of the immediate benefits of our technology upgrade
project for our community. Turn to page 18 to read about our expanded membership
program.
CUTTING-EDGE ONLINE WORKSHOPS
 A blog for regular “lectures” and notes from your
workshop leader
 “Threaded” discussion allowing you to respond to other
workshop participants’ posts
 A private, unsearchable area for uploading documents
with your stories, poems, and essays
 Participate at 3 p.m. or 3 a.m.—in your business suit or
your pajamas—whatever suits your lifestyle!
MEMBER BENEFITS
 Stay in touch with workshop friends by opting-in to an
online member directory
 Send Writer’s Center-themed e-cards to your friends
and family
 Easily retrieve your own passwords
 Renew and manage your membership online—
and receive automated updates
 Connect with friends from The Writer’s Center using a
private Facebook-like social networking area
 Get a personal “[email protected]” email address
BENEFITS TO ALL PARTICIPANTS
 Make donations online quickly and easily
 Easily navigate around the site
 Choose to receive a print version of our Workshop &
Event Guide or to conserve paper by reading it online
 Read our blog, First Person Plural, directly from writer.org
NEW DATABASE TECHNOLOGY WILL
ENSURE
 Your workshop and event attendance history are safely
and privately maintained
 Consistent record review by staff to ensure the most
accurate data is saved in our system
 Better service, more knowledgeable assistance, and
more access for you!
7
Price
Matters
Charles Jensen
Over the past two years, we’ve worked to better
The Writer’s Center in as many ways as possible. That’s
why, while researching various membership models and
membership benefits, we also took a look at our workshop
pricing structure. We wanted to ensure we still provided
the highest quality workshops at fair prices, and that we
afforded writers many different ways of getting involved
with us.
I surveyed 20 organizations across the country which offer
multi-session writing workshops, in cities as varied as
Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver,
Sleepy Hollow, and Austin. Some of these organizations
function as stand-alone independent nonprofits like The
Writer’s Center, while others are nestled within larger
institutions like universities or community organizations
such as the YMCA. In every instance, I priced a six-week
workshop, calculating the hourly workshop rate and then
calculating it out to match our own average workshop session length of two and a half hours. If the organization had
a member rate, I used that for the purposes of calculation.
If no six-week workshop was available, I determined the
“hourly” workshop rate from a longer or shorter workshop
and calculated the cost of a six-week equivalent. Then I put
those figures into a cost of living adjustment calculator
to determine the equivalent value for someone living in
Washington, D.C.
When I sorted the results, The Writer’s Center, at $240
for members, came in having the third-lowest rates of the
surveyed organizations. Two additional organizations were
within $20 of our fees in D.C. dollars. The average variance
was around $200—meaning The Writer’s Center’s community pays far less in workshop fees than those at our peer
organizations nationwide.
8
Workshop fees are an essential part of what keeps The
Writer’s Center flourishing. All of your workshop fees go
right back into the organization, compensating our stellar
corps of workshop leaders, helping defray the cost to market
and promote the workshops, supporting our free public
All of your workshop fees
go right back into the
organization, compensating
our stellar corps of workshop
leaders, helping defray the
cost to market and promote
the workshops…
event program, and paying the staff’s salaries and benefits.
We actively fundraise to support the rest of our costs and
we are grateful to the large number of our workshop participants and leaders who are also our donors. Our recent
success in grant writing—funding from the Gwendolyn &
Morris Cafritz Foundation and the National Endowment
for the Arts—helps us round out our income.
Thank you to everyone who supports The Writer’s Center
by registering for a workshop—it is for you that we exist,
and because of you that we succeed. ¶
The Writer’s Center was awarded a $20,000 grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts. Part of the NEA’s “Access to
Artistic Excellence,” the grant will allow The Writer’s Center
to give free workshops to veterans—following on the heels
of our successful Operation Homecoming workshop last year.
It is the first NEA grant The Writer’s Center has received since
2003. Other initiatives the grant will help support: Emerging
Writer Fellowships; BookTalk; the Open Door Reading Series;
and the Undiscovered Voices Fellowship program.
LITERARY JOURNAL
DISCOUNT PROGRAM
40% off 1 -and 2 -year subscriptions
FOR PREMIUM MEMBERS
o f T h e Wr i t e r ’s C e n t e r
Some of the most compelling literary work today
is emerging in literary journals. To promote the
best of new literature, we’ve partnered with
the following leading journals to offer drastic
discounts on 1-and 2-year subscriptions:
Hayden’s Ferry Review
Copper Nickel
Potomac Review
New England Review
New Letters
Poet Lore
Subtropics
1 Year
2 issues/$8.40
2 issues/$13
2 issues/$12
4 issues/$18
4 issues/$13.20
2 issues/$6
2 issues/$15.60
2 Years
4 issues/$15
4 issues/$20.40
8 issues/$21.60
4 issues/$10.80
4 issues/$29.40
YES, I WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO
 Hayden’s Ferry Review
 Copper Nickel
 Potomac Review
 New England Review
 New Letters
 Poet Lore
 Subtropics
 1 Year
 2 Year
PLEASE SEND MY NEXT ISSUE TO
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Address
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State
Zip
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PAYMENT METHOD
 Check (enclosed)
Total Due
 Credit Card (complete section below)
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Want to advertise
in the Workshop
& Events Guide
To find out how, contact
Maureen A. Punte, Managing Editor
[email protected]
Expiration Date
Signature
Please mail this form and payment method to:
Attn: Kyle Semmel
4508 Walsh Street
Bethesda, MD 20815
www.writer.org
HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR WORKSHOP
WHO SHOULD TAKE WRITING WORKSHOPS?
Everyone should—from people who want to try out writing or would like help getting
started, to those more experienced writers who want to learn more and get better.
Learning to write is an on-going process that involves perfecting and using many
skills at once, and even published writers benefit from editors and readers who help
them refine their work.
WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM A WORKSHOP?
• Guidance and encouragement from a published, working writer
• Instruction on technical aspects such as structure, diction, and form
• Kind, honest, and constructive feedback directed at the work but
never critical of the author
• Peer readers/editors who act as ‘spotters’ for sections of your writing
that need attention and who become your community of working
colleagues, even after your workshop is completed
• Tips on how to keep writing and integrate this “habit of being” into
your life
• Tactics for getting published when ready
EXPECTATIONS OF WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS
• Attend every workshop session you possibly can
• Share your own work
• Comment on and share your ideas about your peers’ work
• Complete workshop leader prompts or reading assignments
• Complete the workshop response form at the end of the course
If you’ve never been in a writing workshop before, regardless of the skill level you think
you have in writing, we strongly encourage you to start with a beginner-level workshop.
Here you’ll learn more about the environment of the workshop—how to give and
receive helpful feedback, how to address problems with the work without criticizing the
author, and how to incorporate multiple (and sometimes conflicting) ideas into your
revision work.
WORKSHOP REGISTRATION
You can register for workshops at The Writer’s Center in person, through the mail,
online at www.writer.org, or at 301-654-8664.
refund policy
If you cancel a workshop in writing 48 hours before the first workshop session, you receive a full refund, minus a $25 registration fee. To get a partial refund once workshops
have begun, you must cancel in writing or e-mail your notice to [email protected]
no later than 48 hours before the second meeting of the workshop. To keep workshop
prices low, we cannot make exceptions to these procedures. Refund checks will be written three weeks after the beginning of workshops.
ONLINE WORKSHOPS
Our Internet workshops are for those whose schedules or distance from our physical
venue make participation in a conventional workshop impossible. Internet workshops
have their own unique virtues: the ability to comment on discussion boards from any
location and at any time; the archiving of everyone’s comments for future consultation;
and the fact that your manuscript is read in the workshops precisely as your published
piece would be read in the world, namely, by people you cannot see. For more information, write us at [email protected].
10
BEGINNER LEVEL
These workshops will help you discover what
creative writing really entails, such as
• Getting your ideas on the page;
• Figuring out which genre you should be
working in and what shape your material
should take;
• Learning the elements of poetry, playwriting,
fiction, memoir, etc.;
• Identifying your writing strengths and areas
of opportunity;
• Gaining beginning mastery of the basic tools
of all writing, like concise, accurate language,
and how to tailor their particular use in your
work.
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL
These workshops will build on skills you developed in
the beginning level, designed for writers who have
• Taken a beginner-level workshop;
• Achieved some grace in using the tools of
language and form;
• Have projects in progress that they want to
develop further.
In addition, you may read and discuss some
published works.
ADVANCED LEVEL
Participants should have manuscripts that have
been critiqued in workshops on the intermediate
level and have been revised substantially.
Advanced courses
• Focus on the revision and completion
of a specific work;
• Run at a faster pace with higher expectations of participation;
• Will reward the persistent writer with deep
insight and feedback into their work.
MASTER LEVEL
Master classes are designed for writers who have
taken several advanced workshops and have
reworked their manuscript into what they believe
is final form.
Master classes are unique opportunities to work
in smaller groups with distinguished writers on a
specific project or manuscript.
Workshop leaders select participants from the pool
of applicants—selection is competitive.
Of course, art is not a science. The Writer’s Center
recognizes that individual writers of all experience
levels need to find their own place in our programs.
If you’d like advice on which courses will be right
for you, please call and speak with a member of
our staff.
WORKSHOPS
Early Bird Workshop Discount
This fall, we’re giving ALL early registrants an added incentive to register early:
Early Bird discounts. Take advantage of these drastic reductions in fees until
August 31, 2010. See just how much you can save in the chart below, then
keep turning the pages to find the workshop (s) that are right for you!
Discount off for both members and non-members.
Prices below reflect discounted rates.
JULY
AUGUST
Sessions Original
Member
Price
Original
Member
Nonmember Price
Price
Nonmember Savings
Price
Member
Price
Nonmember Savings
Price
7–8
$315
$360
$220
$265
$95
$270
$315
$45
5–6
$220
$260
$155
$195
$65
$185
$225
$35
4
$160
$195
$100
$135
$60
$130
$165
$30
2
$85
$125
$50
$90
$35
$70
$110
$15
1
online
$40
$75/65
$30
$65/55
$10**
$35
$60/70
$5**
$220
$260
$155
$195
$65
$185
$225
$35
**Depends on length of one-session workshop.
Restrictions: Cannot be combined with other offers. Cannot be applied to workshops for which you’ve previously registered. Cannot be applied to summer workshops.
Valid until August 31, 2010. The Early Bird Workshop Discount does not apply to McLean workshops. Workshop prices may vary depending on number of workshop sessions.
 MEMOIR/essay 
FROM PRIVATE DIARIES TO PUBLIC WRITING
Workshop Leader: Randon Noble
YOU SHOULD BE WRITING
Workshop Leader: Patricia Elam
This workshop is for people who want to write (whether memoir or
fiction) but are scared or lazy or tired or…the list goes on. It’s also for
people who are writing quite well but want to write more or better or
differently or just keep writing. Why take a memoir class if you really
want to write fiction? Because, as author Gloria Wade Gayles says, “You
almost can’t write fiction until you write that nonfiction first.” Expect to
complete writing exercises, read literature excerpts, and produce at least
one personal essay and a revision.
8 Wednesdays
Fee: $360 ($315 Members)
10:30 A.M.–1:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/15–11/3
All Levels
THE WRITER’S TOOLBOX
Workshop Leader: Sara Taber
This workshop is for students who want to hone their skills in the elements of writing that make for fine literary nonfiction. We will examine
published work by essayists, diarists, travel writers, and journalists. Then
students will practice aspects of the writer’s craft, focusing on important
building blocks such as: concrete detail and use of the senses; figurative
language; characterization, dialogue, and plot; voice; scene, summary,
and musing; and sense of time and place.
8 Tuesdays
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/21–11/9
All Levels
If you keep a diary or journal, you already have many stories that you’ve
told the blank page. But how can you transform this private writing into
a more public piece of work? In this session we will browse through old
journals and do a series of writing exercises that will lead to the first
draft of a short memoir or familiar essay. Bring whatever diary or diaries
you are interested in revisiting and a notebook or laptop.
1 Sunday
1:00–5:00 P.M.
Bethesda
11/7
All Levels
WRITING THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
Workshop Leader: Randon Noble
Moses crossed the desert. Jesus prayed in the garden. The Buddha sat
under a tree. Dante lost his way in the dark woods only to find himself
traveling through the afterlife. In this class we will draw upon images
of the spiritual journey in literature to help us write our own spiritual
journeys. This class will include both exercises to get us started and
workshops to critique finished drafts. People of all faiths (including
none!) are welcome.
8 Thursdays
2:00–4:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/23–11/18
All Levels
No meeting October 21
LIFE STORIES AND LEGACY WRITING
Workshop Leader: Pat McNees
The goal in this workshop is to capture your legacy in short personal
11
WORKSHOPS
writing (especially stories) for those who will survive you. Knowing
that you are writing not for publication but to set the record straight
(in your own mind, if nothing else) may liberate you, allowing you to
frankly explore your life choices and experiences, achievements and
mistakes, beliefs and convictions.
6 Wednesdays
7:15–9:45 P.M.
Bethesda
9/8–10/20
All Levels
Do you click on the mommy blogs or flip through the magazines in
the pediatrician’s waiting room and think I can do this? If so, this is the
class that will help you get started. Turn your parenting experiences into
magazine articles, essays, and blog posts, and learn about the markets
and how to get published in this market.
10/13–11/10
All Levels
CREATING GREAT ARTICLES FOR WEB AND PRINT
Workshop Leader: Lee Fleming
Turning an idea into a saleable article for Web or print depends on understanding and using the techniques that support success. This class
will explore the elements that all stories need in order to catch an
editor’s attention. In-class discussion and exercises will guide students
in choosing story angles, writing winning query e-mails and letters,
interviewing, organizing material, and refining personal styles. The goal:
To get your great ideas onto the Web or into print.
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/13–10/25
All Levels
TELLING THE STORY: FACT BASED NARRATIVE
Workshop Leader: David Stewart
Fact-based writing—memoir, travel writing, political reporting, nature
writing, or historical narrative—succeeds by telling stories that engage
readers’ emotions and take them to another time and place. We will
examine the storytelling techniques for engaging readers, including
character and structure, with special attention to pacing the story and
balancing scene and summary. Each participant will bring a 15–40 page
piece, or segment of a longer work, for review in a workshop format.
