http://www.grubstreet.org/rsscal.php Upcoming Grub Street events in the Boston area en-us http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Creative Problem Solving for Novels in Progress Instructor: Crystal King
$95/$85 members
Do you have a shelved novel gathering dust? Are you stuck writing your current book? Do your characters sound flat or are your plotlines beginning to unravel? This workshop will help you learn how to use new and practical creativity exercises – unlike any of those usually taught in writing workshops – to expand and enhance your existing story ideas. Class attendees will learn how to rely upon their own knowledge and intuition to solve problems related to their own characters and stories. Limited to 15 Novelists In Progress. ]]> Grub Street 2008-08-09 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Reading and Writing Experimental Fiction Instructor: Holly Tavel
$195/$170 members
This weekend workshop is for writers interested in exploring beyond the traditional conventions of realist fiction, getting feedback on their own experimental work, or simply trying something new and different.
    What makes a story a story? Can stories exist without characters, plots, dialogue, dramatic tension? Can they exist outside of time and space? What exactly is “experimental” fiction? And how do we approach such writing as readers and critics? We’ll address these questions and more as we spend an intense weekend conducting our own literary experiments – stretching our imaginations and  challenging our own ideas about what fiction can be. In ways both playful and provocative, writers have been questioning and defying the established criteria of literary fiction for over a century. Starting with the early modernists and moving through to the present day, we’ll examine both the formalist and the fantastic, examining and discussing the work of such writers as Gertrude Stein, Alfred Jarry, Hugo Ball, Samuel Beckett, Donald Barthelme, Raymond Federman, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, William S. Burroughs, the OuLiPo Group, Ben Marcus, Carole Maso, and others.
    In-class exercises will encompass a variety of techniques, including collaborative work, cut-up and collage, appropriation and détournement, flash fiction, prose poetry, and automatic writing.
    A course pack of reading will be available two weeks before the beginning of the class; workshop participants should also bring the following with them to the first class: a good-sized notebook, pens and/or pencils, safety scissors (children’s art scissors are ideal), tape and/or glue sticks. Participants  are also invited to bring one or more pieces of their own fiction to work on in class. ]]> Grub Street 2008-08-09 / 2008-08-10 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#The Hook and the Book Instructor: Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank
$195/$170 members
Most literary agents receive at least one hundred query letters each week, yet respond positively to a very select few - generally less than two percent, and decisions on writing samples are often made within the first five pages. Would yours make the cut? Do you know the secrets to writing a winning query? Join agent Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank of Fairbank Literary Representation for a weekend of intensive query and writing critique, lessons on the basics of a powerful synopsis, help on the first five pages, review of a laundry list of Dos and Don’ts, and group and one-on-one analysis of your submission package.
Please prepare and email to sonya@grubstreet.org no later than 5pm Tuesday, August 5th, a query letter of no more than 400 words, and the first five pages of your manuscript (double spaced, single sided, 12pt font, pages numbered) for the instructor, and bring four copies of the query and the first five pages to the first class for group review. Limited to 12 students.
Important: On Day One, bring four copies of your query letter of no more than 400 words. Also bring four copies of the first five pages of your manuscript (double spaced, single sided, 12pt font, pages numbered). Note: you will be reworking your query and first five pages between classes.
