Knoxville Writers' Guild Summer Workshops 2009 (fees given are for member/nonmember)
Dr. Bryce Anderson:
CSI for Fiction Writers I
You’re a writer. You can describe your character and spin a
great story. But do you know the details?
Can you describe the investigation of a murder scene? Can you accurately
portray one of your characters being shot with a firearm? Can you
vividly create a violent car crash and the resulting injury to your
characters?
The first of two entertaining classes will provide the fiction writer
with the expert details necessary to describe the wounds caused by
pistol, rifle, and shotgun projectiles. Procedural details regarding
the processing of a crime scene and evidence is also presented, including
firearm analysis and toolmark examination, such as firing pin identification,
gunshot residue identification, and the use of Luminol to identify
organic material.
Warning: this class contains graphic images of victims of violent
crime. $30/$42
CSI for Fiction Writers II
The second class continues with firearm and toolmark examination,
and also includes exhibits of actual ballistic gelatin that have been
shot with rifles and pistols. Dissection of the target will occur
in the class, and students will be able to handle the gelatin, which
is non-toxic. Finally, the violent aspects of car crashes are also
presented. Is it possible to use a car crash to commit homicide? Can
a character survive a rollover crash? Can an air bag kill someone
as it deploys?
Myths and misunderstandings regarding car crashes will also be explained.
Warning: this class contains graphic images of victims of motor vehicle
crashes. $30/$42
Bio: Dr. Bryce Anderson, 35, performed research in small-arms wound
ballistics for the United States Department of Energy for his master
of science degree and studied motor vehicle crashes for his doctorate
of philosophy. He currently works as an engineering consultant on
motor vehicle crashes and firearm-related incidents. His expertise
is in accident reconstruction and analysis using Newtonian physics.
KB Ballentine:
Writing Precisely and A
Return to Celtic Forms
“Writing Precisely”- how to use imagery, denotation/connotation,
active/passive verbs, and concrete details. $30/$42
“A Return to Celtic Forms”- emergence of Celtic forms
in modern Appalachian poetry and how to incorporate it into our own
writing. $30/$42
KB
Ballentine resides in Dayton, Tennessee, and teaches English, theatre
arts and creative writing to high school and college students.She
has a M.A. in Writing and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Poetry.Her
work has appeared in numerous journals and publications, including
Bent Pin, MO: Writings from the River, Apocalypse and Touchstone.
Her latest book is titled, Gathering Stones. In 2006, she
was a finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Award and was awarded the
Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize in 2006 and 2007. Ballentine's
newst collection is Fragments of Light and will be released
in June 2009.
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Linda
Parsons Marion: The Dark Well of Family
Experience: Writing Your Way Back to Light
In
“The Dark Well of Family Experience: Writing Your Way Back to
Light,” poet Linda Parsons Marion uses her new book, Mother
Land, to guide participants in writing about difficult family dynamics.
Mother Land combines gardening poems with work about her mother, who
was diagnosed with bipolar disorder late in life. With gardening as
her partner in excavating childhood, the poems show how the inner
and outer landscapes work together to bring about healing, acceptance,
and forgiveness. The poetry of Sharon Olds, Maggie Anderson, Cathy
Smith Bowers, and Jeanne Bryner will also be used as models. Selected
poems from participants may be discussed as time allows. Thursday,
July 16, 6-9 p.m. $30/$42
Linda
Parsons Marion is the poetry editor of Now & Then magazine and
has received two literary fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission,
among other awards. The author of poetry collections Home Fires and
Mother Land, her poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, Iowa Review,
Shenandoah, Asheville Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, Potomac
Review, Poet Lore, among others. Essays and poems have also appeared
in The Movable Nest, Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia, Her
Words: Diverse Voices in Contemporary Appalachian Women’s Poetry,
and Sleeping with One Eye Open: Women Writers and the Art of Survival.
Marion is an editor at the University of Tennessee and lives and gardens
in North Hills with her husband, poet Jeff Daniel Marion.
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Joanna
Francis: Start your Own Publishing Business
In these difficult times starting your own publishing business can
be a good way to earn extra cash and work from home. All you need
to know to get started: registration, trade-marking, designing a logo,
web sites, building a list, book design, printing and distribution.
Part 1 and Part 2. $30/$42 each.
Joanna
Francis is a writer and publisher with five books and numerous articles
to her credit. She will share with you some of her experiences that
caused her to become a publisher and other her services and expertise
to other writers. She lives at the Tennessee Homestead on 129 acres
of breathtaking fields and woodlands in Southeast Tennesse.
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Katie
Chambers: JOT IT DOWN
Writing Your Story, One Memory at a Time
Katie Chambers, is founder of JOTTINGS for Generations and a certified
teacher of curriculum based on the Turning Memories into Memoirs program
of the Soleil Lifestory Network. As a Grandma and her extended family’s
“designated historian”, Katie's quick, fun techniques
capture those moments of life you just don’t want to forget.
