Please
note that all course descriptions are in blurb form. There’s often more information at the
official websites. The February writing
workshops are listed in order of start date and length.
Dates: February 13 –19, 2012
Course Description: Flash Fiction: What is it? How do I write it? Why
should I bother? This workshop is aimed at writers who are new to
flash fiction. The topics covered will include:
- Day 1 -- What is flash fiction?
- Day 2 -- Choosing a story to write
- Day 3 -- That’s a story?
- Day 4 -- Thinking about words
- Day 5 -- Why write flash?
- Day 6 -- Final questions/comments. Stories deadline.
Instructor: Tina
Gerow
Dates: February 13 –26, 2012
Course Description: You’ve slaved over your manuscript and it’s
finally perfect! The next step? Submitting.
But what really happens once your manuscript hits the editor’s
submissions box? Find out what are the
pet peeves, do’s & don’ts, tips & tricks and even the horror stories
that will help your manuscript stand out...or not.
Instructor: Misty
Evans
Dates: February 13 –26, 2012
Course Description: No matter what genre, series are in demand by
readers and publishers alike. But is writing a series right for you? This workshop
will help you:
- Examine the pros and cons of writing a series
- Define and evaluate your idea
- Develop a Series Bible to track plot lines, characters and story arcs
- Develop a Pitch Bible that includes blurbs, synopses and a story arc to market to agents and editors
- Turn your series idea into a workable project with tools, templates and one-on-one help
Instructor: F.T.
Bradley
Dates: February 13 – March 10, 2012
Course Description: If you've been learning more about selling
your work, you've probably heard that you need build a platform, or make a name
for yourself. But how do you even begin? This workshop will teach you how to
find your brand, how to find free ways to build a reputation and get your name
out there, and how to make sure you build your platform the right way. Turn
your series idea into a workable project with tools, templates and one-on-one
help.
Instructor: Linda
O. Johnston
Dates: February 13 – March 11, 2012
Course Description: The class will also address
the basics of writing cozies: choosing a protagonist and deciding how she’ll
get involved solving mysteries; choosing a theme for the series; introducing
and following through with a love interest (or not); throwing in a corpse or
two, plus hiding clues for solving the murders; planning a series; and much
more!
Instructor: Mary
O’Gara
Dates: February 13 – March 11, 2012
Course Description: Blessed and cursed by writers over the centuries as
the inner writer is the intuitive, perceptive, storytelling, pattern-making
part of our mind. Often berated as whimsical (or worse), the Inner Writer
responds to simple but specific routines, which are as unique as the writer
they serve.
During this four-week workshop, Mary O'Gara will
share simple but profound ways to nurture your inner writer in order to make
your writing time more fun and more productive. Nurturing the Writer Within is
an eclectic workshop with 21 easy ways to connect with and nurture your inner
writer.
Instructor: Beth
Daniels
Dates: February 13 – March 11, 2012
Course Description: Alternative history tales have been around for a
number of years in the fantasy world, some even written by historians.
Currently the Steampunk version of history altering is in demand whether in the
world of romance or that of fantasy.
This workshop will cover what’s needed to readjust
the world to your storytelling muse’s delight. We’ll take things out, change
the winners in war, the circumstances in discoveries, and borrow and warp
whatever we wish whether the end result is Steampunk or something else
entirely!
Instructor: Marcy
Weydemuller
Dates: February 13 – March 11, 2012
Course Description: What are the challenges and the satisfaction of
writing inspirational romance? In this four-week workshop we’ll dig into the
unique qualities of this genre, which readers continue to hunger for. And we’ll
begin to brainstorm a novel of your own.
Instructor: Chris
Redding
Dates: February 13 – 26, 2012
Course Description: Layering will teach the writer how to put all
the layers into a manuscript seamlessly. We will start with a page of dialogue
and each lesson will show how to add different aspects that are vital to the
story.
Instructor: Adele
San Miguel
Dates: February 15 – March 14, 2012
Course Description: That book within you?
Divinely inspired. You don’t need to struggle to let it out. Harness your power
and intelligence through a combination of meditation* and practical focus.
Adele San Miguel will lead you to the place where you trust the words that
flow. The one where you do not struggle and strive, but relax and allow your
brilliance. Impossible? Easy. Let the force be with you.
Instructor: Jim
Harrington
Dates: February 20 – 26, 2012
Course Description: The first flash fiction workshop introduced flash fiction and discussed
how to trim the prose to make it lean and mean. This workshop furthers that
discussion. The first session provides a brief overview of what makes up a
story. This is followed by a discussion of the importance of setting,
character, point of view and voice, and how these elements work together to
provide the kind of story a reader wants to read. The workshop concludes with a
discussion of beginnings--specifically, the title and its job in a story.
