This workshop will discuss some of the guiding principles for writing plays. The workshop includes ways to develop character, creating dialogue and generating situations for scripts. While theatre is the focus of this workshop, the skills and techniques discussed can be applied to screenwriting and other forms of performance.

A great pitch is one of the most powerful and underestimated tools any writer can have in his/her quest to be published successfully. From landing an agent and a book deal, to self-publishing well, to getting traction online, to attracting media, to convincing booksellers that they must carry your book, to letting readers know why they should buy your book, the perfect pitch is the goose that will lay your golden publishing egg. Find out how to craft and dynamite pitch. And be sure to bring your pitch with you, even if it’s far from perfect!

The workshop focuses on expanding the writer's word choice.  Poets often use a few words over and over.  One way to break this pattern is to use different words--ones that have not been used.  This workshop uses an exercise to generate new poems and as a tool that the students can take with them.
For beginners.

This Workshop is designed to engage participants with contemporary poets, many of whom are writers of color, and their different strategies to generate new work.  

The Workshop will be in two parts:

#1.  Participants will look at poems in the packet and discuss the work of those poets with whom they unfamiliar.

#2.  We will use vocabulary from two or three of the poems to generate new work.

We will use poems as catalyst for new works. Poems by Bojan Louis, Gregory Pardlo, Jennifer Bartlett, Marilyn Chin, Maureen Owen, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, Sally Mao Wen, and  David Rivard may be included. Participants must be prepared to read and write, write and write.

At the end of this workshop, it is my hope that participants will have created poems that they feel good about and have learned about.
For advanced poets. 

This 90-minute session examines how to write, and how to pitch for publication, a nonfiction book. These are two very different skills, but are fast becoming equally important. The writing of a nonfiction book involves not only focus – the shape and organization of the subject – but the tricky task of scheduling and conducting interviews. And once all the research is done, the hard part really begins. As for selling your proposed book to an agent or publisher, that involves a lot of work, too, using different sets of muscles and skills. 

NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross TV critic David Bianculli has written nonfiction books on TV since 1992, generating hefty book proposals and lengthy interview lists in the process, talking to everyone from Mel Brooks to Ken Burns. He’ll go through the process of both writing and pitching, with tips and warnings regarding both, conduct a classroom exercise on outline organization, and leave lots of time for Q&A.

Bad news: There are business reasons for would-be journalists and non-fiction writers to turn back --- journalism jobs are scarce, publishers have trouble selling non-fiction. Good news: There are business reasons for those writers to turn to fiction. 1) Great stories have all the characteristics of fiction: character, plot, conflict. 2) Great stories have what distracted readers crave: velocity. 3) Consider Balzac, champion of realism, as a non-fiction writer of novels.

After 40 years as a journalist, I now write plays and novels. My play tells the little known story of the final years of Henri Matisse, the 2^nd most famous artist of the last century. My new novel is another little known story: the life-changing White House love affair of John F. Kennedy, the most famous President of the last century. Both exhaustively researched, both aimed at the literary and mass audience.

In this advanced level session, participants will share stories they might want to write as non-fiction, and we’ll discuss their viability as fiction.

Using active scenes, gripping paragraphs, and vivid depictions of the impossible, authors pull readers into secondary worlds while avoiding large chunks of expository text when possible. This workshop will discuss and deploy tools for doing this in your work. Also expect a rousing discussion of research, line of supply, and verisimilitude. (appropriate for adult, YA, and children's authors)

It's a Rihanna song, a Muhammad Ali taunt, and, to my thinking, the first step in writing character. My six year old son comes up with a new character every week. His latest is a boy named Windmill Sin. Windmill Sin. I could write reams about that kid. But, no, he belongs to my son. That's his character not mine. For me, it always begins with a name. Atticus Finch, Holly Golightly, Keyser Söze, Hannibal Lector. Anyone from Dickens. The list goes on and on. So, we'll talk about names (and nicknames). We'll talk, too, about physical fact versus telling detail. The difference between a police report and a character sketch, and how they might meet on a parachuting skull or a scar shaped like a question mark. We'll talk about the bundle of desires and the hero's wound. About subjective perspective and specialized vocabulary. About panheads and slobknockers and blister bugs in pepper patches. We'll talk about Doritos and Daredevil, Hag and Tay Tay, and the art of “Naming the World.” We'll talk about my mother's red cowboy boots and my family in five knives. About why the crap in Ferris Bueller's pants pocket is so important. We'll talk about the airplane glue on my uncle's thumb, Dustin Hoffman's collection of gaits, Bogie's ear pull, and how Maurice Micklewhite learned to act by riding the London Tube. All that and a bag of “Boy Named Sue” (the only character model you'll ever need).

