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FEBRUARY 2010 The Art of Beginnings Saturday, February 20, 1–6pm
$90 The Roman poet Ausonius once said “To begin is half the work” and for writers, this is especially true. How do we move from experience to inspiration to idea to the page? How can source texts and fragments and notes lead to a first draft? And what do we do with all of our ideas, drafts and beginnings once we have them? Together we will examine all of these questions and experiment with some fun strategies for honoring our inspiration and bringing our ideas to life.
Experiments in Poetry Sunday, February 21, 1–6pm Poetry, more than any other genre, encourages wild and creative experimentation. Poems are visual experiments in sound and meaning, and they can be any subject, (from the mundane to the extraordinary) any style (from roaringly funny to deadly serious) and any length (from 3 lines to 3000) . In this class we will try our hands at different styles, forms and types of poems, including inventing some of our own. For beginning and experienced poets alike, we will harness some of the alchemy and bravery necessary to allow great poems to emerge. Open to any interested participant, no experience necessary. To Register for the Writers Guild classes, please contact Rosa Glenn Reilly at rosa235@earthlink.net. Visa and MasterCard accepted. ____________________________________________________________________ MARCH 2010 Shaping a Story Saturday, March 20, 1–6pm Telling a great story is an art, whether we are writing short stories, novels, memoirs or creative non-fiction essays. Together we will explore how to weave together some of the fundamental elements of a great story, including character, conflict, setting, plot, crisis, climax, theme, tense and point of view. If you are interested in telling stories that come alive on the page, join us for a day of writing. A Circular Knowing: The Art of Intercutting Texts Sunday, March 21, 1–6pm As all mad scientists know, something interesting always happens when very different elements collide. The same is true for literary texts. As writers, we don’t just create our texts, we also arrange them. And what better way to learn the art of the arranger than to experiment playfully with intercutting and colliding the work of other writers? What if you collide a romance novel with a physics textbook? What about Dr. Seuss with Friedrich Nietzsche? These alchemical experiments, while fun and often humorous, also teach us the very necessary skills of how to build unique language, pace, energy and voice into the texts we write. For example, what if you intercut found language from an article on gardening, with a story you wrote about your relationship with your mother? This class is open to writers in any genre who are willing to roll up their sleeves and splice together a word collage or two. To Register for the Writers Guild classes, please contact Rosa Glenn Reilly at rosa235@earthlink.net. Visa and MasterCard accepted. ________________________________________________________________________ APRIL 2010 The Safe Room Saturday, April 10, 1–6pm For most of us there can be a very thin line between a stimulating life and a stressful one. A busy life of work, family, decisions, obligations and financial responsibilities can sometimes transform into the swirling winds of a stress tornado, heading straight for you. When the sky turns dark it can be useful to have a “safe room”, a place where you can breathe, create, complain, experiment, make mistakes, set boundaries, change your mind, ask for help, raise your voice, invent, dream, find your strengths and bring your passions and creativity to life. Art, writing and self expression can be powerful tools and “safe rooms” that we can use to restore joy and balance in our everyday lives. In this class we will share some simple strategies, ideas, practices and exercises designed to use art and writing as methods to avoid and manage stress and burnout. Dangerous Writing Sunday, April 11, 1–6pm As the old saying goes, “to be an artist means to never avert ones eyes” and this class asks us to be willing to examine and bear witness to the things most people would rather not examine at all. What do you censor out of your own work as you write? What are the powerful places, people, ideas, memories or possibilities that you avoid or resist writing about? Writing has always been a form of resistance, requiring absolute honesty and the willingness to say what must be said. We will adapt ideas and techniques and try them out, digging deeply to uncover the experiences, ideas and themes that hold the most power and promise for us as artists. To Register for the Writers Guild classes, please contact Rosa Glenn Reilly at rosa235@earthlink.net. Visa and MasterCard accepted.
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