Instructor: Devon
Ellington
Dates: February 20 – 26, 2012
Course Description: Holiday-themed anthologies and stories keep growing in popularity. While the Christmas/Yuletide season sees the most
traffic in that area, there are dozens of other possibilities. Spend a week of writing and brainstorming
with Devon Ellington on both popular and lesser-known holidays. Learn how to develop your ideas, fit
formatting, seek out markets, and create a timeline for these pieces -- both in
the traditionally advised ways and the way Devon does it! This week-long intensive will require involve
short daily assignments and lots of interaction and laughter. Come prepared to write and try anything. We will discuss different seasons/holidays on
different days, and you’ll have the foundation of a year’s worth of
holiday-themed pieces by the end.
Instructor: Jodi
Henley
Dates: February 20 – 26, 2012
Course Description: Your grammar is tight, your plot is high concept and your hero and
heroine each have a transformational arc. Why doesn’t anyone care?
If you've been told your story is lacking an
emotional component, join Jodi Henley for Practical Emotional Structure, an
interactive workshop that redefines reader expectations and emotional hooks
using emotional understructures, credibility, and subtext to make your story
resonate with your target audience.
Instructor: Chris
Redding
Dates: February 20 – March 4, 2012
Course Description: Chris Redding will show you how movie making and scriptwriting techniques can make your novel come alive. She will cover the three act structure of most movies and instruct you on how you can use movie magic including shot lists to make your novel a bestseller.No need to write anything special for this class, just bring along any scene you’ve already written.
Instructor: Barbra
Annino
Dates: February 20 – March 10, 2012
Course Description: We all know what funny is when we read it.
But do you know just what it is that makes that scene/line/description funny?
This intensive, hands-on class will explore humor in various forms by examining
popular fiction, films and essays to get to the root of humor. Participants
will learn the concept of timing, the power of three, the opposite effect and
various other methods for injecting humor into your writing. Class includes
writing exercises and instructor feedback.
Instructor: Cassandra
Carr
Dates: February 20 – March 18, 2012
Course Description: In this course you will learn what branding is, what your platform is
and how to develop it, including tips for book launches and signings, what
should be on your website, how to put together author pages on sites like
Amazon and Goodreads, and much more!
Instructor: Kat
Duncan
Dates: February 20 – March 18, 2012
Course Description: What is a hook and how can I use it? Whether you've never heard of hooks
or have been writing hooks for years, this workshop will take you through the
whole gamut of ways to write hooks and use them effectively. Participants will
learn how to evaluate and create hooks for all kinds of uses in their writing,
with a focus on hooking readers in the crucial story opening. The workshop will
go beyond the opening hook, showing ways to hook readers throughout an entire
novel. The workshop with cover ways to generate book titles, make the reader
care about what happens next in every scene, build tension and micro-tension
with internal hooks and tie up hooks in a satisfying way.
Instructor: Eliza
Knight
Dates: February 20 – March 18, 2012
Course Description: Sensual novellas are about much more than sex. And the guidelines are
different than for a traditional-length novel. This workshop will help you
learn how to plot a novella whether you are a heavy outliner or a “pantser.”
You’ll see how easy it is to layer emotion into your love scenes and hook the
reader from the very first sentence. The class will also instruct you on how to
pack more into less words, while still keeping your love story strong and your
audience captivated.
Instructor: Phoebe
Conn
Dates: February 20 – March 18, 2012
Course Description: Learn how to analyze your ideas to select the best and turn your first
book into a series. When THE SKY’S THE LIMIT, set your imagination free to
create larger-than-life characters with wrenching conflicts to overcome. We’ll
compare our impressions of popular films with Futuristic elements, THE
TERMINATOR and AVATAR as well as other favorites.
Instructor: Mercy
Weydemueller
Dates: February 20 – March 19, 2012
Course Description: Words that sing are the words that stand out to the reader. They impact
the heart and provide a lingering resonance. We choose these words like a
painter chooses a particular color from his palette or a poet her sound. They
are usually ordinary words that are fine-tuned for a clear purpose. So how do
we develop them? In this four-week workshop, we’ll sharpen our senses to hear
language, images and metaphors that give voice to our writing.
Instructor: Ann
Roth
Dates: February 27 – March 4, 2012
Course Description: If you've ever been told your characters
seem cardboard or cliché, this class is for you. Characters with strong, clear
motivations for their thoughts, dialogue and actions are never cliché . During
this week-long class we'll explore this thing called motivation- what it is,
and how to develop and use it in creating characters so that they are
three-dimensional and believable.
Instructor: Irene
Roth
Dates: February 27 – March 18, 2012
Course Description: In this three week Nonfiction
Editing workshop, Irene will outline the editing process that is involved in
revising a nonfiction article or book, from the first draft to the final copy.