6 Mondays
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/20–11/8
All Levels
WRITING BRILLIANTLY ABOUT SCIENCE
Workshop Leader: David A. Taylor
Clear writing about science is valuable and compelling. This workshop
explores how generalists can weave scientific thought into their writing
with wit, and how technical experts can make their work engaging for
12
9/14–10/19
All Levels
This new workshop focuses on nonfiction works, primarily book-length,
in history and biography. We will discuss how to structure a story, avoid
tangents, enhance theme, shape a “narrative arc,” evoke times, places,
and personalities, make best use of available sources, and sustain a
narrative over the long haul, as well as understanding publishing. The
goal is tangible progress toward a publishing-quality product and a
viable work plan. Participants are invited to present a one-page synopsis
or outline and/or a sample chapter (not more than 39 double-spaced
pages) for discussion and critique.
7 Tuesdays
 NONFICTION 
6 Mondays
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
Workshop Leader: Ken Ackerman
Workshop Leader: Beth Kanter
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
6 Tuesdays
NARRATIVE HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY:
WORKS IN PROGRESS
MOMS AND DADS WRITE
5 Wednesdays
general audiences. We look at examples of narrative from leading writers:
Michael Pollan, Rebecca Skloot, Anne Fadiman, Steve Olson, and more.
We will generate fresh ideas, write proposals, conduct interviews, learn
how to revise, and manage a portfolio. Plus have fun.
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/14–10/26
All Levels
TRAVEL WRITING TAUGHT BY A TRAVEL EDITOR
Workshop Leader: Joyce Winslow
Joyce Winslow, former Travel Editor of Redbook and Mademoiselle
magazines, approaches travel writing as a literary art form that meets
the ten major criteria for magazine or newspaper publication. You’ll
learn how to: structure a themed article; avoid pitfalls that scream
amateur; evoke sensory description; gain, check, and include the right
travel information; and weave in interviews that deliver surprises to
delight the reader. We’ll practice the travel query letter that sells, and
learn what editors look for that makes or breaks a sale.
4 Tuesdays
1:00–3:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/12–11/2
All Levels
 STAGE & SCREEN 
DIALOGUE: A PRACTICAL APPROACH
Workshop Leaders: Richard Washer and Hope Lambert
This workshop, designed for writers of all genres, will focus on the
functions of dialogue in playwriting. We will use writing prompts to
get us started writing scenes and we will learn and apply some basic
acting strategies (how do actors approach their scripts, what questions
do they ask, how do they move from dialogue on the page to a character
onstage?) and look at the playwrights use of dialogue to define action,
character and relationships, etc. This workshop will be co-led by
Richard Washer and Hope Lambert (a Washington D.C. actress whose
credits include Charter Theater, Arena Stage, Washington Shakespeare
Company, and others).
8 Saturdays
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/25–11/13
All Levels
WORKSHOPS
HOW TO PRODUCE YOUR OWN PLAY
WRITING THE ROMANTIC COMEDY SCRIPT
Workshop Leader: Martin Blank
Workshop Leader: Lyn Vaus
Want to put on your own play? Or learn to be more effective with a theater producing your work? With developments like the Capital Fringe
Festival and other outlets in the D.C. area, there are more opportunities
than ever to get your plays in front of an audience. How to Produce
Your Own Play will focus step by step on exactly how to produce your
play with a budget as low as a few hundred dollars, to as large as several
thousand. By putting on the producer's hat even for just a one day
workshop, you'll discover how to make your play more attractive to
other theaters, or easier to produce yourself.
Next to horror, the ever-popular romantic comedy is Hollywood's most
cost-effective genre. That's why a well written romantic comedy script
is always in demand. Workshop participants will get an overview of
rom-com genre conventions, highlights, and specifications, while also
visiting or revisiting the basics of three-act structure, character development, and script formatting (if necessary). Participants will workshop
their ideas with the aim of beginning or continuing a romantic-comedy
script. We will read each other’s work and develop your script following
proven industry techniques.
1 Saturday
8 Thursdays
11:00 A.M.–5:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/25
All Levels
Workshop Leader: Jeffrey Rubin
If you’re a beginner/intermediate screenwriter in a hurry to get to the
next level, this intensive one-day workshop is for you. Every step in the
screenwriting process is covered: Getting/Perfecting the Idea, Creating/
Developing the Characters, Building the Story Structure, Writing Scenes
and Dialogue, Selling Your Script, and more. Participants will be
encouraged to discuss their own script ideas and/or works-in-progress.
There will be a one-hour lunch break.
10:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M.
9/11
Bethesda
Beginner and Intermediate
FEATURE FILM SCREENWRITING
Workshop Leader: Jonathan Eig
The primary purpose of this workshop is to allow participants to write
or rewrite a feature film. You should arrive with one or more ideas.
Workshop time will be divided between lecture/discussions and scene
readings of your work. Participants should be aware of the basics of
visual storytelling and standard formatting. Although we will discuss
marketing the script, our main concern will be writing a script that is
good enough to sell.
8 Mondays
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/20–11/15
Intermediate and Advanced
THE ART AND CRAFT OF SCREENWRITING
This intensive one-day workshop will guide the beginning or intermediate screenwriter through the entire screenwriting process: idea,
story, plot, structure, character development, scene construction, and
dialogue. In short, the necessary tools to begin writing a feature-length
screenplay. Participants should arrive with a short synopsis (no more
than a page) of their screenplay idea.
10:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M.
McLean Community Center
9/25
All Levels
One-Hour Lunch Break
1 Saturday
10:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M.
Glen Echo Park
10/23
All Levels
10:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
11/20
All Levels
1 Saturday
 Songwriting 
SONGWRITING FOR BEGINNERS
Workshop Leader: Cathy Fink
This is a workshop for beginners and songwriters who want to know
more about the elements of a great song, song structures, skills, and
practice techniques for writing songs.
6 Tuesdays
Fee: $235
7:30–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/7–10/12
All Levels
This workshop is $200 for Members of The Writer’s Center, Songwriters Association of
Washington, or Washington Area Music Association. If you are a member of these
organizations, please call The Writer's Center at 301-654-8664.
SONGWRITING 2: DIGGING DEEPER
Workshop Leader: Cathy Fink
This workshop is designed either for those who took the fall songwriting class or experienced songwriters looking to dig deeper into their
writing. A portion of each session will be spent reading/hearing each
other’s songs and critiquing them for an eye on where they work and
what needs improvement. We will explore writing to various grooves
and work with writing “assignments” that give inspiration to spend
more time writing. Instruments welcome.
6 Tuesdays
Fee: $235
Workshop Leader: Khris Baxter
1 Saturday
9/23–11/18
All Levels
No meeting November 11
FAST TRACK SCREENWRITING WORKSHOP
1 Saturday
7:00–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
7:30–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
Start Date 10/26
This workshop is $200 for Members of The Writer’s Center, Songwriters Association of
Washington, or Washington Area Music Association. If you are a member of these
organizations, please call The Writer's Center at 301-654-8664.
 Fiction 
THE SHORT STORY
Workshop Leader: Dana Cann
This workshop is for short story writers at any level. The focus is on par-
Check out page 11 for
Early Bird Workshop Discounts
13
WORKSHOPS
ticipants’ work. Each writer will submit his or her work for constructive
critique. In addition, we’ll examine short story elements and techniques,
using the latest Best American Short Stories anthology as our guide.
We’ll review short story markets and strategies for submitting work. Any
participant with a complete story is encouraged to bring 15 copies to the
first session.
6 Tuesdays
7:30-10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/7–10/12
All Levels
WRITING SHORT STORIES
Workshop Leader: John Morris
Are you ready to put your work in front of a group of readers who are also
aspiring writers? If you have a story draft, or are looking for inspiration
to complete a story, this workshop is ideal for you. The goal is for each
participant to finish a successful draft. The workshop leader will provide
detailed written comments on all manuscripts. The workshop’s emphasis
is on encouragement, hard work, and practical suggestions.
8 Mondays
7:30-10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/13–11/8
All Levels
A NOVEL LUNCH
Workshop Leader: Susan Coll
All levels are welcome at this workshop—it’s nice to have a mix of those
working at an advanced level and those just getting started. The only
requirement is a serious desire to work on a novel or on linked stories.
We will read a contemporary novel (to be decided at the first meeting)
which we will deconstruct over the course of the workshop, using it as a
text of sorts to foster discussion on technique. While there will be occasional exercises, this workshop will be mostly oriented toward constructive group discussion of submitted work. Bring lunch!
6 Wednesdays
Workshop Leader: Brenda Clough
We will read manuscripts and discuss them in a workshop format, with
a focus on the science fiction/fantasy genre expectations. Plan to bring
eight copies of a manuscript to the first class, either a complete short
story or the first chapter of a longer work.
10/13–11/17
All Levels
RETHINKING YOUR NOVEL
Workshop Leader: Ann McLaughlin
This workshop will deal primarily with manuscripts by participants,
beginning with Chapter One. Each participant will have at least two
chances to present parts of her or his novel and have it discussed. We
will also discuss one published novel.
8 Saturdays
WRITING SCIENCE FICTION
11:30 A.M.–2:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10:00 A.M.–12:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/25–11/13
All Levels
CREATIVE FICTION
Workshop Leader: Robert Bausch
This workshop is an intensive exploration of the elements of writing fiction, the uses of the imagination, and the demands of literary genres,
including the short story and the novel. The workshop will focus on
techniques for character development, plot, conflict, dialogue, beginnings,
endings and resolutions, the writing process, and basic storytelling.
ONLINE SHORT FICTION WORKSHOP
8 Saturdays
Workshop Leader: Dave Housley
No meeting September 18
6 Wednesdays
7:30-10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/15–10/27
All Levels
An online workshop for intermediate or advanced short-fiction writers.
Students will workshop two stories, and will write several shorter pieces
written to prompts. We’ll read a variety of fiction from literary magazines or collections and will discuss aspects of fiction writing, such as
voice or dialogue, as well as flash fiction and experimental writing.
Ideally, students will leave this course with a better understanding of the
current fiction landscape and will hone and expand their writing skills.
8 Online Sessions
Internet
10/2–11/20
INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVEL
10:00 A.M.–12:30 P.M.
8/21–10/16
Bethesda
ADVANCED FICTION: BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS
Workshop Leader: Sarah Blake
This is designed for the advanced student who has a short story or a
chapter of a novel to workshop. We will focus particularly on the beginnings and endings and the arc the work draws (or doesn’t draw) between
the two. We will use master readings to frame our discussion of student
work. I am interested in reading Munro, Chekhov, McEwan, and others.
6 Tuesdays
7:00-9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
Workshop Leader: T. Greenwood
THE EXTREME NOVELIST
You have always wanted to write a novel but didn’t know where to start.
This workshop will help you understand the process of writing a novel
so you can get started putting pen to paper. We will focus on everything
from generating ideas to developing characters to establishing point of
view. We will touch on many elements of fiction (dialogue, scene, etc.),
but the emphasis will be on discovering the writing process that works
best for you.
Workshop Leader: Kathryn Johnson
8 Online Sessions
Internet
9/11–10/30
Beginner
This fall 15 brave writers will take on a unique challenge and attempt to
complete a full rough draft (or revision) of a novel in just eight weeks!
Students meet as a group with professional writing coach Kathryn
Johnson one evening a week and commit to an aggressive writing
schedule. Kathryn coaches, prods, cajoles, and guides students, helping
brainstorm plots and breathe life into characters, while offering practical
marketing tips.
8 Wednesdays
14
9/21–10/26
Advanced
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
10/13–12/8
WORKSHOPS
 Mixed Genre 
WRITING ABOUT AND BEYOND ART
Workshop Leader: BRASH
GETTING STARTED CREATIVE WRITING
Workshop Leader: Elizabeth Rees
If you have always wanted to write but haven’t known how to begin,
this is the workshop for you. Participants will explore journals, short
stories, poems, and memoirs. Exercises done in and outside of the
workshop will focus on transforming a creative idea into actual words
on a page. Goals: loosening up, generating new material, and enjoying
the excitement of writing.
8 Saturdays
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/2–11/20
Beginners
Workshop Leader: Laura Fargas
8 Tuesdays 1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/21–11/9
Beginner
STRENGTHENING YOUR PROSE
Workshop Leader: Graham Dunstan
If you’re new to prose writing and you have a story to tell, this writing
class is meant for you. We will explore both short fiction and nonfiction
with an emphasis on identifying the tools that can help you create more
powerful prose. The class will write and critique short prose assignments
and read contemporary examples of the best of short fiction and nonfiction. Join us if you are interested in creating your own voice in prose
as we study some of the key elements of writing: conflict, pacing, character
development, and style.
7 Thursdays
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/23–11/4
Beginners
GENERATING STORIES with credible characters
Workshop Leader: Solveig Eggerz
Participants will generate stories in class about characters who face conflicts and act and speak. We’ll read aloud, then revise at home, so that
each participant will finish the workshop with at least one story ready
for further development.
3 Saturdays
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/11–10/2
Beginner
Workshop Leader: Melanie Figg
This class is open to both poetry and prose writers who want to read
and write about the City. We will examine how the City is described,
badgered, and adored in literature, and write our own portraits, rants,
and prayers. Each class will begin with a discussion or close read of
assigned poems and/or prose excerpts. We will discuss a range of topics
such as description, narrative, imagery, and rhythm, and we will workshop each other’s work.
6 Wednesdays
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/22–10/27
All Levels
INTRODUCTION TO MYTH ADAPTATION:
FOR FICTION, POETRY, THEATRE, AND FILM
Workshop Leader: Laura Shamas
This workshop explores myth adaptation for fiction writers, poets,
playwrights, and screenwriters. Utilize the power of myth and archetypes
in your writing in ways which resonate with readers and audiences. The
workshop begins with a discussion of myth and its meaning. Additional
topics include a myth adaptation process, exercises, and a reference list
for source materials and further exploration. No previous myth experience necessary.