During the Reading & Signing Event, guests will have the opportunity to hear the works of the talented authors, Amy Tan, Colum McCann, and Eloisa James. Guests are welcome to enjoy light hors d'oeuvre, wine, and beer. After the reading, the authors will sign copies of their work.

When you write a memoir, you have to choose from an overwhelming amount of memories to find the themes that focus your story. You begin with your passion and the joy of writing your story and then need to decide what to include and how to move from telling to showing.

Scenes are the engine of a story. Scenes invite bring readers into the now moment and allow them to walk in your shoes and experience life as you lived it. We’ll talk about the necessary elements in a scene and how you can use them to get the reader involved in your story.

We will begin with an exercise that helps you select your important moments and themes and move into writing a scene.

Bigotry and oppression can be seen as crises of imagination. While the manifestations of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, etc. are real and physical, their roots are, at least partially, storied. In other words, they originate from the way we narrate ourselves and our communities. Who counts as a real American? How do we conceptualize what our neighborhoods look like? Who is a criminal, a terrorist, a threat? And who, in turn, gets to be a hero?   In the words of the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.”

Children’s literature has a critical role in shaping and transforming our collective imaginations – and that role has too long been fulfilled through inaccurate and bigoted narratives, as well as through a lack of narratives. Marginalized communities have been trivialized, demonized, and made invisible. However, movements such as #weneeddiversebooks and #ownvoices in young people’s literature are changing this historical reality. This talk will address the need for diverse and inclusive stories for young people – not just so that marginalized readers can see themselves reflected positively in literature from the beginning of their reading lives – but so that we can collectively engage in acts of radical imagination – bending the arc of all our futures toward justice.

Colum McCann will guide a small workshop group on the journey towards writing outside of our immediate experience.  How does the writer gather the courage to go elsewhere?  How does he/she make the imaginative leap into a character that seems so different to oneself?  How and where does a writer draw the lines?  How does he/she garner the language to go into uncharted territory?  The workshop will include in-depth discussion of craft and, if possible given time constraints, one short writing exercise.  

While physics and dragonology may get a lot of fictional attention, there's serious fun, and excellent writing to be had in engineering -- from widgets and timers to bridges and wings, we'll look at how engineering can work to strengthen plot, underpin character, and expand a book's impact. (appropriate for adult, YA, and children's authors)

How can we expand our poetic vocabulary to include new and different syntax, structure, and voice? This workshop is aimed at beginners, but will be beneficial to anyone stuck in a rut of their design. We’ll look to poems as models and inspiration, play games, and participate in writing exercises all with one objective: break habits that are holding our writing back.   
For beginner poets. 

It’s essential to understand what your competitors are doing and how they are engaging with their audience. Interaction is key when trying to attract readers, so watching the people who have had proven successes with book promotion is key to developing your own goals and objectives. While it might be tempting for you to focus on building your brand, it’s even more important to determine how they are approaching the market. Knowing what they are doing and where they are playing online – platforms they most frequently use, marketing tactics they employ, content of their messaging, degree of audience engagement– can make a big difference when you are creating a strategy to build your own audience and business.

Writing a memoir is an opportunity to explore your life and how life has shaped you into who you are. When you write your story, it is like an archeological dig that reveals the past in a new light. This process can be deeply transformative as we discover the power of our words, and the power of our truths. Memoirists struggle with truth, family, the inner critic—all issues that challenge us. We’ll talk about solutions to those challenges and how to keep writing forward.

The opening of a poem can make or break everything. Where to begin? In this workshop, we'll look at poems by Louise Gluck, Richard Siken, and Terrance Hayes to learn how they infuse urgency from the get-go. We'll then try writing poems inspired by some of their strategies. 

Marketing is simply the art (and science) of finding and connecting with your audience. In this fun, fast-paced session, Carol will demystify how professional marketers devise marketing plans. As with most success, it starts with setting quantifiable objectives.