There are many stages to the revision process. She will outline these stages in
detail in this workshop. After taking this workshop, writers will be able to
submit manuscripts that will have a much greater chance of getting
accepted.
Instructor: Kate
Willoughby
Dates: February 27 – March 23, 2012
Course Description: Woman’s World, one of
the last remaining periodicals to publish short fiction, pays $800 for an 800
word romance story, and if you sell to them there’s a good chance over a
million people will read your story.
Nice work if you can get it, right? Well, you can. My class, “Selling to
Woman’s World Magazine—Beyond the Basics, Part I,” will give you the tools you
need to break into this tough market.
Twitter for Novices: Exploring and Enjoying the Twitterverse
Twitter for Novices: Exploring and Enjoying the Twitterverse
Instructor: LaTessa
Montgomery
Dates: February 27 – March 23, 2012
Course Description: Jumping into Twitter can be daunting task, even to
those experienced with other social media such as blogging and FaceBook.
However, with my workshop, I take the fear out of this process by breaking up
theTwitterverse into easy to manage chunks. This is a hands on workshop through
which I will participants through each lesson and have virutal classroom hours
establish so we can interact with each other real time via Twitter to aid in
the learning process.
Writing the New American Cowboy: Bikers 101
Writing the New American Cowboy: Bikers 101
Instructor: Todd
Stone
Dates: February 27 – March 25, 2012
Course Description: No matter if you’re writing mystery,
romance, fantasy or horror and no matter if
your hero is a modern knight who values his freedom, rebel with or
without a cause, or a bad boy with too many tattoos and a bad attitude, your
character (and it can be a she and your heroine!) will better capture the
reader's interest and heart when you better understand the different parts of
the motorcycling world, the people who populate it, and how to use that
knowledge to rev up your novel.
The Depths of POV – An Advanced Look
The Depths of POV – An Advanced Look
Instructor: June
Diehl
Dates: February 27 – March 25, 2012
Course Description: The Depths of POV focuses on the more
advanced questions the writer should ask when deciding POV: Which POV is right
for this story and why? How to pick the right POV character or characters? How
deep should the POV go? When and how might I break POV rules? How is POV
related to the other story elements? How can POV strengthen characterization?
Reinforce setting? Add to the plot and subplots? Enhance the theme? The
workshop explores the advantages and disadvantages of the subtypes of POV and
includes examples of each type from published works.
The Scottish Highlands: 16th & 17th Centuries
The Scottish Highlands: 16th & 17th Centuries
Instructor: Sharron
Gunn w/a Sheila Currie
Dates: February 20 – March 31, 2012
Course Description: In the 16th & 17th centuries, the laws and
customs of the Scottish Highlands were considered archaic; they were common in
western Europe in the High Middle Ages, but had disappeared by the Renaissance.
Highland chiefs were still inaugurated, not crowned, in ancient ceremonies and
revered by their clansmen as quasi-sacred figures. A Highland assembly for justice in the 17th
century resembled a Viking Thing of the 10th or 11th centuries. Secular
marriage outside the church was normal. What really frightened Lowlanders and
English was the chiefs' ability to raise a small army at little cost to
themselves. The Jacobite Rebellions would have been impossible without clan
armies. This course shows how life in the Highlands was different from the
Lowlands and other parts of Great Britain and how similar to Ireland.
Want Style? Get Grammar – 101-303
Want Style? Get Grammar – 101-303
Instructor: Kat
Duncan
Dates: February 20 – April 1, 2012
Course Description: What's a style or a voice and
where do I get one? Whether you "get" grammar or not, your style and
voice come from how you use grammar. This grammar-based style-enhancing
workshop is for writers who don't "get" grammar or for those who
think they don't want to get it. Proper use of grammar and style makes a story
flow smoothly, page after page. Poorly constructed sentences and paragraphs ruin
the pace of your novel and make editors and agents pass up your manuscript.
Are you taking any workshops this month?
Happy writing!
Are you taking any workshops this month?
Happy writing!
3 comments:
diWhat a great list, Lacey. Comprehensive, and covering all areas of romance writing. I'm doing a writing course this Feb with Shirley Jump. It's run through the Lawson Writer's Academy, and is called From Good to Sold. It's AMAZING! Shirley knows her romance back to front, and how to get a manuscript from good, to something that will sell. Handouts, homework, and critiques. I highly recommend it, and I've heard wonderful things about other courses run by Margie Lawson.
Are YOU doing any of the courses you've listed, Lacey?
Madeline x
Hi Madeline!
Thanks for telling me about the Lawson Writer's Academy. I'll add it to my list so that those courses will be in next month's post :)
I LOVE Shirley's courses although I'm not sure I've done From Good to Sold yet.
I'm not doing anything from the list this month but the temptation's always there. I think I could be turning into a writing workshop addict... You can never learn too much :)
Wow, so many workshops to choose from!
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