1 Saturday
1:00–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/25
All Levels
THE ART OF LITERARY TRANSLATION:
SPANISH-ENGLISH
Workshop Leader: Yvette Neisser Moreno
This workshop is an opportunity to try your hand—or hone your skills—
at literary translation. We will look at the translations and writings of
prominent Spanish translators such as Edith Grossman, Gregory Rabassa,
and John Felstiner; do translation exercises; and “workshop” students’
translations. While the emphasis will be Spanish to English, students
are also welcome to translate from English to Spanish. Prerequisite: sufficient knowledge of Spanish to be able to translate with a dictionary.
4 Wednesdays
7:00–9:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/27–11/17
All Levels
MADMAN, ARCHITECT, CARPENTER, JUDGE:
A WORKSHOP WITH A LITERARY AGENT
Workshop Leader: Shannon O’Neill
WRITING THE CITY
8 Mondays
The class explores different techniques for using all forms of art as a
means of inspiration for poetic explorations. We’ll use different stimulus
(provided), take a few local field trips to public art near the class location,
and try out approaches such as freewriting, rhyme generation, and
lyrical/non-lyrical rhythmic experiments. Topics of discussion may
include how to collaborate with specific artists, musicians, and other
writers, where and how to present one’s work in non-traditional forums,
and specific challenges of joint efforts (i.e., copyright issues).
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/20–11/15
All Levels
Come explore your four artistic personalities. The Madman writes with
carefree messy abandon. The Architect sets structural components
in place. The Carpenter sharpens tone and meaning, honing in on the
sentence level. The Judge delivers a verdict, and often sends us back to
revisit a prior stage. In this workshop we will complete close reading
exercises and workshop our own pieces of short fiction or nonfiction,
putting all four of our craftspeople to work.
6 Wednesdays
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/8–10/13
All Levels
15
WORKSHOPS
APPLYING STANDUP COMEDY TECHNIQUES
Workshop Leader: Basil White
If you can read this and you can laugh, you can write humor! Learn to
apply the basic psychology of how your brain gets a joke to discover
what’s “gettable” about your subject matter, real or fictional, for humor
writing or other ironic purposes. This class also works as a fun introduction to the fundamentals of workshopping for those new to the
expectations of creative workshops. Before class, read basilwhite.com/
comedyworkshop
Saturday & Sunday
Fee: $125 ($85 members)
1:00–5:00 p.m.
Bethesda
9/11 & 9/12
All Levels
GRAMMAR REFRESHER
Workshop Leader: Susan O’Shaughnessy
Should I use who or whom? How do I know if a modifier is dangling?
When should I use a semicolon? These and other questions will be answered in this lively, hands-on workshop. We will review grammar definitions and practice avoiding the most common errors. We will explore
how changes in language lead to new rules, producing confusion along
the way. You will leave with a list of resources you can use on your own.
Note that the course is recommended for native (or near-native) English
speakers who need a quick refresher, rather than an extensive review.
2 Fridays
10:00 A.M.–1:00 P.M.
Bethesda 11/12 & 11/19
Intermediate
TRANSITIONS
Workshop Leader: Mary Carpenter
Free up personal experiences, discover voices, choose the best words,
etc. In each session, we will write one piece using an assigned topic
and read these pieces out loud so the others can listen and comment
on what’s strongest, what’s most engaging, where they hear the clearest
voice. In addition, participants may bring in work written or rewritten
at home for us to read. The goal of the workshop is to create a greater
awareness of what it takes to turn life into stories, of which aspects of
each participant’s writing work the best, and to better understand how to
work together to create a writing group.
6 Tuesdays
12:00–2:30 P.M.
Bethesda
10/12–11/16
All Levels
LUNCHTIME WRITING RETREATS
(FALL FOLIAGE EDITION!)
Always meant to take time and enjoy the foliage? This workshop explores
sites around Washington, D.C. where you can write effectively during
your lunch hour. You’ll try out six one-hour retreats (outdoors when
the weather cooperates; otherwise indoors) that will leave you feeling
energized and ready to begin a new writing routine.
Note: Specific destinations will be based on participants’ work and/or home locations. A syllabus with meeting locations will be emailed before the first session; we’ll also use the Internet
to reflect on our experiences throughout.
16
12:00–1:00 P.M.
Locations To Be Determined
Workshop Leader: Pamela Ehrenberg
Have you started to read this paragraph several times but keep getting
interrupted? You've got a project or an idea half-started, but life is unwilling to slow down enough for you to write? This workshop is for you!
We'll set goals specific to our own projects and cheer each other on by
sharing feedback as well as strategies for sticking to our goals—during
the workshop and beyond.
Note: You do not have to be at your computer at a specific time to participate in this
online workshop.
8 Online Sessions
Internet
9/22–10/27
All Levels
9/21–11/9
All Levels
ADVANCED NOVEL AND MEMOIR
Workshop Leader: Barbara Esstman
For the serious writer with a book-length project in progress and hopes
of publication. We’ll cover the technical aspects, such as character and
scene development, languge, and plot and discuss the psychological
aspects that most people ignore—how to stay with your protagonist or
narrator so that the emotional center of the book stays true and how
to keep going through the long haul. We’ll also touch on rewriting
and the directions for getting an agent when you finish. Each writer will
submit up to 35 double-spaced pages, which can include a plot synopsis
for long-range trouble-shooting. Previous workshops or permission of
the instructor required.
6 Tuesdays
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
10/5–11/9
Advanced
FLEX YOUR CREATIVE MUSCLES:
A ONE-DAY WORKSHOP
Workshop Leader: Leslie Pietrzyk
Spend the afternoon doing a series of intensive, guided exercises designed to shake up your brain and get your creative subconscious working for you. You can come with a project already in mind and focus
your work toward a deeper understanding of that—or you can come as
a blank slate (that will quickly fill up!). Fiction writers and memoirists
of all levels are welcome. Please bring lots of paper and pen/pencil or a
computer with a fully charged battery.
One Hour Lunch Break
1 Saturday
6 Wednesdays (Plus Internet)
Making Time to Write in
an Impossibly Busy Life
10:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
11/13
All Levels
NINE RELIABLE RULES
Workshop Leader: Peter Brown
Improve every story, letter, and article you write with these practical
composition techniques. Novelists and journalists have rules as reliable
as Sir Isaac Newton’s, and mastery of them leads to literary discoveries.
Rules are made to be contradicted! Rule 3, for example, is “Show, Don’t
Tell.” We’ll discover how Jane Austen, genius of narrative discourse,
contradicted the rule to marvelous effect!
1 Saturday
10:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
10/9
Bethesda
Beginner and Intermediate
WORKSHOPS
What We Talk about When We Don't Talk
A WORLD BOLD AS LOVE
Workshop Leader: David Y. Todd
Workshop Leader: Reuben Jackson
“How can I know what I think until I see what I say?” asked a famous
male novelist. This workshop is designed to inspire men who are
interested in writing about the male experience, whether confidentially
or for the workshop, in fiction, memoir, or verse. The instructor, a
former lawyer and college teacher, has co-led confidential male initiation rites in the woods for men of diverse backgrounds and, yes, has
published creative writings of sex and comic violence.
This workshop, open to new and seasoned writers, will use literary,
musical, and other exercises to kindle or rekindle the keen sense of
observation so crucial to poetry. In-session writing, weekly assignments
and discussion are the backbone of the workshop. Shyness is lovingly
discouraged.
2 Mondays
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
September 20 & 27
All Levels
8 Saturdays
10:00 A.M.–12:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/25–11/13
All Levels
RISKY READING: FIRST POETRY BOOKS
Workshop Leader: Deborah Ager
In this course, we’ll read and discuss four first poetry books in order to
hone our critical eye while discovering what contributes to creating a
cohesive poetry collection. We’ll spend one class period discussing each
book. Books: Amy Lemmon’s Saint Nobody, Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s
Miracle Fruit, Jeannine Hall Gailey’s Becoming the Villainess, and
Charles Jensen’s The First Risk.
 POETRY 
ELEMENTS OF POETRY
Workshop Leader: Nan Fry
What makes a poem a poem? We’ll explore some of poetry’s key elements such as imagery, metaphor, voice, and structure by reading and
discussing poems from a variety of periods and cultures, including our
own, both for inspiration and to see what works. We’ll also experiment
with in-class exercises and out-of-class assignments to generate new
work and to sharpen our powers of observation and imagination, two
sources of poetry that we all have within us.
6 Tuesdays
10:30 A.M.–1:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/12–11/16
All Levels
THE HISTORICAL CONQUEST OF FORM
Workshop Leader: David Keplinger
In this eight week course, students will survey the historical implications
of formal poetry from the Anglo-Saxon period through to the Modernist Period and the development of free verse. By writing the forms in a
traditional workshop setting, a portion of every 2.5-hour session will
be devoted to the cultural and historical implications of writing in, or
departing from, accepted conventions in poetry writing as they apply to
that era.
8 Thursdays
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/23–11/18
FLAVA IN YOUR EAR:
HIP-HOP BASED WRITING AND DISCUSSION
Workshop Leader: Reuben Jackson
Utilizing texts from rappers such as Queen Latifah, Tupac Shakur, Craig
Mack, and others, we will discuss and debate the craft and content of
their work, and its relationship to what some would refer to as “traditional poetry.” Assignments will consist of original poems based upon
themes suggested or explored by the aforementioned artists, literal variations (or imitations) of texts, as well as exercises focusing on frequently
used technical (i.e., internal rhyme) aspects of the genre.
8 Saturdays
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/25–11/13
All Levels
4 Thursdays
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
10/7–10/28
All Levels
SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS POETRY
Workshop Leader: David Salner
Together, we will look at the roots of antiwar poetry in the twentieth
century and today’s antiwar poems; discuss the irrepressible genius of
such divergent poets as Robert Hayden, Tony Hoagland, Sharon Olds,
and Allen Ginsberg; watch video clips of Lucille Clifton and Philip Levine
and discuss their perspectives on poetry; address the environment. Time
will be available to present your favorite poems for discussion.
6 Saturdays
10:00 A.M.–12:30 P.M.
Bethesda
10/9–11/13
All Levels
The “F” Word: Traditional Poetic Forms
Workshop Leader: Charles Jensen
Robert Frost once lamented that writing free verse was akin to “playing
tennis with the net down.” This workshop puts the net back up and will
give beginning and seasoned poets an opportunity to explore form.
Through directed reading and discussion and weekly assignments, each
in a new form, participants will develop an understanding of sonnets,
sestinas, villanelles, pantoums, prose poems, haibun, and ghazals. From
there, you’ll be encouraged to see where form takes you.
8 Mondays
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
10/4–11/29
All Levels
POETS TEACHING POETS II:
Theory and Practice
Workshop Leader: Sandra Beasley
Good poets become great poets by embracing a theory of craft that
pushes them to aim beyond clever word choices and line breaks. In this
17
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NEED SPACE?
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The Allan B. Lefcowitz Theatre, Jane Fox Reading
Room, and classrooms are available weekdays
from 10:00 A.M.–6:00 P.M. when not occupied by
The Writer’s Center workshops.
Those rooms are also available on Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday evenings; and Saturday and Sunday
afternoons, when workshops and events are not
being held.
Please contact The Writer’s Center with availability
inquiries—[email protected] or
301.654.8664.
Rent a Classroom:
Quiet Personal Writing
Small Writing Groups
Rent the Jane Fox
Reading Room:
Events/Readings
Business Meetings
Staged Readings
Receptions
Walt Whitman Room
Jane Fox Reading Room
Allan B. Lefcowitz Theatre
$25/hr
Rehearsals
no access to the public
$25/hr
Performances
2 hr minimum
$50/hr
Pre- and Post-Performance
$25/hr
The Writer’s Center Staff Time
$20/hr
Rehearsals
no access to the public
$50/hr
Performances
$80/hr
Pre- and Post-Performance
$50/hr
The Writer’s Center Staff Time
$20/hr
Zora Neale Hurston Room
$25/hr
Classrooms
$10/hr (members)
$20/hr (non-members)
Rent the Allan B.
Lefcowitz Theatre:
Film Screenings
Intimate Concerts
Theatre Productions
Conferences
Lighting, Sound, and/or Video
are also available to rent
WORKSHOPS
workshop, a sequel to the one offered in Spring 2010, we’ll frame our
discussions using engaging, inspiring essays from poets such as Mary
Karr, Stephen Burt, and Denise Levertov. For the first meeting, bring
15 copies of two poems: a poem that you love, and a draft of your own.
6 Tuesdays
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/14–10/19
THE MYSTERY OF LINE BREAKS
Workshop Leader: Sue Ellen Thompson
Many free verse poets write for years without really understanding how
a line of poetry functions and where it should end. Should it be as long
as a breath, or should it end wherever there is a comma, a period, or
a break in the syntax? In this workshop, we will look at how modern
poets have dealt with this issue and how their decisions can help us
manage line breaks in our own poems.
1 Sunday
1:00–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/10
All Levels
THE STORY IN VERSE
Workshop Leader: Anne Harding Woodworth
Have a story to tell but prose isn’t quite the medium that will make
it work? Poetry may be the answer. The story in verse—whether it’s a
novel, novella, short story, or autobiography—is an age-old art form
that is alive and well today. In this part-workshop, part-discussion group
for all levels of poets, fiction writers, and memoirists, we will investigate
the story in verse, reading parts of Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate and
Brad Leithauser’s Darlington’s Fall, as well as looking at our own work.
IDENTIFY AND STRENGTHEN YOUR POETIC VOICE
Workshop Leader: Patricia Gray
Poetic Voice is a mysterious thing. It often hides from its owner but,
in a group, it can be glimpsed and appreciated. Working with poems
by some of the all-time greats—Jane Kenyon, Galway Kinnell, Gerard
Manley Hopkins, Sharon Olds—we will identify characteristics of poetic
voice and move to poems by participants. Tips on strengthening your
voice will be discussed.
6 Thursdays
7:00–9:30 P.M
Bethesda
10/7–11/18
Beginning and Intermediate
GETTING YOUR POEMS into print
Workshop Leader: Michele Wolf
Whether you have yet to submit your first poem to a literary journal or
are ready to offer a publisher a book-length manuscript, this intensive
one-day workshop will give you advice on how to succeed. Learn about
the hundreds of opportunities to place your work in literary journals
and anthologies, plus how to publish chapbooks and books. Get pointers
on the pros and cons of contests, the etiquette of poetry submission, how
to develop your poetry network, and how to keep your morale high
while facing rejection in a highly competitive field. Magazine handouts
and an extensive question-and-answer period will be included.