For Day Two: Please bring thirteen copies of your reworked query and first five pages. If the class size is smaller than 12, you will be notified on the correct number of copies. ]]> Grub Street 2008-08-09 / 2008-08-10 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Point of View in Fiction Instructor: Adam Stumacher
$195/$170 members
In the words of Henry James, point of view is the “central intelligence” of story. In this workshop – which should be required for all fiction writers, beginner and advanced! – we will explore this crucial and fascinating element of craft. Through in-class exercises, discussion, and an array of readings – from Joyce to Eugenides, Borges to Z.Z. Packer – we will examine the wide range of point of view choices, from the conventional to the experimental. By the end of the weekend, we will be not only have gained an appreciation for the ways authors use these choices to astonish readers, but we will also be well on our way towards using point of view to breathe life into our own fiction. We may also be better equipped to answer our own questions about which point(s) of view to choose for our stories and novels, and – better yet – what we gain and lose by that choice. ]]> Grub Street 2008-08-09 / 2008-08-10 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Time Management Instructor: Hillary Rettig
$45/$40 members
Location: Arlington Center For the Arts
Time is money, people say, but they’re wrong: time is actually far more valuable than money, especially if you’re a writer who also has job, family and other major demands on your time. Successful people tend to manage their time, while unsuccessful ones tend not to, or - worse – to let others manage their time for them. If your own schedule is out of control, or you’re not finding time to do the things you need or love to do, this workshop will help. Coach Hillary Rettig, author of The Lifelong Activist (Lantern Books, 2006), has helped hundreds of artists and others use their time better. The effectiveness of the techniques she teaches, combined with her compassionate and fun approach, will make this one of the most empowering and entertaining workshops you will ever take. PS - If you think you’re too busy to take this workshop, then you really need to take it! ]]> Grub Street 2008-08-11 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#From Journal Entry to Personal Essay Saturday Morning Serial

From Journal Entry to Personal Essay
with Susan Tiberghien
August 16th, 2008.  2pm-4pm.  FREE
How do you move from journal entries to personal essays? Starting with a journal entry, you will look for an image that unfolds a story. Reading excerpts from contemporary writers, you will shape the story into a personal essay in the form of a narrative, meander, or collage. Come ready to explore bits of memory--discovering their meaning--and to craft them with imagination into essays.

Susan Tiberghien, American born writer, lives in Geneva, Switzerland and is the author of three memoirs and most recently One Year to a Writing Life (Da Capo Press). She teaches at graduate programs, C.G. Jung Centers, International Women's Writing Guild, and at writers' conferences in US and Europe. She directs the Geneva Writers' Group and Conferences. ]]> Grub Street 2008-08-16 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Book Party: Amy MacKinnon’s Tethered and Brunonia Barry’s The Lace Reader Free!
Come help us celebrate the release of two wonderful (and deservedly-hyped) summer blockbusters: Grub board member Amy MacKinnon’s nail-biting, atmospheric and haunting novel, Tethered, and friend of Grub Brunonia Barry’s captivating and sumptuous mystery, The Lace Reader. These two novels are sure to keep you up late for the rest of the summer. After the reading, join the Grubbies for appetizers and drinks at a local restaurant. ]]> Grub Street 2008-08-27 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Book Party for Ron MacLean Blue Winnetka Skies, or if you're a fan of short fiction with a quirky sense of humor, spare and haunting language, and surprising details, this is the book for you!  Ron will read from his book and then we'll all rendezvous at nearby Tavern Porter Square for some drinks and eats.   ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-03 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Summer Season Showcase Join Grub students from the summer term, plus two of our award-winning instructors, as they read (for 5 minutes each) from recent work. You’ll hear great fiction, non-fiction, poetry and screenwriting. Open only to students who’ve taken courses, seminars or weekend workshops this summer. Everyone gets free snacks. Sign-ups begin at 8pm. A great event for current Grubbies and those who want to check us out. Bring friends! ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-04 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#How to Perform Your Work Instructor: Stuart Horwitz
$45/$40 members
