Workshops & Events
Writing and Pitching the Op-Ed
Saturday, June 1st, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Get your op-ed out of your head and into the headlines! You have ideas and opinions about Middle East foreign policy or parenting trends; you feel strongly about health care reform or Red Sox reform; or you have a poignant story about your or your parents' experience with the health care system (or the Red Sox). Whatever the topic, in this seminar you'll learn the basics for writing and submitting the standard 600- to 900-word op-ed column. Via lecture, discussion of great examples from op-eds, short exercises, and Q&A, we'll show you how to 1) recognize and find great, timely, marketable topics for your op-eds that editors want; 2) how to leverage your personal experience and expertise; 3) where to publish your op-eds; and 4) how to pitch them to newspapers, magazines, online publications, and blogs. We'll look at exemplary pitch letters and go over standard protocol for working with editors. For any writers with an axe to grind or strong opinions who are looking for practical tips to get their op-eds into the marketplace.
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 10 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95.00 register as a non-member $115.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Guerrilla Book Promotion
Friday, June 7th, 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
If you're about to publish a book -- fiction or nonfiction -- you've probably got questions about how to best get the word out. Your publicist will handle some of the tasks, but what can you do on your own? In this seminar, via lecture, discussion of packet materials, short exercises, and Q&A, we'll explore great ideas and best practices to design your own "thinking out of the box," DIY, guerrilla-style promotional campaign. Whether you have a big or small publisher or chose self-publishing, have a novel or a work of nonfiction, this seminar will explore ways to identify, reach, and build a target audience in various potential book-buying communities. We'll discuss how to create a tool box of publicity materials and a "mobile event kit" so you're ready for any publicity opportunity; organizing a book tour (and not just at bookstores but using non-traditional venues); brainstorming special contests, promotions, and giveaways unique to your book; establishing yourself as an expert and tying in your book to current events; writing tie-in op-eds and commentaries to join the conversation in your field; pitching yourself to traditional media like print, TV, and radio; getting your book into the hands of opinion leaders; and how to develop ancillary income streams and platform-building opportunities via speaking engagements; among other topics. We'll also look at what your publisher ought to be doing (and how to push back and ask for more) and the problems that self-publishing creates (and how to work around them). Come with questions. For writers with forthcoming books or those looking to help build their platform now.
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 9 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Kickstart Your Writing Mojo with A Random Exercise
Saturday, June 15th, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Write a story in 100 words or less. Write an essay as it it were captions to a personal museum exhibit. Write a poem as an instructional manual. Without fail, arbitrary exercises like these refresh your writing mojo and force you to produce unexpected, shimmering work in a voice or style you never thought you could pull off. In this 6 hour writing workshop, the instructor will throw at the class a series of 15 to 30 minute, in-class writing exercises -- prose (both fiction or nonfiction), as well as a fun poem or two. The idea? To get you to try as many modes and voices as possible, using arbitrary rules and emulating writers we love. There will be minimal sharing, but no workshopping. You'll leave the workshop with new energy and excitement about your work, having generated a series of starts on a variety of projects.
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 4 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95.00 register as a non-member $115.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Steal, Borrow, Channel: How Emulating Other Voices Can Energize Your Own Work
Wednesday, June 19th, 6:00-9:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Stealing -- OK, channeling or borrowing -- the style and tone and rhythm of prose writers we love can be like speed for writers. Inhabiting their voices and taking them out for a test drive can also be a fantastic way to get you out of your head and "un-stuck yourself" if you feel trapped in or bored by your writing moves. In this workshop, we'll examine exemplary "voice-y" passages by established writers -- from Geoff Dyer to Virginia Woolf, Jess Walter to Jamaica Kincaid, Keith Richards to Bill Bryson. Then, in a series of lightning-fast in-class exercises (with minimal sharing), we'll emulate these writers. Voila! You've broken out of your old patterns and tired voice and tried on some new ones for size. Students can apply these exercise to both fiction and nonfiction, depending on their interests. You'll exit the class with several beginnings to new essays or stories, and hopefully new and energizing voices bouncing around in your head to try out in future work. Feel free to come with a passage or chunk of writing that for you feel dull or stuck.
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 10 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50.00 register as a non-member $65.00Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Writing and Pitching the Op-Ed
Saturday, June 29th, 10:30am-1:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
Get your op-ed out of your head and into the headlines! You have ideas and opinions about Middle East foreign policy or parenting trends; you feel strongly about health care reform or Red Sox reform; or you have a poignant story about your or your parents' experience with the health care system (or the Red Sox). Whatever the topic, in this seminar you'll learn the basics for writing and submitting the standard 600- to 900-word op-ed column. Via lecture, discussion of great examples from op-eds, short exercises, and Q&A, we'll show you how to 1) recognize and find great, timely, marketable topics for your op-eds that editors want; 2) how to leverage your personal experience and expertise; 3) where to publish your op-eds; and 4) how to pitch them to newspapers, magazines, online publications, and blogs. We'll look at exemplary pitch letters and go over standard protocol for working with editors. For any writers with an axe to grind or strong opinions who are looking for practical tips to get their op-eds into the marketplace.
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Writing Killer Pitch Letters
Saturday, July 13th, 2:30pm-5:30pm at Grub Street headquarters.
In this seminar, via lecture, discussion of packet materials, short exercises, and Q&A, you will learn how to write killer pitch letters (a.k.a. “query letters”) for submitting short-form nonfiction (essays, op-eds, articles, and feature stories) to editors of mainstream and trade magazines, newspapers, literary magazines, blogs, and online publications; we'll also discuss how to write pitch letters for submitting nonfiction book proposals to agents and editors. By examining pitch letters that actually worked, we'll go over different strategies for making sure your idea is sharp, focused, original, and targeted, and how to express your idea in a well-crafted pitch letter. We'll also go over the top mistakes writers make when pitching editors and agents. Even if you don't have much publishing experience, we'll talk about how to leverage your background and expertise to best present yourself. Sorry, there won't be time to critique your pitch letters or stories themselves, but we will do in-class exercises to help you fine-tune your pitch letter skills. Please bring questions about communicating with editors and agents, and any questions or problems about any pitch letters you're currently working on. For anyone looking to learn how to pitch their nonfiction projects and get them out into the marketplace. (NOTE: This seminar is NOT about submitting poems, short stories, novels, children's or YA lit, screenplays, or literary nonfiction to literary magazines.)
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $50 register as a non-member $65Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!
Freelance Writing Essentials
Friday, August 23rd, 10:00am-5:00pm at Grub Street headquarters.
You want to write feature stories for glossies like National Geographic Traveler or Glamour or for newspapers like the Boston Globe or Cambridge Tab; essays for Salon.com
- Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
- A journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, wired.com and Christian Science Monitor, and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of other magazines, newspapers, websites and guidebooks worldwide, including Playboy, National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe, former bicycling culture columnist for the Boston Globe, and is the film columnist for Art New England. He is a core contributor to the blog "GeekDad" at wired.com and his blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com. He also writes for blogs at Boston.com's Globetrotting; Tor.com; ForcesofGeek.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and teaches creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Grub Street. Follow Ethan’s adventures at www.ethangilsdorf.com.
There are 12 seats remaining in this class.
register as a member $95 register as a non-member $115Not a member? Become a Grubbie today!