1 Sunday
2:00–5:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/17
All Levels
APPROACHING POETRY
 Adults Write

for Children Workshop Leader: Laura Fargas
WRITING FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN
6 Tuesdays
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/14–10/26
All Levels
In this workshop, we will concentrate not only on creating but on revising.
Revised versions of previously submitted poems will be explored as a way
to distinguish the needs of the poet from the needs of the poem. There will
be weekly writing assignments aimed at generating fresh poems.
6 Thursdays
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/7–11/18
All Levels
WRITING ONE GOOD POEM
20
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/30–11/18
All Levels
For motivated journeymen or lazy masters. We will take as much time
as needed for each to write one good poem. Sometimes that entails
breaking off and writing a quick bad poem. We also may write jokes,
postcards, obituaries, and shopping lists. (A good joke is better than a
bad poem.) We will practice writing out of dead ends and blind alleys.
Emphasis will be on timing (surprise!), diction, and images. We will
look at poems by Heather McHugh, Thom Gunn, W.B. Yeats, and
Elizabeth Bishop, among others. Please bring 15 copies of an original
poem to the first meeting.
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
This workshop explores various forms of writing for younger children,
including picture books, early readers, chapter books, magazine stories,
and poems. Short lectures are followed by a review of participants’ work.
Discussions of characterization, plot, rhythm, syntax, and publishing
guide participants in honing and marketing child-appealing work.
7 Thursdays
Workshop Leader: Sean Enright
8 Mondays
Workshop Leader: Mary Quattlebaum
9/20–11/15
Intermediate
WRITING FOR THE MIDDLE GRADE READER
Workshop Leader: Judith Tabler
Middle graders (children ages 8–12) can be a terrific audience for your
creative skills. This age group devours both nonfiction and fiction. We
will look at middle grade literature (classic and current), but most class
time will be spent discussing participants’ writings. We will explore
protagonists, plot, conflict, action, humor, dialogue, villains, secondary
characters, good beginnings, strong middles, and great endings. Beginners
welcome. Bring a favorite middle grade book or article to the first class.
6 Thursdays
10:30 A.M.–1:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/30–11/4
All Levels
WORKSHOPS
Professional
 Younger writers   
Development Workshops for ages 8–18
Adele’s Super Cool Picture Book Workshop
Workshop Leader: Adele Steiner
Let’s write a children’s picture book! Reading favorites like Runny Babbit,
Tailypo, I Am Phoenix, The Polar Express, and Where the Wild Things
Are we’ll explore voice, theme, story line, and authors’ use of language,
art, and photography. We’ll also examine writing styles (stories, plays,
narrative verse, and verse) to discover our preferences when we create
our own children’s books. Time will be set aside for comments and revision of work. We’ll have a book launch/reading for family and friends
during our last workshop.
6 Saturdays
Fee: $240
10:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/30–12/11
All Levels
INVENTING POEMS
Workshop Leader: Anne Sheldon
Dreams, color, memory, and the natural world are a few of the geographies we’ll explore, by way of each child’s imagination. Writing will take
place within the workshop, as well as brainstorming, editing, and the
reading aloud of classic work and student work. The workshop will
culminate with a student chapbook and a reading for family and friends.
There is no required text for this workshop, but children should bring
lined paper and sharpened pencils to each meeting.
6 Saturdays
Fee: $240
1:00–3:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/11–10/23
All Levels
WRITER’S WORKSHOP FOR 4TH AND 5TH GRADERS
Workshop Leader: Susan Land
This 5-week after-school writing workshop will give 4th–5th graders an
opportunity to have fun creating dialogues and stories. Every meeting
will begin with an engaging grammar lesson, from parts of speech to
complex sentences. Then the class will write together, using our memories, senses, and imaginations. Each student will get to work on a special
project to edit, illustrate, or perform.
10 Tuesdays & Thursdays
Fee: $260
3:30–5:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/19–11/18
All Levels
TEEN CREATIVE WRITING
Did you know that The Writer’s Center can bring
our professional development workshops, led by
our trained workshop leaders, into your workplace?
To learn how or to get a quote, call 301.654.8664.
INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING PLATFORMS
Workshop Leader: Angela Render
Getting published is hard, especially for a first-time author. Publishers
want you to come with a platform and this workshop will discuss what
a platform is and when to start building it. It will also give a brief overview of the tools available to writers for building a platform on the web,
and discuss Internet privacy and copyright. Participants will brainstorm
what types of Internet media might be right for them to use.
1 Saturday
12:30–2:30 P.M. Bethesda
INTRODUCTION TO BLOGGING
This class will go into more detail about blogging. It will cover several
blogging software options, the basics on how to set up a blog, how to
post and how to insert images. Participants will get a feel for what sort
of content should be included in a post, how to organize their content,
how to invite comments, and how to promote themselves on other people’s
blogs. The class will brainstorm topic ideas for their own blogs.
1 Saturday
3:00–5:00 P.M.
Bethesda
This class will focus on building a mailing list and finding avenues for
free advertising. Advanced techniques for collecting prospect data will
be discussed and participants will begin to design sales and marketing
packages.
1 Saturday
12:30–2:30 P.M.
Bethesda
SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR WRITERS
This workshop will help teen writers who want to improve their poetry,
fiction, or nonfiction writing. The workshop will consist of fun and engaging interactive exercises. Participants will discuss writing basics and
will work individually with the instructor and in workshop readings
to improve their approach to writing fiction and nonfiction. Participants will also have the opportunity to read their poetry, essays, or short
fiction to the class during our last workshop. This workshop works for
the passionate young writer and for the student looking for inspiration
and technique to get their creative writing juices flowing.
1:00–3:30 P.M.
Bethesda
10/2–11/6
All Levels
9/25
All Levels
ADVANCED MARKETING
Workshop Leader: Kenneth Carroll
6 Saturdays
Fee: $260
9/25
All Levels
10/16
All Levels
Does the world of Social Media make you want to head for a cave? Do
you think the world’s all gone to Twitter, Facebook, and other social
networks? Learn to navigate the social surf online and in person as you
learn how to approach social networking online and off.
1 Saturday
3:00–5:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/16
All Levels
21
WORKSHOPS
BLOGGING TIPS AND TRICKS
An intermediate level workshop that is best suited for people who are
already blogging and want to take their blogs to the next level. Students
will learn techniques to improve their posts and their exposure. Basic
graphics editing, search engine optimization (SEO), and ways to come
up with sustainable topics to write about will be discussed.
1 Saturday
12:30–2:30 P.M.
Bethesda
10/23
Intermediate
WRITING FOR SOCIAL NETWORKING
 HOW 2 
Beginning this fall, The Writer’s Center will offer
concentrated one-day workshops called “How 2.”
The purpose of these workshops is to provide
valuable information on a variety of topics—
from the nuts and bolts of revision to getting your
work published—in a “mini-workshop” format.
Ghost blogging—writing for other people’s social networking campaigns—
is a fast-growing opportunity for writers. Learn what it takes to write
effectively for this medium.
1 Saturday
3:00–5:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/23
All Levels
COPYRIGHT MADE EASY FOR WRITERS
Workshop Leader: Barbara Berschler
This workshop will cover U.S. copyright and registration; examine how
the exclusive rights associated with copyright come into existence and
how they can be exploited; discuss what is “a work made for hire”; and
consider some issues that may be relevant in publishing agreements.
Participants should come away from the class with a clearer understanding of their rights and responsibilities with respect to the intellectual
property that they create or that is created by others and which they
may wish to use in their works.
1 Saturday
1:30–3:30 P.M.
Bethesda
11/6
All Levels
SPEECHWRITING
Workshop Leader: James Alexander
What’s tougher than getting up in front of a large audience and delivering a powerful, moving “stem-winder” speech? Writing the speech. In
fact, very few writing assignments are tougher than speechwriting. It’s a
life of multiple drafts and trying to capture something called “voice.”
More than just poetic words, a speech is a story that builds a case and
carries a message. Learn in a fun and interesting way about this very
personal form of ghostwriting.
6 Wednesdays
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/22–10/27
All Levels
Workshop Leader: Arthur Besner
The process of preparing a report—whether it is an accomplishments, special issue, annual, or recurrent report—starts with a set of critical thinking
skills to identify and analyze useful information and resources. It follows
with identifying a theme that serves as the foundation for writing the
report and techniques for categorizing and synthesizing information. The
process leads to outlining, drafting, revising, and completing the final
report.
22
10:30 A.M.–1:30 P.M.
Bethesda
Work. Deadlines. Pressure. Family. Soccer. Childcare. Who on earth has
time to write? This one-shot session includes specific decisions, actions,
and strategies writers can use in balancing their work lives with their
personal lives—and yes, actually writing. Our focus will be on goal-setting
and maintaining a momentum. Participants should come to class with
an idea for a specific writing project they wish they had time for.
1 Thursday
Fee: $75 ($40 Member)
10/20 & 10/21
All Levels
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
11/4
All Levels
HOW 2 CREATE AND MAINTAIN A WRITING GROUP
Your mom is flattered when you ask her to read your work, but you’re
starting to think feedback from others might help too. Or maybe you’ve
been part of a critique group before and wonder how to start one up
again and keep it from fizzling. This one-shot workshop will send you
home with ideas and an action plan for incorporating the feedback and
community of a writing group into your writing life.
1 Sunday
3:00–5:30 P.M.
Bethesda
11/14
All Levels
HOW 2 REVISE A POEM
Workshop Leader: Sue Ellen Thompson
All you have to do is to read the early drafts of a well-known poem to
realize how crucial revision is. This workshop will focus on how to “distance” yourself from your poem so that you can identify its weaknesses.
We will examine the strategies other poets have used to get “unstuck”
while revising a poem, and then we will apply these lessons to our own
poems. Poets at all levels should bring a poem that needs work!
1 Sunday
WRITING THE REPORT
Wednesday & Thursday
HOW 2 MAKE TIME TO WRITE
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
11/21
All Levels
HOW 2 TO REVISE
Workshop Leader: James Mathews
This workshop will concentrate on the most important step in writing
good fiction: revision. Participants will learn how to ask tough, dispassionate questions about their work and to make focused reviews of their
manuscripts in order to create polished, compelling fiction suitable for
WORKSHOPS
sending to agents and publishers. The approach will include identifying
the overarching goal of the story and examining ways to eliminate excess
material that conflicts with that goal.
1 Saturday
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/2
All Levels
HOW 2 GET YOUR NONFICTION ARTICLES
INTO PRINT
In this brief introduction to magazine and newspaper freelancing, learn
how to get editors’ attention and persuade them to buy your articles.
We’ll study the art of the query—your best sales tool—when to use it,
when not to, and how to make yours the most likely to win an assignment. We’ll look at matching your ideas to available markets and at
legal contracts (not necessarily your friend)—and have plenty of time
for questions.
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/30
All Levels
HOW 2 CONSTRUCT A SHORT STORY COLLECTION
Workshop Leader: Kate Blackwell
Story collections can range from a book of unlinked stories to one
whose stories share the same location or characters, to a new contemporary form, the novel-in-stories. We will talk about how to choose the
stories to include, how to revise them, and how to position them in the
collection. Discussion will also touch on how stories jostle each other to
create links or distances between them.
1 Saturday
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
To get your work “out there,” we’ll look first at how to distinguish what
you have to offer, then at who might want it. Then, we’ll work on some
public relations tools likely to help reach your audience. These can include a goals chart, blurbs, pitch, press release, and other Web content.
Expect to create at least the first steps of a personal PR plan.
1 Saturday
Workshop Leader: Ellen Ryan
1 Saturday
HOW 2 PROMOTE YOUR WORK
Workshop Leader: David Y. Todd
10/2
All Levels
10/16
All Levels
HOW 2 WRITE AN EFFECTIVE COLLEGE
APPLICATION ESSAY
Workshop Leader: Elizabeth Huergo
Are you excited about going to college, but a little nervous about facing
the application essays? Do the questions seem repetitive and abstract?
Do the length requirements seem impossible? This workshop will help
you understand the essay questions and develop a strategy for responding
to them. It will help you learn how to organize and draft a response that
reveals who you are and the unique talents and experiences you offer.
1 Saturday
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
8/21
All Levels
HOW 2 MAKE A LIVING AS A COPY EDITOR
Workshop Leader: Bernadette Geyer
Whether you are drawn to the corporate world or a freelancer’s life, this
workshop will cover what you need to know to pursue a career as a copy
editor. You will learn how a copy editor differs from a proofreader, how
to build experience now to make a career switch later, key tips every
copy editor should know, and the steps you’ll need to take if you want
to work on a freelance basis.
1 Sunday
HOW 2 START A SCREENPLAY
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/9
All Levels
We will examine the fundamental components for crafting and writing
the feature-length screenplay: story, structure, the dramatic scene, and
dialogue. We’ll look at techniques for getting started and strategies for
working toward completion of a first draft. As well, we’ll discuss how
the screenplay is different from the novel, short story, and stage play.
1 Monday
7:30–10:00 P.M.
Bethesda
9/20
All Levels
HOW 2 START OUT IN LITERARY TRANSLATION
Workshop Leader: Yvette Neisser Moreno
This workshop will provide a brief introduction to literary translation,
including methods and theories, the creative element, and publishing.
Specifically, by examining different translations of sample texts, we
will discuss the myriad questions that a literary translator faces, such
as word choice, sentence structure, tone, rhythm, and sound. We will
also examine some of the major theories of translation and apply them
through translation exercises. Finally, we will discuss the “business” side
of literary translation: permissions and publishing. The workshop will
be conducted entirely in English.
1 Saturday
1:30–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
October 16
All Levels
23
WORKSHOPS
 workshops for
 INDEPENDENT STUDY 

military veterans The Writer’s Center is pleased to
announce that it has received
a generous grant from The
National Endowment for the
Arts allowing us to offer four
tuition-free workshops for
veterans and active duty military. Two of these are being offered this fall, and
there will be two additional workshops offered
in 2011. Please contact The Writer’s Center for
more details.
WRITING FOR MILITARY VETERANS
Workshop Leader: James Mathews
Now more than ever, many military veterans turn to writing to explore,
understand, and share their experiences. This writing workshop is for
veterans (including active duty military) interested in portraying the
human experience as seen through the unique cultural lens of military
life. The workshop will focus primarily on the elements of fiction as a way
of conveying this experience, but nonfiction writers are also welcome.