Reprising the surprise success of his workshop at “The Muse and the Marketplace” conference, performance poet and Grub instructor Stuart Horwitz will coach you on how to embody your own work when you deliver it to an audience. And it won’t just be diction, either – this seminar will cover speed, pitch, overcoming shame, volume, nonduality with the audience, how to read dialogue, and the courage to pause. Bring 3-5 minutes worth of good material and the reason why you wrote the piece to begin with. Each participant’s reading will be followed by a gentle critique, with an introduction and conclusion making some larger points about the writer reading aloud. Reading aloud well is a skill every writer needs to know before s/he can catch an agent’s ear a conference or go on a successful book tour. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-08 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Creating Authentic Characters Instructor: Lynne Griffin
$45/$40 members
Join Lynne Griffin, author of the novel Life Without Summer and the nonfiction parenting title Negotiation Generation, for a workshop on creating genuine characters readers can relate to. Lynne has over twenty years experience working as a family life educator with specific expertise in the impact of individual differences on human behavior. She’ll share her unique ideas for crafting characters from the inside out; ones who are more than the sum of their physical traits, showing you how to get to the heart of character motivation. You’ll learn how to use behavioral research to answer all kinds of questions like, “What would this character really do?” “What makes a person do this and such?” “How would my character react to that?” Through lecture, discussion and writing exercises, you’ll learn how to practice new techniques for crafting three dimensional, compelling and memorable, major as well as minor, characters. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-08 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Your First Page: Friend or Foe? Instructor: Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank
$45/$40 members
Rejection rates in the publishing industry are up around 98 percent, and you have likely felt this bitter sting on more than one occasion, but do you really know why? Do you suspect that even when agents request your material, they sometimes don’t read after the first page? You may be right. Join an eye-opening session with literary agent Fairbank and dig into the murky world of rejection, and the impact, good or bad, of your first page. Learn what some standard rejection phrasing means (agent-speak), why decisions are too-often made on the first page, and find out if you are guilty of one or more of the top twenty reasons for rejection. Send by email to sonya@grubstreet.org a one-page synopsis or query letter, and your first page, no later than noon on Friday, September 5th. For class, please also bring three other random pages out of the first 25, and be prepared to have your work critiqued with other members of the class. Also, feel free to bring in a sampling of some rejection phrasing that has had you perplexed or particularly frustrated. All students will receive handouts and a typed critique of their first page. Limited to 15 students. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-08 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Wine and Define Cost: $50 per person for a team of 2 players, $100 to be paired with a celebrity definer, $20 to come and watch.

Wordsmiths, unite! Join two great non-profits – Grub Street and First Literacy – for a night of wine and words at our first-ever Define-a-Thon. Teams of two will compete in a fast-paced event guaranteed to separate the vocabulary masters from the vocabulary neophytes. For a $100, we'll pair you with one of twenty celebrity definers (names coming soon!) Or, compete with a friend and bring your cheering squad—all proceeds benefit Grub and First Literacy. After the Define-a-thon, indulge your oenophilia at a wine tasting and up your hipster quotient listening to music from a local band with a great vocabulary. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-10 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#The Fictitious Friction Between Fiction & Non-Fiction Instructor: Steve Almond
$45/$40 members
Location: Arlington Center For the Arts
Say that ten times fast and then sign up for this out-of-control workshop, in which we'll discuss the relationship between these two genres, which are often portrayed as opposites, when they're really more like first cousins. If you've ever struggled over which genre to write in, or you toggle between the two, this is your chance to explore the common emotional goals that bind them. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-15 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Memoir: Behind The Scenes Instructor: Trish Ryan
$45/$40 members
The first in our “Muse Reprise: Series in Non-Fiction: expanded versions of the most popular seminars offered at the 2007 “Muse and the Marketplace” conference. If you missed this seminar at the conference, or want to further explore it over 3 hours instead of 1, here’s your chance.