She looks forward to sharing her enthusiasm for reminiscence with
you. Participants are encouraged, but not required, to take all three
sessions. All three sessions: $81/$115.
JOT-A-Legacy This workshop
will give you permission to quickly jot down the personal and family
stories you actually want to preserve, not every “historical
fact known to man” about you and your ancestors. Learn how to
jot your way to a legacy by capturing memories with the FLOW Method,
the MEMORY MAP, One-a Day’s and other innovative tools Katie
enjoys using. You’ll be energized as each memory results in
one or more stories that emphasize the events and relationships that
have given your life meaning and a chuckle or two. Don’t be
surprised if you and your readers find jotting so enjoyable that you
pass on the technique to the next generation, along with your collection
of stories. $30/$42
JOTTINGS of Faith: Capturing Your God
Moments Someone had said, “We don’t remember
days; we remember moments.” Join in a joyful treasure hunt to
uncover the God Moments within your life, even those you didn’t
notice as they happened. Learn to recognize and preserve your moments
of amazing rescue, holy attraction, unearned blessing, revealed truth,
and valuable adversity. We’ll begin jotting down how God’s
been impacting us, and use creative Journaling with God, From Grief
to Gratitude, and JOYFUL JOTS writing techniques. Walk in renewed
faith as you remember, capture, and share with future generations
the stories of how God has intervened in your life. $30/$42
Create a KIDSTORY Want
to capture the photos and stories of a child’s life in their
own words? This workshop will teach you how to complete a hard cover
storybook for gift giving, for fun interaction with your children
and grandchildren, and for preserving the stories behind your family’s
photos. Go beyond photo albums and scrapbook journaling to your child’s
personalized “take” on the fun and forever moments of
life, seen through their eyes and written with their voice. Using
the PhotoJottings STORY TEMPLATE, the KIDSPEAK tips, and Themes of
Life suggestions, we’ll explore how to pull together and jot
the stories the children in your life want to tell. $30/$42
Katie Chambers, is founder of JOTTINGS
for Generations and a certified teacher of curriculum based on the
Turning Memories into Memoirs program of the Soleil Lifestory Network.
As a Grandma and her extended family’s “designated historian”,
Katie's quick, fun techniques capture those moments of life you just
don’t want to forget. She looks forward to sharing her enthusiasm
for reminiscence with you. Participants are encouraged, but not required,
to take all three sessions.
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Alex
Gabbard: Travel Writing:
Write about your travels for your personal journal or as publisishable
features. This How-To course examines construction of short-shorts,
shorts, and features for magazines and newspapers, then concludes
with book length travelogues of an adventure traveler.
Travel Photography:
Capture the moment for illustrating your travels, whether on film
or digitally. This How-To course delves into camera fundamentals by
studying examples for composition, lighting, color, natural light
and flash, filters, and the benefits of digital versus film. $20/$28
Alex
Gabbard is an internationally acclaimed author of 16 books, hundreds
of magazine and newspaper features, and thousands of published photos.
To his credit after some thirty years of writing for broad commercial
markets, he has received two “Book of the Year” awards
and Moto Awards as the premier work in the field granted by the International
Automotive Journalism Association. Gabbard is the recipient of multiple
writing and photography awards in interntional competition and draws
upon four decades of publishing experience for this set of courses.
$20/$28
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Cyn Mobley: The Realities of
Writing
This series of workshops will give you the tools you need to make
a living as a writer. The instructor, Cyn Mobley, is the USA Today
bestselling author of more that thirty books, both fiction and nonfiction.
She has been published by St. Martin's Press, Berkley/Jove, Avon,
Lyons and Alpha Books, and has written for the TV show JAG. NBC optioned
her most recent nonfiction work, Gotcha! for
a one hour cable drama. A retired naval officer and former attorney,
she publishes several imprints. Cyn lives in South Knoxville with
her husband and eight Greyhounds (among others.) Participants are
encouraged, but not required, to enroll in all three sessions.
Structure and First Pages are required prerequisites to join Mobley’s
ongoing Advanced Writing Groups that continue through the year.
The Dreaded Outline: Structure.
Could you write six to ten books a year? It's possible--and even fun!--when
you really understand the hows and whys of outlining. This is the
inside scoop on what works and how a little thought up front can save
you a ton of time down the road. No note cards, no in-depth character
biographies, just a system that works. Three hours. $30/$42
First Pages: Advanced Fiction Techniques.
Within the first few paragraphs, you must do three things: hook your
readers, convince them to suspend disbelief, and get them to identify
with your characters. In this three hour workshop, we’ll cover
specific techniques for doing just that. Bring your first page of
your current work in progress or start from scratch. Structure workshop
is suggested but not required. Three hours. $30/$42
Advanced Fiction Groups.