6 Wednesdays
FREE for Military Veterans
7:00–9:30 P.M.
Bethesda
9/15–10/20
All Levels
WRITING FOR MILITARY VETERANS
Workshop Leader: Jehanne Dubrow
In this writing workshop, both for veterans and for active duty military,
we will examine the ways that poetry and creative nonfiction can be
used to describe the experience of war, recount memories of service, and
explore the unique cultural landscape of military life.
4 Saturdays
FREE for Military Veterans
1:00–4:00 P.M.
Bethesda
10/16–11/6
All Levels
Have you taken a number of workshops at The
Writer’s Center, an M.F.A. program, or elsewhere?
Are you interested in a writing mentor to give you
focused guidance? If you answered yes to these
questions, consider applying for one of our new
independent study workshops, where you will
work one-on-one with one of our workshop
leaders.* In order to be eligible for an independent study, you will need to demonstrate a certain
level of expertise in your chosen genre—as
determined by the individual workshop leader.
Independent studies are not meant to replace
workshops, but rather to augment them by giving
you one-on-one attention. If you are interested
in one of the following independent studies, please
contact The Writer’s Center at 301.654.8664 or
by e-mailing [email protected] with
“independent study” as the subject.
All independent studies are 6 hours for $850.
*Only the workshop leaders listed below are currently
offering independent studies. Look for expanded
independent study offerings this winter.
Khris Baxter (Screenwriting)
I work with screenwriters of all levels on premise, story, structure,
scenes, and dialogue. In short, developing a screenplay from idea
through the final draft. I also work with writers on developing a sound
strategy for getting their work in front of producers, agents, and decision makers.
Brenda Clough (Science Fiction)
In an independent study workshop, I would read the student manuscript closely. We would discuss micro issues, like formatting and
sentence structure, and macro issues, like plot, pacing, and character.
My particular focus would be working within the science fiction genre,
and shaping the work towards success in that arena.
T. Greenwood (Novel)—ONLINE only
I provide comprehensive editorial services for completed drafts of novels.
Services include a thorough critical read of the manuscript followed by
an analysis and evaluation of plot, characterization, point of view, prose,
etc…as well as recommendations for revision.
24
WORKSHOPS
Ann McLaughlin (Fiction)
I would spend time initially discovering the student’s life experiences
and ambitions for writing. I would assess his or her reading tastes and
read his or her manuscript carefully, with a view to its possibilities and
other writing ahead, as well as explaining my specific edits.
Sue Ellen Thompson (Poetry)
I prefer working with free verse poets who combine narrative and lyric
elements, poets who enjoy writing in form, and poets who believe, as
Stanley Kunitz did, in “an art so transparent that you can look through
and see the world.” I will provide line-by-line feedback in person or via
e-mail, focusing on form, syntax, diction, imagery, and line breaks. I
can review manuscripts as a whole, groups of 3–5 poems, or individual
poems on which the poet is “stuck.”
SARAH VAP (POETRY)—online only
I work with advanced students who wish to have my feedback on their
poetry. I prefer to work with your chapbook or book-length manuscripts.
Feedback may include line edits, discussion about the work as a manuscript, and conceptual discussions.
 McLean Workshops 
The Writer’s Center is pleased to join in partnership
with the McLean Community Center (MCC), to
offer workshops at their location at 1234 Ingleside
Avenue, McLean, Virginia. The MCC is handling
registrations for these workshops.
The Writer's Center thanks Dorothy Hassan for
facilitating this opportunity.
Current Writer’s Center members who register for a workshop
at the MCC will pay the full rate and receive the member
discount as a refund 10 business days after the start of
the workshop. For more information about the MCC, visit
www.mcleancenter.org.
ADULTS WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEAMS:
FROM IDEA TO PRINTED PAGE
Workshop Leader: Ellen Braaf
Do you want to write for kids but don’t know where to begin? Do you
have a stalled project in need of a jumpstart? Would you like feedback
on a manuscript before you submit it to a publisher? In this hands-on
workshop, we’ll look at a variety of published works—magazine pieces,
picture books, easy readers, chapter books, middle-grade and young
adult novels, book-length nonfiction—as well as participants’ works-inprogress to explore the writing process from idea to printed page. We’ll
talk about what’s “hot” and what’s not in children’s publishing. In-class
writing exercises and peer critiques will complement our discussions.
If you have a manuscript ready for review, please bring eight copies to
the first class. (Manuscript critiques are limited to ten double-spaced,
single-sided pages, 12-point font.)
8 Tuesdays
7:30-10:00 P.M.
9/21–11/9
All Levels
WRITING YOUR NOVEL OR MEMOIR
Workshop Leader: Barbara Esstman
For writers with a book-length projects. Working from your own manuscripts, we’ll discuss character and scene development, tone, language,
point of view, and plot. Also, how to focus the main idea and emotional
center and to keep going to the end. We’ll also cover rewriting, getting
an agent when you finish, and other essentials. Each writer will submit
up to 25 double-spaced pages, which can include an optional plot
synopsis.
6 Wednesdays
7:00–9:30 p.m.
10/6–11/10
All Levels
CREATIVE FICTION
Workshop Leader: Robert Bausch
This workshop is an intensive exploration of the elements of writing fiction, the uses of the imagination, and the demands of literary genres,
including the short story and the novel. The workshop will focus on
techniques for character development, plot, conflict, dialogue, beginnings,
endings and resolutions, the writing process, and basic storytelling.
7 Saturdays
10:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
10/23–12/18
All Levels
No meeting November 13, 27, or December 4
WRITING FROM LIFE
Workshop Leader: Ellen Herbert
While our lives are rich in stories we need to tell, how do we cull them
from the complicated tangle of memory? This workshop will explore
“true writing,” either creative nonfiction or fiction, using suggested
weekly topics and employing literary techniques such as recreated dialogue, compression of time, back stories, and voice.
4 Wednesdays
10:30 A.M.–1:00 P.M.
10/13–11/3
All Levels
THE ART AND CRAFT OF SCREENWRITING
This intensive one-day workshop will guide the beginning or intermediate screenwriter through the entire screenwriting process: idea,
story, plot, structure, character development, scene construction, and
dialogue. In short, the necessary tools to begin writing a feature-length
screenplay. Participants should arrive with a short synopsis (no more
than a page) of their screenplay idea.
1 Saturday
10:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M.
9/25
All Levels
One-hour lunch break
To find workshops listed exclusively online,
visit the new and improved www.writer.org.
25
EVENTS AT THE WRITER'S CENTER
We host more than 50 events annually, including Sunday Open Door
readings, Story/Stereo, and theatre productions at our historic black box
theatre. If you would like more information about these events—including
interviews, videos, audio—please visit our Web site www.writer.org or our
blog, First Person Plural.
SUN, NOV 21, 2:00 P.M.
Visiting poet Ron Slate
reads from The Great
Wave. He is joined by
Sandra Beasley, who
reads from I Was the
Jukebox.
photo by matthew worden
open door
readings
SUN, OCT 3, 2:00 P.M.
presents an event with
Kirsten Holmstedt,
editor of The Girls Come
Marching Home: Stories
of Women Warriors
Returning from the
War in Iraq.
SUN, OCT 17, 2:00 P.M.
Publication reading for Washington Writers’
Publishing House winners. Poet Holly Karapetkova reads from Words We Might One Day Say,
and Andrew Wingfield reads from Right of Way,
a book of related short fiction.
SUN, DEC 5, 2:00 P.M.
Join editor Philip Clark
and local authors who
will read work from
the recent anthology
Persistent Voices: Poetry
by Writers Lost to AIDS.
Readers include Dan
Vera, Philip Clark,
Charles Jensen,
and Kim Roberts.
SUN, NOV 7, 2:00 P.M.
Josh Weil reads from
The New Valley. He is
joined by Susan Coll,
who reads from Beach
Week, her most recent
novel.
SUN, DEC 12, 2:00 P.M.
SUN, SEPT 19, 2:00 P.M.
SUN, SEPT 26, 2:00 P.M.
The Writer’s Center celebrates publication of
The Delmarva Review with a reading featuring
authors published in the latest issue. Readers
include Sue Ellen Thompson, Anne Colwell,
Amanda Newell, J. Wesley Clark, Margaret
Adams, and Sunil Freeman
26
SUN, NOV 14, 2:00 P.M.
The Writer’s Center presents a panel discussion
on Creativity, Science, and the Brain. With
Michael Salcman, former president of the
Congress of Neurological Surgeons; Joram
Piatigorsky, Chief of the NEI’s Laboratory of
Molecular and Developmental Biology; and
David A. Taylor, award-winning writer and
documentary filmmaker.
photo by Jean Korten Moser
Poetry and Prose Open Mic. Sign-up for readers
begins at 1:30.
Novelist Israel Heller
reads from Death In
McMurdo, and Kathryn
Johnson reads from
The Gentleman Poet: A
Novel of Love, Danger,
and Shakespeare's The
Tempest.
SUN, DEC 19, 2:00 P.M.
Poetry and Prose Open Mic. Sign-up for readers
begins at 1:30.
Story/Stereo
FRI, SEPT 3, 8:00 P.M.
FRI, nov 5, 8:00 P.M.
Fellows Aryn Kyle (Boys and Girls Like You and
Me) and Allison Benis White (Self-Portrait with
Crayon) will read. Musical guest to be announced.
Fellows Doreen Baingana (Tropical Fish: Stories
out of Entebbe) and Alison Pelegrin (Big Muddy
River of Stars) will read. Musical guest to be
announced.
FRI, OCT 8, 8:00 P.M.
See page 35 for more information
about Story/Stereo.
Fellows Jenny Browne (The Second Reason) and
Debra Gwartney (Live Through This: A Mother's
Memoir of Runaway Daughters) will read. Musical
guest to be announced.
special Events
Open House
SAT, SEPT 11, 12:00–3:00 P.M.
Meet workshop leaders, staff members, and
Board members, and learn about our fall workshops at our Open House.
Cave Canem + Letras
Latinas Reading
FRI, SEPT 17, 7:30 P.M.
The Writer’s Center hosts a reading featuring
Cave Canem poets Gregory Pardlo and Terri
Cross Davis and Letras Latinas writers Brenda
Cárdenas and Paul Martinez Pompa. Read more
about the event on page 4.
Out of Denmark:
An Evening of Danish
Literature
Thurs, Sept 23, 7:00 p.m.
The Writer’s Center, in cooperation with the Danish
Arts Council’s Committee for Literature and Fall
For the Book, presents Danish writers Pia Tafdrup,
Naja Marie Aidt, and Simon Fruelund. For more
information, visit http://fallforthebook.org/?p=831
Read more about the event on page 3.
An Evening with
Warren St. John
Reichert, Clare Banks, Holly Bass, and Alan King.
Read more about the event on page 6.
Join us for a talk and Q & A with author Warren
St. John as part of the One Maryland One Book
celebration of Outcasts United. This event is
hosted in partnership with the Paul Peck Institute for the Humanities at Montgomery College
and will be held at the Silver Spring/Takoma
Park campus's Performing Arts Center in Silver
Spring (7995 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD
20910).
Writers published in Poet Lore, Barrelhouse,
Smartish Pace, Big Lucks, and The Potomac
Review will read at The Black Squirrel in Adams
Morgan. Readers include Gregory Pardlo, Joe
Hall, David Keplinger, and Doug Lang.
Tues, Sept 28, 7:00–9:00 P.M.
alan squire launch
FRI, OCT 22, 7:30 P.M.
Reading by authors recently published by Alan
Squire Publishing. James J. Patterson reads from
Bermuda Shorts, his collection of essays, and
novelist Joanna Biggar reads from That Paris Year.
An Evening with
Eliza Poe
SUN, OCT 28, 8:00 p.m.
The Writer’s Center and Pyramid Atlantic present
Eliza Poe, an Edgar Allan Poe event.
POE-PALOOZA
CELEBRATION
SUN, OCT 31,
2:00 P.M.
Area writers read from the
work of Edgar Allan Poe.
Readers include Deanna
Nikaido, Reginald Harris,
Rose Solari, Stephen
Poetry Reading at
the Black Squirrel
FRI, NOV 12, 7:30 P.M.
The Seafarer
Nov 12–Dec 12
The Quotidian Theatre Company presents The
Seafarer by Conor McPherson, directed by Jack
Sbarbori. For more information, visit their Web
site, www.quotidiantheatre.org.
holiday BooK fair
MON, NOV 29, 7:30 P.M.
Got book? This new event features members,
workshop leaders, and local small presses presenting their books to our community. Authors
and small presses already scheduled include
SFWP, Alan Orloff, Kathryn Erskine, and Amy
Dawson Robertson If you would like to present
and sell your book at the fair, please contact Kyle
Semmel at [email protected].
The Art of Adaptation:
Bringing A Wrinkle in
Time to the Stage
MON, DEC 13, 7:30 p.m.
The Writer’s Center and Round House Theatre
present a panel discussion. Panelists TBA.
27
Leesburg
First Friday Events
7:30 P.M. to 9:30 P.M.
$6 for general admission
$4 f or members of
The Writer’s Center and
residents of Leesburg
Leesburg Town Hall
In the Lower Level Meeting Room
25 West Market Street, Leesburg, VA
Developing The Right
Character For Your Story
with brenda clough
Sept 3
Fiction is all about the interaction between plot
and character. Choosing the right character for
your story is essential. The wrong protagonist
can kill your book. Take Shakespeare’s Hamlet,
drop him into the role of Luke Skywalker, and
watch STAR WARS grind to a halt. A manuscript
that is not working can sometimes be resurrected
through character surgery. Brenda Clough will
discuss how to tell if you’ve created just the
right character for your story and how to modify
characters in need of a page-lift.
Demystifying the Mystery:
Tips on Writing Crime
Fiction with marcia talley
Oct 1
Please join award-winning mystery author Marcia
Talley as she gives us practical tips on how to
ratchet up the tension in our novels, whether
they are mysteries or not.
length Narrative With
David A. Taylor
NOV 5
Often a book emerges from a process more like
quilting than cutting from a single piece of cloth.