Description: If you've ever wondered about the perils and pitfalls of writing about your life, here's a quick & dirty overview of the structural, emotional, and legal hurdles to putting your story in print. Participants will leave with an inside perspective on the business side of the memoir craft, along with some funny anecdotes to encourage them as they dive into the powerful experience of writing their own story. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-17 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Ask The Agent Instructor: Eve Bridburg
$45/$40 members
Grub Street founder and literary agent Eve Bridburg gives you the inside scoop of how a literary agency functions, how to get your work noticed, and how to find the right representation. She will help dispel the myths of agents as heartless “sharks” and discuss what makes a work of fiction or non-fiction attractive, what makes a good idea for a non-fiction book, and how to pitch your project effectively in writing and in person. Eve can speak to various projects, but, as an agent, she is actively seeking new works of literary and up-market fiction, YA fiction, memoir, and creative nonfiction. She is also particularly moved by history, politics, parenting, motherhood and health and wellness. Recent sales include Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s short story collection: Dr. Olaf von Schuler’s Brain to Algonquin, world-renowned obesity expert Jim Levine’s NEAT Revolution to Crown, and Marine Captain Donovan Campbell's Joker One: One Platoon's Courage, Heartache, and Sacrifice on the Front Lines of Iraq to Random House. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-17 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Vicious Intimacies: Mourning The Death of Monsters Instructor: D. Y. Bechard
$45/$40 members
The first in our “Muse Reprise” Series in Fiction – expanded versions of the most popular seminars offered at the 2007 “Muse and the Marketplace” conference. If you missed this seminar at the conference, or want to further explore it over 3 hours instead of 1, here’s your chance. Description: Our love of mean people (both in romance and literature) often grows from an appreciation of their honesty and rejection of convention. They challenge our values as well as our notions of innocence and redemption. In this seminar, we will examine both why monsters are disappearing from contemporary fiction as well as the literary techniques that render compelling the outlaws, drifters and philanderers who nourish the American literary tradition. Such “monsters” often evoke themes key to our cultural mythology and identity, and embody the power of our desires without which (I’ll speak for myself) we do not use others for their emotional, monetary and bodily riches. With the least amount of moralizing, we will then use the works of Faulkner, Cheever, Nabokov, John Gardner and Denis Johnson to examine the captivating literary mechanisms of cruelty, greed, lust, hubris as well as some of our other favorite sins. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-17 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Jumsptart Your Memoir Instructor: Debbie Hagan
$195/$170 members
You’ve always wanted to write a memoir but didn’t know where to start, what to include, or how to focus. In two days of fun exercises, you will mine your memories and search for stories, patterns, and themes that may go into an essay- or book-length first-person narrative. This course will explore developing yourself as a character, creating scenes, shaping the story, and structuring for maximum impact. During the weekend, a special guest speaker will offer memoir-writing advice. By the end of this weekend, you will have written several scenes and received feedback. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-20 / 2008-09-21 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Cortiscrawl: Writing with the Brain in Mind Instructor: Tim Horvath
$195/$170 members
Findings from neuroscience regularly make the newspaper as research sheds more and more light on how the brain works. Writers such as Ian McEwan and Jonathan Franzen have made the human brain a focal point in their novels, and now Jonah Lehrer's Proust was a Neuroscientist (2007) makes a case that great artists have long intuited what scientists could later only confirm through experiment. In this expanded weekend version of the popular seminar, we'll see how understanding a bit more about the brain can boost our own writing. We'll revisit staple topics like detail, description and character, learn how we can tap into the dreaming brain for inspiration, and even look at writer's block and hypergraphia (the compulsion to write) from this new vantage point. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-20 / 2008-09-21 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Screenwriting: Beyond the First Draft Instructor: Barry Brodsky
$195/$170 members
This intensive weekend workshop is designed for those screenwriters who are serious about their craft and/or very familiar with the format and the genre. The first day will focus on writing the treatment for your screenplay and will cover loglines as well as the evolution and uses of the treatment. On day two, we will focus on the revision of screenplays and how to make them more marketable, tighter and more likely to catch the eye of the industry. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-20 / 2008-09-21 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Dirty Water Reading Series The Dirty Water Reading Series – a seasonal, collaborative event hosted by literary journals Quick Fiction and Redivider, online journal Fringe, and Black Ocean Press – adds a little audience participation to the usual reading-series formula. Past readings have included mad-libbed holiday carols and Shakespearean sonnets recited by Steve Almond and Peter Jay Shippy, along with door prizes and lots of food and drinks. Come find out what this September installment will bring… ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-21 http://www.grubstreet.org/calendar.php#Brown Bag Lunch Series Do you work downtown and want to fit some writing into your day? Or do you have a schedule that gives you free afternoons instead of evenings? Bring your lunch and come on over to Grub Street for a Brown Bag Writing Workshop – a series recently profiled in the Boston Globe. For 45 minutes, you’ll meet fellow writers and get your creative juices flowing with some cool writing exercises. Led by one of our award-winning instructors or ambassadors. Best of all, you’ll leave lunch with some new ideas to ponder for the rest of your day…and beyond. Maximum of 15 students. To sign up, email sonya@grubstreet.org or call 617.695.0075. ]]> Grub Street 2008-09-23