Think of this as professional boot camp for novelists. It’s
a three-hour sample of what my year-long Advanced Fiction Groups do.
We won’t be nurturing precious inner children or exploring your
artistic spirit guides. We will be hammering out the shape and flow
of a manuscript you can sell. You can’t achieve that by wasting
time or by everyone being nice. What you need is feedback that you
can use. A new AFG will be forming after the Summer Workshops. Recommend
that you complete Structure and First Pages within the last year to
be eligible to attend this workshop or to join an Advanced Fiction
Group later this year. Three hours. $30/$42
All three sessions: $81/$115
How to Beat the Odds and Sell Your Manuscript
to a Big New York Publisher.
New York publishers look for “exactly the same but different”.
In this class, you’ll develop a specific plan for targeting
the larger fiction houses in New York , starting with acquiring an
agent and then convincing the editor and publisher to take a chance
on you. I’ve written for St. Martins, Jove/Berkley, Alpha Books,
Lyons Press, Avon and a few others. Three hours. $30/$42
The Care and Feeding of Agents.
I average a 70% request-for-manuscript rate. Let me show you how to
get, feed, groom and fire an agent. (Or do you really need one at
all?) Bring your query letter or proposal, successful or not, to the
class for discussion. $30/$42
Selling Books Today
Whether you’re published traditionally by a big NY house, into
E-books, or going one of the many alternatives in between, you need
a plan. Not publicity, not marketing, but something bigger and better
– and less expensive! – that both of those alternatives.
We’ll cover the basic principles of selling 5,600 books to net
$50,000 in one three hour session. Come with a dream: leave with a
plan. $30/$42
Realities
of Writing Series. All three sessions: $81/$115.
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Scott
Savage: Writing Better Medical Drama
The car wreck on highway 41, the heart-attack victim in the ER, the
complex diagnostic work-up of a child in the intensive care unit –
no place holds the potential for greater drama than medicine. But
the stakes are high: write well, and the work gleams; write poorly,
and it dry rots. This seminar, taught by a physician and author who
is nationally known for making tough subjects easy, will help move
your medical writing from brittle to brilliant. $30/$42
Subjects include:
First -- a Word: basic medical terms writers need to know, and
when not to use them.
Second -- Who’s on First: know if your character needs a physiatrist
or a psychiatrist.
Third -- Hand me that doo-hickey: the anatomy of a surgical operation
Fourth -- You’ve Got Scale: the world’s most interesting
diseases and symptoms
Bonus -- A Bryce Anderson Redux: how poisoned patients are saved in
real life
Sounds
Good: Using sounds to improve expression in writing
CANCELLED
Rhythm and word music drive emotional impact in writing. Their effect
is largely subconscious. Developing the instinct for rhythm and word
music traditionally takes years of practice. Until now. Voxveritas
(voice truth), is a new method of seeing these forces clearly in a
text. Although the method is the culmination of 11 years of research,
it has been refined through human engineering processes to make it
easy for writers to see, and more importantly, use these forces in
their writing. $30/$42
Sir Scott Savage is a board-certified assistant professor of emergency
medicine, a medical author, and a poet. He has published numerous
articles on medical topics, and his poetry has appeared in Poet and
Writers Magazine (Online). As the Chief National Instructor in Emergency
Medicine for the National Procedures Institute, he travels nationally,
teaching emergency medicine and critical care techniques to sold–out
audiences. Scott Savage, DO, FACEP, FSCP
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Don
Williams: Break These Rules and
Drawing.on the Subconscious
Break these Rules. 35 Writing Tips Guaranteed to
Make You a Better Writer Now. Nearly everyone who signs up for my
writing course tells me this list is worth the price of the course.
$20/$28
Drawing on the Subconscious and Family History. This
course includes two guided mediations into the heart of the matter
and a light hands-on writing experience. $20/$28
Don Williams,
News-Sentinel columnist, short story writer, and editor and publisher
of New Millennium Writings, is a founding member of the Knoxville
Writers Guild, which he served for its first five years as program
chair. He lives in Sevier County with his wife, Jeanne Tredup, a special
education teacher. They have three children. He teaches a writing
course sponsored by New Millennium Writings at Christ Chapel, one
block north of Laurel Theater, in Fort Sanders.
His journalism has appeared in newspapers and magazines across the
country, including Poets & Writers and Writers Digest and has
been reprinted in college texts, including Writers Inc: Sourcebook
(1995, Write Source Educational Publishing, Burlington, Wisc.). A
recent News-Sentinel readers survey listed his Friday column as the
most frequently read among some 20 weekly personal columns in the
newspaper. Selected past columns may be read online at www.newmillenniumwritings.com.
NOTE:
Please note that all workshops are in the McWherter Building on Pellissippi
State's main campus on Pellissippi Parkway.
For more information,
email Martha Rose Woodward at pinkyrose53 @ aol.com
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