Writers can draw on varied resources available
locally—from manuscript collections at the
Library of Congress to interviews and walking
tours—to create rich narratives. Taylor will talk
about this process and how the group portrait in
his book Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project
Uncovers Depression America came together,
from first a Smithsonian article, through other
pieces for Village Voice, Prairie Schooner, and The
American Scholar, to a book and documentary
film in 2009. The same process can inform fiction.
Putting the Pieces
Together: Weaving Stories
and Articles into a Book-
The Biggest Names
The Hottest Discoveries
2010 Fairfax Prize Winner: Novelist Ann Patchett, Run
2010 Mason Award Winner: Humanitarian &
Memoirist Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea
Novelists Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain,
and Kathryn Stockett, The Help
Poets Charles Bernstein, All the Whiskey in Heaven;
Brenda Hillman, Practical Writer; and Jay Wright,
Polynomials and Pollen
Memoirists Jennifer Finney Boylan, She’s Not There:
A Life in Two Genders, and Lisa Tracy, Objects of Our
Affection
Biographer Joan Schenkar, The Talented Miss
Highsmith, in conjunction with Round House
Theatre’s The Talented Mr. Ripley
And an evening of Danish literature at The Writer’s
Center: Pia Tafdrup, Naja Marie Aidt, and
Simon Fruelund
www.fallforthebook.org
for information and updates!
2010 FftB Poster Contest winner; design by Jenny Ness Decker
WORKSHOP LEADERS
Ken Ackerman, a writer and attorney in
Washington, D.C., has written dozens of articles and
has authored four published books: The Gold Ring:
Jim Fisk, Jay Gould, and Black Friday 1869; Dark Horse:
The Surprise Election and Political Murder of James A.
Garfield; Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt
Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York; and
Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault
on Civil Liberties. For more details, visit his Web site
at www.kennethackerman.com.
Deborah Ager’s poems and reviews have
appeared in, or are forthcoming from, New England
Review, The Georgia Review, The Bloomsbury Review,
Quarterly West, and elsewhere. She was a Tennessee
Williams scholar in poetry at the Sewanee Writers’
Conference and has been awarded residencies at
the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for
the Creative Arts. She is the founder of 32 Poems
Magazine.,
James Alexander has been writing
professionally for more than 30 years, including
eight years in the Clinton Administration as a
Cabinet-level speechwriter and as an outreach
specialist. He worked several years on Capitol Hill
as a press secretary and op-ed writer. As an op-ed
ghostwriter, he has penned more than 50 op-eds for
key government and political figures, publishing in
such notable newspapers as The Wall Street Journal
and The New York Times.
Robert Bausch is the author of six novels
and one collection of short stories. He has taught
at the University of Virginia, American University,
The Johns Hopkins University, and George Mason
University. His fourth novel, A Hole in the Earth, was
a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a
Washington Post Favorite Book of the Year. He was
awarded the Fellowship of Southern Writer’s Award
for fiction for his fifth novel, The Gypsy Man. His most
recent novel, Out of Season, was published in the fall
of 2005.
Khris Baxter is a screenwriter, producer, and
script consultant. He teaches screenwriting at The
Writer's Center, Gettysburg College, and at the lowresidency M.F.A. at Queens University of Charlotte, NC.
His body of work includes many optioned screenplays
and one produced film. He is a member of the Virginia
Film Office where he is a judge for the annual Screenwriting Competition. He is also the founder of Baxter
Baker & Associates (baxterbaker.com).
Sandra Beasley is the author of I Was the
Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize.
Her first collection, Theories of Falling, won the New
Issues Poetry Prize. Her poetry has been featured on
Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, and will be included in
the Best American Poetry 2010. She is working on
Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life,
a memoir forthcoming from Crown in 2011.
Barbara I. Berschler is a partner at
Press, Potter & Dozier, LLC in Bethesda, Maryland.
She has been in practice in the Washington, D.C.
area since 1985. In 2003 she received the Brinks
Hofer Gilson & Lione Award for Excellence in Intellectual Property Law from the American University
Washington College of Law. She has been co-chair of
the Intellectual Property Law Section of the District
of Columbia Bar since 2006, chairman of the Section’s
Legislation Committee since 2003, and a member of
the Steering Committee since 2005.
Arthur Besner has more than 30 years experience at the U.S. Department of Education, where,
among other things, he wrote speeches—delivered
by the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and the
Department Secretary—that were given to national
education, civil rights, and legal organizations. He
also designed and delivered an ongoing training course,
“Writing Memoranda and Reports,” for Department
employees. He teaches at Montgomery College.
Kate Blackwell writes fiction and teaches
writing in Washington, D.C., at The Writer's Center,
and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her short
stories have appeared in numerous literary journals,
as well as in several anthologies. Her new collection,
You Won’t Remember This, was published in 2007.
Sarah Blake is the author of two novels,
Grange House, and the New York Times Bestseller, The
Postmistress (2010).
Martin Blank has written ten plays that
have been produced in the U.S. and abroad. He has
directed dozens of readings and workshops to develop
new plays in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
He has also written, produced, or directed over 100
professional productions. He has served as Artistic
Associate for the American Jewish Theatre and American
Place Theatre, New York City, as well as Literary Manager,
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Founding
Artistic Director, Theater J.
Ellen R. Braaf has published fiction, nonfiction, and humor for children and adults. Author of
six science books for PowerKids Press, Ellen has been
a columnist and feature writer for ASK magazine (Arts
and Sciences for Kids) since it was launched by the
Cricket Group and Smithsonian magazine in 2002.
She serves as Mid-Atlantic Regional Advisor for the
Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and
as co-chair of Northern Virginia Writers.
BRASH has published widely in journals such as
The Greensboro Review, Kalliope, The Allegheny Review,
Mediphors, and Red Wheelbarrow, and also has
collaborated widely with artists, musicians, and other
writers in performances, including Being Stephen
Hawking at the Warehouse Theatre, and DiStillation,
in collaboration with the artist Brian Reed.
Peter Brown is the author of the awardwinning novel, Ruthie Black, which got raves from
Midwest Book Reviews and Pleiades. View his TV
interview at his Web site, www.pbrown.us. His
novella, The Death Of Rhett Butler, can be read in its
entirety at www.deathofrhett.blogspot.com. It was
recently featured in The Writer's Center’s blog, First
Person Plural.
Dana Cann, M.A., has stories appearing in The
Sun, The Gettysburg Review, Bethesda Magazine, Fifth
Wednesday Journal, The Florida Review, and Blackbird,
among other journals. He’s received a Pushcart nomination and fellowships from the Virginia Center for the
Creative Arts and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.
Mary Carpenter, M.A. in journalism with
25 years as a published journalist specializing in
medical topics for TIME, International Herald Tribune,
The Washington Post, and women’s magazines. Her
children’s biography of Temple Grandin was published
in 2003; she is working on another book for children
about the dolphins lost at sea during Hurricane Katrina,
and a literary memoir of her mother’s life.
29
WORKSHOP LEADERS
Kenneth Carroll is a native Washingtonian. His poetry, short stories, essays, and plays
have appeared in numerous publications including,
Black American Literature Forum, The Lion Speaks:
An Anthology for Hurricane Katrina, The Washington
Post, Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington,
D.C., and many others. His book of poetry, So What:
For The White Dude Who Said This Ain’t Poetry, was
published in 1997. He has had two plays produced,
The Mask and Make My Funk The P-Funk.
Anne Cassidy, M.S.J. (Columbia University
Graduate School of Journalism), is a writer, editor,
and author of Parents Who Think Too Much. Her
essays and features have appeared in The New York
Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science
Monitor, Family Circle, Ladies' Home Journal, Parents,
and many more magazines. She writes mini-essays
almost daily on her new blog, walkerinthesuburbs.
blogspot.com.
Brenda W. Clough is the author of eight
published novels, many short stories, and a number
of nonfiction works. Her novels include How Like
a God, The Doors of Death and Life, and Revise the
World. She has been a finalist for both the Hugo and
the Nebula awards. She has been teaching Science
Fiction & Fantasy workshops at The Writer's Center
for at least ten years.
Susan Coll is the author of four novels,
including Rockville Pike, Acceptance, and Beach Week.
Jehanne Dubrow is the author of three
poetry collections, most recently Stateside. Her work
has appeared in Poetry, New England Review, The New
Republic, Prairie Schooner, and Ploughshares. She earned
her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and
her M.F.A. from the University of Maryland. She is an
assistant professor in literature and creative writing at
Washington College, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Graham Dunstan is a fiction and memoir
writer who has won numerous awards for his writing
including a Larry Neal Fiction Award for the District of
Columbia, and fiction awards from Lullwater Review
and Anchorage Daily News. He earned an M.F.A. in
creative writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage,
where he also taught composition. Graham has been
30
published in The Signal, The Phoenix, Lullwater Review,
We Alaskans, Creative Loafing, Anchorage Weekly, and
on PlanetOut.
assassination, The Third Walking Gentleman, was a
semifinalist in the National Playwright’s Contest at
the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center.
Solveig Eggerz is the author of the awardwinning novel Seal Woman. She has published in The
Northern Virginia Review, Open Windows: Selections
from the Winners of Poetry in the Windows, 1995–2003,
Palo Alto Review, Lincoln Review, Moment, Issues. Her
short story, “The Midwife,” won first prize in the 2009
Golden Nib contest and is a chapter from her forthcoming novel, Curve of the Earth. She holds a Ph.D. from
The Catholic University of America in Comparative
Literature.
Barbara Esstman M.F.A., is a National
Endowment for the Arts, Virginia Center for the
Creative Arts, Virginia Commission for the Arts fellow,
and a Redbook fiction award winner, among other
distinctions. Her two novels, The Other Anna and
Night Ride Home, were published by Harcourt Brace
and HarperCollins, and are in numerous foreign
editions. Both books were adapted for television by
Hallmark Productions. She co-edited an anthology,
A More Perfect Union, published by St. Martin’s Press,
and has taught extensively in universities.
Pamela Ehrenberg is the author of two
novels for young people, Tillmon County Fire (2009)
and Ethan, Suspended (2007). A former junior high
teacher and AmeriCorps alumna, she is currently
a higher education consultant and mom to two
small children. For an introvert, she can be found
on a surprising number of social networking sites,
including twitter.com/pamelaehrenberg, Facebook,
and MySpace, as well as on her own Web site (www.
pamelaehrenberg.com).
Jonathan Eig has been teaching screenwriting
workshops in the Washington, D.C., area for the past
20 years. He is a winner of the Austin Heart of Film
Festival screenplay competition and a CINE Golden
Eagle. He currently teaches screenwriting and film
history at Montgomery College, Takoma Park, and
leads a film series at the AFI Silver Theatre.
Laura Fargas, J.D., M.F.A. (Iowa), Yaddo
Fellow. After practicing law for 25 years, she is now
on the faculty of Goddard College’s low-residency M.F.A.
program. She has published two books of poetry and
one novel, and her poems have appeared in such journals
as The Paris Review, Poetry, and the Atlantic.
Melanie Figg recently moved from the Twin
Cities, where she taught creative writing at The Loft
Literary Center and worked at Graywolf Press. She has
won many awards and fellowships for her poetry, and
been published in The Iowa Review, LIT, MARGIE, Colorado Review, and other journals. Her first manuscript,
"Monarch," has been a finalist for the Walt Whitman
Award, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, the Tupelo
Prize, and three other national competitions.
Cathy Fink is a prolific songwriter with two
GRAMMY Awards, 11 GRAMMY nominations, and 50
Patricia Elam is an award-winning writer
and commentator who has been widely published in
The Washington Post, Essence, The Crisis, and numerous journals and anthologies. She has also provided
commentary for National Public Radio, CNN, and the
BBC. Elam is the author of the critically acclaimed
novel, Breathing Room, and currently teaches at
Howard University.
awards from the Washington Area Music Association
in bluegrass, folk, and children’s music. She shares
all her awards and recordings with Marcy Marxer.
Cathy & Marcy maintain an active tour schedule as
children’s/family performers and folk/roots/country/
swing artists. Cathy’s song “Names,” about the AIDS
Memorial Quilt, was recorded by over 20 artists in
several countries. www.cathymarcy.com
Sean Enright has taught writing workshops
at the University of Maryland and The Writer's Center.
His poems have appeared in TriQuarterly, The Threepenny
Review, Sewanee Review, and The Kenyon Review, among
others. In 2001, he published a novel, Goof and Other
Stories. In 2007, his play about the day of the Lincoln
Lee Fleming has been writing, editing, and
teaching both for more than two decades. Her articles
have appeared in The Washington Post, City Paper,
The Washingtonian, and other national newspapers
and magazines. A former senior editor at Museum &
Arts, and Garden Design magazines, and managing
WORKSHOP LEADERS
editor/editor-in-chief of Landscape Architecture,
Fleming has received a number of fellowships and
awards for journalism and fiction.
Nan Fry, Ph.D. (Yale University), is the author
of a book of poetry, Relearning the Dark. Her poems
have appeared in numerous literary magazines, in
the anthology Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast,
and in textbooks such as The Creative Process and
Discovering Literature. She taught in the Maryland
Poets-in-the-Schools Program and, for over twenty
years, in the Academic Studies Department at the
Corcoran College of Art + Design. Bernadette Geyer is a freelance writer
and copy editor with more than 15 years of experience
in business marketing and public relations. The former
Director of Marketing for a trade association, Geyer
now writes and edits business publications as well
as manuscripts of creative writing. Her articles, book
reviews, and poems have appeared in WRITER’S Journal,
Freelance Writer’s Report, World Energy Review, The
Montserrat Review, The Los Angeles Review, and
elsewhere.
Patricia Gray directs the Poetry and Literature
Center at the Library of Congress. She designed and
directs the Poetry at Noon reading series there and,
for the past three years, she has served as a judge
for the NEA’s “Poetry Out Loud” national semi-finals
competition. She has received several D.C. Artist
Fellowships, the most recent in 2006. She is the author
of Rupture: Poems, and a limited edition chapbook,
Rich with Desire.
T. Greenwood is the author of five novels,
including The Hungry Season and Two Rivers. She has
received numerous grants for her writing including a
National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship
and a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. She
lives in San Diego, California, with her husband and
their two daughters, where she teaches creative writing,
studies photography, and continues to write. Her
Web site is www.tgreenwood.com.
Ellen Herbert’s personal narrative essays
have been published in The Washington Post’s “Style”
section, Sonora Review, The Rambler, Alimentum,
and other journals. One of her personal essays,
“Orphaned Alligators,” won the 2006 Flint Hills
Review Creative Nonfiction Prize.
Dave Housley’s collection of short fiction,
Ryan Seacrest is Famous, was published in 2007 by
Impetus Press. His work has appeared in Beloit Fiction
Journal, The Collagist, Hobart, Nerve, Quarterly West,
the anthology Best of the Web 2010, and some other
places. He’s one of the editors at Barrelhouse. He keeps
his virtual stuff at davehousley.com.
Elizabeth Huergo received her M.A. and
Ph.D. in English from Brown University in 1985 and
1989. She has taught English literature and composition
at a number of institutions, including Rhode Island
College and American University. She is also a novelist
and short story writer.
Reuben Jackson is a poet, radio commentator, and music critic living in Washington, D.C.
He was curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s Duke
Ellington Collection from 1989 until December 2009.
His poems have been published in 28 anthologies,
journals, and magazines like Gargoyle, Beltway
Poetry Quarterly, and The Indiana Review, and he is
the author of a volume of poetry entitled Fingering
The Keys, which won the 1992 Columbia Book Award.
His radio essays have aired on National Public Radio
and WAMU FM.
Charles Jensen is the author of four
collections of poetry, most recently The First Risk,
which was a finalist for the 2010 Lambda Literary
Award. He serves as poetry editor for Lethe Press.
Kathryn Johnson is author of over 40
published novels. She is a professional writer’s mentor
who teaches the practical aspects of writing book-length
fiction with the goal of getting published. Her most
recent novel—The Gentleman Poet: A Novel of Love,
Danger, and Shakespeare’s The Tempest—was
published in September 2010.
Beth Kanter is a freelance feature writer
specializing in parenting and travel pieces. Her stories
have appeared in a variety of publications including
Wondertime, Parents, American Baby, Working Mother,
Shape, Chicago Tribune, and Pages. She also writes
the “Where to Stay” chapter for the popular Fodor’s
Washington, D.C., guidebook series and recently
updated a new Michelin guide. Beth has also worked
as a writer for several non-profit organizations. Beth
earned her M.S.J. from Northwestern University's
Medill School of Journalism.
David Keplinger is Director of the M.F.A.
in Creative Writing Program at American University.
He is the author of three full-length collections of
poems, The Prayers of Others, The Clearing, and The
Rose Inside. He has also translated The World Cut Out
with Crooked Scissors: The Selected Poetry of Carsten
Rene Nielsen.
Susan Land has taught for the Center for
Talented Youth at The Johns Hopkins University
Center, Passion for Learning, The Writer's Center,
and for many schools. Susan has an M.A. from The
Johns Hopkins University and was a Stegner Fellow
at Stanford University. Her fiction has won three
Maryland Council for the Arts awards, and her work
has recently appeared in Potomac Review, The Florida
Review, Bethesda Magazine, Enhanced Gravity: More
Fiction by Washington Area Women, and "Like Whatever": The Insider’s Guide to Raising Teens.
James Mathews is a graduate of The Johns
Hopkins University Master of Arts in Writing program.
He is the author of Last Known Position, a short story
collection, and winner of the 2008 Katherine Anne
Porter Prize in Short Fiction. His fiction has appeared
in many literary journals. He is also the recipient of a
number of fiction awards, including three Maryland
State Arts Council grants (1999, 2006, and 2010). His
Web site is www.jamesmathewsonline.com.
Ann McLaughlin, Ph.D., has given workshops
in the novel, the short story, and in journal writing at
The Writer's Center for the past twenty-five years and
is on the board. She has published six novels: Lightning
in July, The Balancing Pole, Sunset at Rosalie, Maiden
Voyage, The House on Q Street, and Leaving Bayberry
House. She has had eleven fellowships at the Virginia
Center for the Creative Arts, one at Yaddo, and one at
Laverny, Switzerland.
Pat McNees was an editor in book publishing
and a freelance journalist (samples at www.patmcnees.com) before she began writing other people’s
life stories and organizational histories and helping
31
WORKSHOP LEADERS
others write their memoirs. She is president of the
national Association of Personal Historians; editor
of the anthologies My Words Are Gonna Linger: The
Art of Personal History, Contemporary Latin American
Short Stories, and Dying: A Book of Comfort; and
author of several nonfiction books.
Yvette Neisser Moreno is a poet and
translator whose work has appeared in numerous
magazines and anthologies, including International
Poetry Review, Potomac Review, and The Virginia
Quarterly Review. Her translation of Argentine Luis
Alberto Ambroggio’s Difficult Beauty: Selected Poems
was published by Cross-Cultural Communications in
2009; one of her translations was nominated for a
Pushcart Prize. Moreno works as a freelance writer
and Spanish interpreter, and teaches writing at
University of Maryland University College.
John Morris has taught at The Writer's Center
since 1995. He has published fiction and poetry in more
than 80 literary magazines in the U.S. and Great Britain.
His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and
reprinted in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. A
chapbook, The Musician, Approaching Sleep, appeared
in 2006 from Dos Madres Press. His musical project,
Mulberry Coach, a collaboration with singer and
lyricist Katie Fisher, released its fifth CD in 2009.
Randon Billings Noble earned her
M.F.A. in creative writing from New York University in
2001 and taught a variety of writing classes at American
University from 2001 to 2009. She has been a fellow
at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and a
resident at the Vermont Studio Center. Published
in The New York Times, The Massachusetts Review,
Passages North, and Emrys Journal, she is currently
working on a collection of essays called The Summer
before Marriage.
Shannon O’Neill is an agent with the
Sagalyn Literary Agency, which has represented journalists, academics, business writers, and novelists
for over 20 years. Based in Bethesda, the Agency
works primarily with the large New York houses and
focuses on upmarket nonfiction, business books, and
commercial fiction. Shannon has a Master’s degree
in Writing from The Johns Hopkins University and
graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College. She
32
is also an associate editor for the Potomac Review.
Susan O’Shaughnessy has 25 years
of experience in professional writing and training.
She has taught writing courses at the World Bank,
the International Monetary Fund, and Georgetown
University. As an instructional designer, she has
created classroom and e-learning courses for federal
agencies and private companies.
Leslie Pietrzyk, M.F.A., is the author of the
novels Pears on a Willow Tree and A Year and a Day,
which was selected for the Book-of-the-Month Club
and the Borders “Original Voices” series. Her short
fiction has appeared in many publications, including
The Washingtonian, TriQuarterly, The Gettysburg
Review, The Sun, The Iowa Review, New England
Review, and Confrontation. She has received fellowships
from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences.
Mary Quattlebaum, M.A., teacher, reviewer, is the author of fifteen award-winning children’s
books, including Jackson Jones and the Puddle of
Thorns and Sparks Fly High. Her work has appeared
in anthologies and magazines such as Cricket, Spider,
Ladybug, and Boys’ Life. Mary reviews children’s
books for The Washington Post and Washington Parent,
edits educational materials for museums and small
publishers, and presents frequently at schools. Her
Web site is www.maryquattlebaum.com.
Elizabeth Rees, M.A., has taught at several
leading colleges, including Harvard University, the
U.S. Naval Academy, Howard University, and in The
Johns Hopkins University’s graduate program. She
works as a “poet-in-the-schools” for the MD State
Arts Council. She has published over 250 poems in
journals such as Partisan Review, The Kenyon Review,
Agni, and North American Review, among others. She
has four award-winning chapbooks, most recently,
Tilting Gravity, winner of Codhill Press’ 2009 contest.
Angela Render designed and maintained
Web sites since 1994 and is the founder and owner of
Thunderpaw Internet Presence Management, thunderpaw.com. Her published work includes: Forged By
Lightning: A Novel of Hannibal and Scipio, Marketing for Writers: A Practical Workbook, a column for
WRITERS' Journal, and ghost blogging. In addition to
her classes at The Writer's Center, she teaches at-risk
middle-school girls and she has been a guest speaker
at numerous local conferences.
Jeffrey Rubin, M.A., is a Virginia-based
screenwriter/producer who has sold or optioned
three screenplays, one of which was produced by
Showtime. His screenplays have won top prizes at
Worldfest Houston and the Vail Film Festival, among
others, and he has been nominated for a Writer’s
Guild of America Award.
Ellen Ryan was managing editor of The
Washingtonian for nearly 13 years. Since writing for
The Cavalier Daily at the University of Virginia, she
has been an editor in Washington for two decades.
Her freelance articles have appeared in Good
Housekeeping, Outside, AARP, The Washington Post,
ForbesLife Executive Woman, and dozens more. Ryan
is author of Innkeeping Unlimited: Practical, Low-Cost
Ways to Improve Your B&B and Win Repeat Business.
David Salner worked as an iron ore miner,
furnace tender, machinist, and garment worker. A
longtime activist in social struggles, he has an M.F.A.
from The Iowa Writers' Workshop. His fifth collection,
Working Here, will come off the presses in 2010, and
his poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, North
American Review, The Threepenny Review, Poetry Northwest, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, and many other
journals. He has received grants from the Maryland
State Arts Council and the Puffin Foundation.
Laura Shamas has published plays, essays,
and nonfiction. Her essays about myth and modern
life have appeared in Ecopsychology, Los Angeles Times,
and Newsday. She has worked in film as a screenwriter
and as a consultant. An award-winning writer and
teacher, her Ph.D. is in Mythological Studies. She specializes in teaching myth and fairy tale adaptation. She
currently teaches in the M.F.A. Screenwriting Program
at Hollins University, Roanoke, Virginia.
Anne Sheldon is a storyteller, a retired
children’s librarian, and an adjunct at the University
of Maryland, where she teaches storytelling in the
iSchool. She’s the author of Hero-Surfing, Lancastrian
Letters, and Adventures of the Faithful Counselor. Her
poetry has appeared in such journals as Poet Lore,
WORKSHOP LEADERS
The Dark Horse, Weird Tales, and Spitball. She’s sold
fiction to Black Gate, Paradox, and Aboriginal Science
Fiction.
Science Monitor. He has also written for the National
Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, and
the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
Adele Steiner B.A. & M.F.A. in English
Literature and Creative Writing (Poetry) (University of
Maryland); an instructor with Montgomery College
and the Maryland State Arts Council; a veteran
artist-in-residence at Georgetown Hospital; host of
Café Muse; and author of Refracted Love, Freshwater
Pearls, The Moon Lighting, and Look Ma, “Hands”
on Poetry. Her work has appeared in WordWrights!,
Maryland Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Lucid Stone,
Smartish Pace, and So to Speak.
Sue Ellen Thompson is the author of
four books of poetry, most recently The Golden Hour
(2006), and the editor of The Autumn House Anthology
of Contemporary American Poetry. Twice nominated for
a Pulitzer Prize, she taught at Middlebury College,
Wesleyan University, State University of New York
at Binghamton, and Central Connecticut State University before moving in 2007 to the Eastern Shore.
She has received the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry
and two Individual Artist’s Grants from the State of
Connecticut.
David Stewart is the author of The
Washington Post bestseller and winner of the 2007
Washington Writing Prize, The Summer of 1787, and
Impeached. His book on the Aaron Burr conspiracy is
scheduled for release in 2011.
Sara Mansfield Taber received a
Bergeron Fellowship to teach writing in London, and
was a William B. Sloane Fellow in Nonfiction at the
Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. She is the author of
Dusk on the Campo: A Journey in Patagonia; Of Many
Lands: Journal of a Traveling Childhood; and Bread of
Three Rivers: The Story of a French Loaf. Her short pieces
have appeared in anthologies, such as Unrooted
Childhoods, and in literary magazines and on public
radio. Visit her Web site at www.sarataber.com.
Judith Tabler writes fiction and nonfiction
for magazines such as Appleseeds, Calliope, and
Cobblestone, and is the author of several books, one
of which was awarded best children’s book by the
Dog Writers Association of America. She also wrote
for the National Geographic Society education
department. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing for
young people and teaches writing at a local university.
She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book
Writers and Illustrators.
David A. Taylor is an award-winning
writer and filmmaker on science, history, and culture.
He’s the author of Ginseng, the Divine Root, about the
medicinal plant, and Soul of a People, about America
in the 1930s. His articles appear in Smithsonian, The
Washington Post, Outside, Wired, and The Christian
David Y. Todd is a public relations consultant
and writer. After working as a trial lawyer then as a
journalist, he taught at universities before turning
to public relations full time in 1998. He has directed
publications and aided media relations for individuals,
government, nonprofits, and universities, and has
spoken and written for himself and others online and
in the Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The
Washington Post, The Yale Review, on local TV, and
elsewhere. Find him on the Web at www.davidytodd.com.
Sarah Vap is the author of Dummy Fire, which
won the 2006 Saturnalia Poetry Prize, and American
Spikenard, which won the 2006 Iowa Poetry Prize.
She is editor of poetry for the online journal 42opus.
Her third collection, Faulkner’s Rosary, is forthcoming
from Saturnalia Books in 2010. She has taught writing
and literature at Arizona State University, Phoenix
College, and Olympic College.
Lyn Vaus, a longtime screenwriter and industry
professional, is best known for his award-winning
Miramax romantic comedy Next Stop Wonderland.
He began his career as a story editor for a production company in Hollywood where he oversaw the
script for New Line’s hit science fiction film “The
Lawnmower Man.” He has had numerous screenplays
of his own optioned, and in some cases produced by,
among others, Imax, Fineline, SenArt, and Miramax.
at Charter Theater, where he has worked as a playwright,
director, and dramaturge since the company started
in 1998. His most recent play, “The Fetish,” was produced
at The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in
December 2008. His play “Quartet” was performed
at the Hamner Theatre in Nelson County, Virginia, in
April 2009.
Basil White is a speechwriter, a published
joke writer (Judy Brown’s Squeaky Clean Comedy, The
Comedy Thesaurus, and Larry Getlen’s The Complete
Idiot’s Guide to Jokes), public speaker, and business
humor consultant. Basil helps people add humor
to presentations, advertising, movie scripts, and
user manuals. He also writes articles and online
courses on creative technology writing, usability, and
information design. www.basilwhite.com.
Joyce Winslow is an award-winning
short story writer. Her work has appeared in The
New Yorker and Best American Short Stories. She has
edited Pulitzer prize-winning authors in her capacity
as fiction editor of a national magazine.
Michele Wolf is the author of Conversations
During Sleep, winner of the Anhinga Prize for Poetry,
and The Keeper of Light, which received the Painted
Bride Quarterly Poetry Chapbook Series award. Her
poems have also appeared in Poetry, The Hudson
Review, North American Review, Antioch Review,
Boulevard, and numerous other literary journals and
anthologies. She serves as a contributing editor for
Poet Lore.
Anne Harding Woodworth’s
most recent book is Spare Parts: A Novella in Verse.
She is the author of two other books of poetry, with
another to appear in 2011. Her poetry, book reviews,
and essays have appeared in U.S. and Canadian
journals, such as TriQuarterly, Rain Taxi, Painted Bride
Quarterly, Connecticut Review, The Antigonish Review,
and Poet Lore, as well as at several sites online. She
is on the Poetry Board at the Folger Shakespeare
Library, Washington, D.C. ¶
Richard Washer, M.F.A., playwright, director
and educator, currently serves as Company Dramaturge
33
Friday, September 19, 8:00 P.M.
Aryn Kyle
fiction: Boys and Girls Like You and Me
Allison Benis White
poetry: Self-Portrait with Crayon
WWW.STORYSTEREO.COM
Aryn Kyle is the author of the novel The God of Animals and the short story
collection Boys and Girls Like You and Me. Her work as appeared in The
Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Best American Short Stories 2007, Best
New American Voices 2005, and elsewhere, and has been translated into
fifteen languages. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Award, an American
Library Association Alex Award, and a National Magazine Award in fiction.
She lives in New York City.
Each year, following a nationwide application process,
a special committee selects really great up-and-coming
writers and invites them to The Writer’s Center. Story/Stereo’s
musical curators Chad Clark (Beauty Pill) and Matt Byars
(The Caribbean) invite the area’s best local bands to perform
at Story/Stereo. Past acts include J. Robbins, Bluebrain,
and Roofwalkers.
Allison Benis White is the author of Self-Portrait with Crayon, winner of the
Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize. Her poems have
appeared or are forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review,
Ploughshares, and Pleiades. Her honors include the Indiana Review Poetry
Prize, the Bernice Slote Award from Prairie Schooner, and a Writers Exchange
Award from Poets & Writers. She recently completed a second manuscript,
“Small Porcelain Head,” which received the James D. Phelan award for a
work-in-progress from the San Francisco Foundation. She teaches at the
University of California, Irvine.
Emerging Writer Fellowship judges
include volunteer representatives
from The Writer’s Center’s Board
of Directors, our corps of workshop leaders, and members of
our community. If you would like
to volunteer in our next round
of awards, please e-mail Kyle
Semmel by September 1 at
[email protected].
Friday, October 8, 8:00 P.M.
Jenny Browne
poetry: The Second Reason
Debra Gwartney
nonfiction: Live Through This: A Mother’s Memoir of
Runaway Daughters)
Jenny Browne is the author of two collections, At Once and The Second Reason,
both from the University of Tampa Press. Poems from her new manuscript,
“Some Studies for the Monster,” have been recently published, or are forthcoming from AGNI, American Poetry Review, Bat City Review, Gulf Coast,
and Measure. A former James Michener Fellow in Poetry at the University
of Texas-Austin, she lives in downtown San Antonio and teaches at Trinity
University.
Aryn Kyle
Debra Gwartney
Allison Benis White
Doreen Baingana
Jenny Browne
photos of Aryn Kyle by Miriam Berkley; photo of Jenny Browne by Scott Martin
2010 FALL EMERGING WRITER FELLOWS
Alison Pelegrin
The judges included representatives from The Writer’s Center’s Board of
Directors, our corps of workshop leaders, and members of our community.
Representing our membership were Takisha Adams, Shanti Chandrasekhar,
Reb Livingston, and Rion A. Scott; Margot Backas represented our Board of
Directors; our workshop leaders were represented by Peter Brown, David Y.
Todd, and Cara Seitchek.
Debra Gwartney is the author of Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of
Runaway Daughters, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle
Award and named a best book of the year by The Oregonian and Pacific
Northwest Booksellers. She is co-editor, with her husband Barry Lopez, of
Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. She lives in western
Oregon and teaches at Pacific University.
Friday, November 5, 8:00 P.M.
Doreen Baingana
fiction: Tropical Fish: Stories out of Entebbe
Alison Pelegrin
poetry: Big Muddy River of Stars
Doreen Baingana is the author of Tropical Fish: Stories out of Entebbe,
which won an AWP Short Fiction Award and a Commonwealth Prize. She
has also won the Washington Independent Writers Fiction Prize and was
nominated twice for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her stories and
essays have appeared in journals such as Glimmer Train, Chelsea, African
American Review, Callaloo, The Guardian, UK, Chimurenga, and Kwani. She
has an M.F.A from the University of Maryland and has taught creative writing
as a Writer-in-Residence at the University of Maryland, The Writer’s Center,
the SLS/Kwani literary festivals in Kenya, and with FEMRITE in Uganda.
The recipient of fellowships from the NEA and the Louisiana Division of the
Arts, Alison Pelegrin is the author of two poetry collections, most recently
Big Muddy River of Stars. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares,
Poetry Daily, and The Writer's Almanac. At present she teaches English at
Southeastern Louisiana University.
For a list of finalists, please visit The Writer’s Center’s blog, First Person Plural.
TWC INSIDER
Published Books
Awards
Sarah Blake’s novel The Postmistress, Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, was
Elizabeth Murawski’s collection Zorba’s Daughter
published in February. See her workshop on page 14.
was selected by Grace Schulman for the 2010 May
Swenson Poetry Award. It will be published by
Susan Coll’s novel Beach Week was published in May by Farrar, Straus
Utah State University Press in June of this year.
and Giroux. See her workshop on page 14.
Her chapbook, Out-Patients, will be published
Amy Dawson Robertson’s first novel, Miles to
by Servinghouse Books in 2010.
Go, was published this year by Bella Books.
Kathryn Erskine’s Young Adult novel, Mockingbird,
Laura Shovan won the first annual Clarinda
was published by Penguin/Philomel in April.
Harriss Poetry Prize, sponsored by CityLit Project.
Alan Orloff’s Diamonds for the Dead was pubLaura’s chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone,
lished by Midnight Ink in April.
debuted at CityLit Festival this April, where she
read with Maryland Poet Laureate Stanley Plumly.
Sarah Pekkanen’s The Opposite of Me was published by Simon & Schuster
She is a Maryland State Arts Council Artist-inin March.
Education for poetry.
Nani Power’s book, Ginger and Ganesh: Adventures in Indian Cooking,
Culture and Love, was published in May by Counterpoint.
Rose Solari’s poem "Math & the Garden" will appear in the anthology
Share your news with
Initiate: An Oxford Anthology of New Writing, forthcoming from Oxford
The Writer’s Center community!
University Press and Blackwell Books in November 2010. In June, she led a
To be included in The Writer's Center Workshop & Event Guide,
seminar at Oxford's Kellogg College Creative Writing Series, entitled “Divided
e-mail your news along with a high-resolution book cover
image or author photo to [email protected].
by a Common Language: Divergent Paths in British and American Poetry.”
The
deadline for the winter issue is August 26.
Thomas Young’s novel, The Mullah’s Storm, will be published by Putnam
in September.
Saturday
September 11
Noon–3:00 P.M.
Meet workshop leaders,
staff members, and Board
members, and learn about
our fall workshops at
our Open House.
This event is
limited to 80 people.
Email:
[email protected]
For more details:
212-888-8171
www.mysterywriters.org
Mystery Writers of
America, the premier
membership organization
devoted to the mystery/
crime genre is launching
a new series of conferences—MWA University
MWA-U is a one-day
symposium of classes from
six top-notch authors. From
“What do you do now that
you have an idea” to
“The Writing Life,”
it’s an up-close look
at the essentials
of mystery
writing.
Cost: $50
35
THANK YOU
 angels—$10,000 + 
 Friends—$100–$249 
Omega/Tau Foundation
Anonymous, Paul Abrams, Esthy Adler, Carolyn Alsup, Susan
Angell, Carol Ashworth, B.K. Atrostic, Martin Auerbach, Ron
Baker, Raymond Baker, Jaime Banks, Marc Bastow, Bruce
Berger, Emily Best, Samantha Betts, Anita Bigger, Margaret
Blair, Martin Blank, Donald Bliss, Stephanie Boddie, Mickey
Bolmer, Diane Booth, Jon Bowersox, Judith Bowles, Ellen Braaf,
Jo Buxton, Anne Buzzanell, Dana Cann, Sally Canzoneri, Nancy
Carlson, Mary Carpenter, Cecilia Cassidy, Alice Cave, Albert
Christopher, Jennifer Cockburn, Lloyd Collier, Richard Currey,
Richard Cys, Deborah Darr, Andrew Dayton, Joe Dellinger,
Gregory Djankian, Sharon Donnell, Charles Dubois, Kathleen
Emmet, Linda Fannin, John Farrell, Patricia Fisher, Jack
Fitzgerald, Allan Freedman, Elisha Freedman, Lisa Freedman,
Flora Freeman, Patricia French, William Friedman, Nan Fry,
Marie Gaarder, Martin Galvin, Patricia Garfinkel, John Gaudet,
Gwenn Gebhard, Maria Gimenez, Robert Giron, Jennifer Gore,
Karen Gray, James Gray, Claire Griffin, Patricia Griffith, Maria
Gupta, Betty Hafner, Bonnie Hammerschlag, Harold Hanson,
Phillip Harris, Frederick Harrison, Rebecca Hayden, Ellen
Herbert, Jay Herson, Mary Anne Hoffman, Thomas Holzman,
Tim Hussion, Cheryl Jacobson, Victoria Jaycox, Michael Jones,
Frank Joseph, Rochelle Kainer, Laura Kaiser, Therese Keane,
Caroline Keith, Maureen Kentoff, Timothy Kerr, Eugenia Kim,
Michael Kirkland, Peter Kissel, Ann Knox, Joseph Kolar, Susan
Korytkowski, Patricia Kreutzer, Rhys Kuklewicz, Vicki Lambert,
Rodney Lay, David Lees, Carol Levin, Lawrence Lewin, Lisa
Lipinski, Tarpley Mann Long, David Lublin, Patrick Madden,
Linda Marshall, Elizabeth Martin, Catherine Mansell, Alice
Mcdermott, Robert Mcelwaine, Suzanne Mcintire, David
Mckinney, John Merriam, E. Ethelbert Miller, Lynn Mobley,
Carol Mossman, Cantwell Muckenfuss and Angela Lancaster,
Andrew Nitz, Jean Nordhaus, Terrance O’Connor, William
O’Grady, Caroline Osborne, James Papian, Joanna Pappafotis,
Valerie Patterson, Kathleen Patterson, Arne Paulson, Cathleen
Petree, Andrew Popper, Jeffrey Porro, Jeffrey Prince, Anne
Rayburn, Barbara Rosing, Larry Roszman, Phyllis Rozman,
Anthony Rylands, Mary Sasser, Martin Shapiro, Mary Sheehan,
Daniel Silver, Myra Sklarew, Louise Smith, Mary Smith, Thomas
Smith, Eugene Sofer, Lynn Springer, Eric Stone, Kathy Strom,
Linda Sullivan, Sherry Sundick, Carrington Tarr, Caroline
Taylor, Gary Thomas, Anne Thompson, Trudy Todd, Norma
Tucker, Jane Udelson, Margaret Ullman, Ann Varnon, Ira
Wagner, Nancy Weil, Mary Westcott, Katherine Williams,
Roger Williams, Aaron Williams, Peter Wilson, Jane Winer,
Christy Wise, Robert Wise, Matthew Wolf, Catherine Woodard,
Anne Yerman, Zofia Zager
 Laureates—$5,000–$9,999 
John and Sally Mott Freeman, Ann Mclaughlin,
Linna Barnes and Christian Mixter, Rose Solari and
James Patterson
 benefactors—$2,500–$4,999 
Cicely Angleton, Susan Coll, Timothy Crawford,
Neal Gillen, John Hill, William Reynolds, Mier Wolf
 patrons—$1,000–$2,499 
Kenneth Ackerman, Margot Backas, Tom Birch,
Toni Clark, Mark Cymrot, Virginia Grandison, Paul
Hopper, Felix Jakob, Perry Maiden, Charlotte Moser,
Pamela Peabody, Charles and Betty Peissner, Claudia
Smith, Dulcie Taylor and George Williams, Ernst
Volgenau, Wilson Wyatt
 Sustainers—$500–$999 
Anonymous (3), Sandra Beasley, Sandra Bracken,
Patricia Davis, Cynthia Hamilton, Tom Healy, Stacy
Lloyd, Bill and Louisa Newlin, Quinn O’Connell,
Chris Piers, Maryhelen Snyder, Ed Torrero, Clinton
Vince, Marcia Wagner, Anne Woodworth
 Supporters—$250–$499 
Michelle Berberet, Phillip Budahn, Robert Carpenter,
Missy Craig, Janet Crossen, Lisa Crye, Sally Edwards,
Barbara Esstman, Carol Gallant, Jorge Goldstein,
Theodore Groll, Melinda Halpert, Brigid Haragan,
Phil Harvey, Les Hatley, Philip K. Jason, Lizbeth
Kulick, Dylan Landis, Raima Larter, James Lehrer,
Steven Marcom, Peter Pastan, Carol Peck, Lois Perry,
Mary Procter, Helen Reid, Paul Rice, Theodore
Rockwell, Gerald Thompson, Craig Tregillus
The Writer’s Center has been
selected to be part of the 2010–11
Greater Washington Catalogue for
Philanthropy, a prestigious honor
bestowed upon only 68 of 250 local
applicant organizations.
36
January 1, 2009–June 1, 2010
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CONTAINS DATED MATERIAL
Inside this issue:
Cave Canem + Letras Latinas
An Interview with R. Dwayne Betts
Internationally Acclaimed Danish authors
A Tribute to Edgar Allan Poe
Readings, Performances, and Events
And the fall workshop schedule including
early bird workshop discounts

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