the muse & the marketplace 2010
session 4
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010, from 9:45am to 11:00am
SESSION 4A: “Do I Know You? Strategies for Developing Characters”
Description: We get to know our characters in much the same way we get to know real people: in fits and starts, over long periods of time, with numerous impediments on the way to real intimacy. In this class, we will explore what constitutes really knowing our characters, both in our minds and on the page, and we will consider ways to break through the barriers that hamper full, rich characterization. Come prepared to work on a particular character from your own writing.Type: Discussion
Author: Tova Mirvis. Tova Mirvis is the author of two novels, The Ladies Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller published by W.W. Norton in 1999 and The Outside World, published in 2004 by Alfred A. Knopf. Her essays have appeared in various anthologies and newspapers including The New York Times Book Review, Good Housekeeping, Poets and Writers and Brain/Child Magazine, and her fiction has been broadcast on National Public Radio. In 2009, she was named a Scholar in Residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University, and in 2010, she was selected as a Visiting Research Associate at The Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center. She has taught expository writing at Columbia College, fiction writing at Gotham Writer’s Workshop in New York and at Grub Street in Boston. She has also lectured at many universities and communal organizations. After receiving a BA in English literature from Columbia College, she earned an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She lives in Newton, MA with her husband and three children and is completing a third novel.
SESSION 4B: “World Building”
Description: How do we create fictional worlds that readers believe in? Whether your narrator carves skateboard circles outside a J.P. Licks, enters the Underworld through a portal in the Mall of America, or is forced to attend a “Pox Party” in 18th century Boston, it is the writer’s job to anchor the reader in time and place. In this informal presentation, Liza Ketchum will discuss techniques the writer can use to build a convincing world from the ground up, including significant sensory detail, language and syntax, historical fact, emotional resonance, and an understanding of culture. She will draw on outstanding examples from contemporary YA fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction, and will lead participants through a guided writing exercise. The workshop should be useful to writers of adult as well as young adult fiction, and to those working in a variety of genres. Bring questions, pen and paper, and your own successful strategies.Type: Discussion and Guided Writing
Author: Liza Ketchum. Liza Ketchum is the author of fourteen books for young people, including Newsgirl (Viking, 2009), a novel that takes place in San Francisco during the gold rush. Her novel in two voices, Where the Great Hawk Flies, won the 2006 Massachusetts Book Award for Children’s Literature and the Boston Authors Club/Julia Ward Howe Prize for Young Readers. Other titles focused on American history are the popular serialized adventure novel, Orphan Journey Home, and the non-fiction titles Into a New Country: Eight Remarkable Women of the West (an ALA “Best Book” for 2001), and The Gold Rush, a companion to the PBS series “The West.” Blue Coyote, the final title in her quartet of young adult novels, was nominated for a Lambda Literary award. Her books have appeared on the ALA’s “Best Book lists,” numerous state award lists, the Notable Social Studies Trade Book List, Bank Street College’s “Best Book List,” and on the NY Public Library’s “100 Titles for Reading and Sharing” and their “List for the Teenage.” An occasional Grub Street instructor, Liza is currently on the faculty of the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Hamline University, in St. Paul, MN. She has also taught at Vermont College, Emerson College, the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College, and at Rhode Island College.
***SOLD OUT*** SESSION 4C: “Writing Suspense: You Know It When You Feel It”
Description: Suspense is that feeling that makes it impossible to put a book down and shut off the light. It’s that essential ingredient that turns a work of fiction into a “page turner.” In this workshop we’ll talk about what makes suspense work. We’ll dissect the arc of suspense within a scene and within a novel. We’ll go through the variety of tools a writer can use to create suspense and to modulate it. Finally, we’ll discuss how to manage suspense in a book-length work.Type: Lecture with Q&A and Discussion
Author: Hallie Ephron. Hallie Ephron came to writing after careers as a teacher and marketing copywriter, and has been making up for lost time. She’s published six novels, including her latest Never Tell A Lie (2009) which was nominated for several awards including the Mary Higgins Clark Award. In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly called it “stunning” and a “deliciously creepy tale of obsession.” Her new novel, Come and Find Me, is due out in winter 2011 from Wm. Morrow. She is also the crime fiction book reviewer for the Boston Globe, and the author of two books about books, including The Bibliophile’s Devotional. Her book on mystery writing was a finalist for both the Edgar and Anthony awards.
SESSION 4D: “What I Wish I’d Known: Lessons Learned the Hard Way From an Accidental Author”
Description: In this lecture, the author will take the audience through the story of the publication of his first non-fiction book from the perspective of a non-professional writer who never dreamed that he would publish. He will cover the timeline from concept to written draft to agent sourcing to book auction to publication. Topics discussed include: the importance of having passion for your story, the critical role of the agent, the long process of getting a manuscript ready for publication and the patience that that entails, the importance of winning over every person at a publishing house who touches your book, and, finally, the hard work that the publicity process entails and the different media that move books well.Type: Lecture with Q&A
Author: Donovan Campbell. After graduating from Princeton, Donovan Campbell wanted to give back to his country, engage in the world, and learn to lead. So he joined the service, becoming a commander of a forty-man infantry platoon called Joker One. His experiences became the basis for his first book, Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood, which debuted at #15 on the New York Times non-fiction best-seller list, and has been featured on numerous national television and radio shows. Donovan Campbell served three combat deployments–two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, was awarded the Combat Action Ribbon and a Bronze Star with Valor for his time in Iraq and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for work in Afghanistan. He is now working for PepsiCo and living in Dallas, Texas, with his wife and daughter.
SESSION 4E: "Tick-Tock: The Passage of Time in Fiction"
Description: In this workshop, we will examine how a few different short story writers handle the passage of time in their work. We will also do a number of writing exercises in which we experiment with various ways to play with time. Participants are asked to read three short stories ahead of time and to bring hard copies to the seminar. The stories (see links below) are: Alice Munro's "Runaway," Sherman Alexie's "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," and William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily". Among the questions we will consider: how does a writer gauge how much time a short story (or novel) should cover in its characters' lives? What are the different demands that "clock time" and "subjective time" make upon a work of fiction? How does the treatment of time intersect with questions of narrative urgency? How do some of our more experimental writers (past and present) play with the concept of time? How is the short story, in particular, a form that, short and condensed as it is, lends itself to discussions of time? Participants should come ready to discuss the reading, to write, and to bring up questions about time's passage in their own writing.Type: Discussion and Guided Writing
Author: Elizabeth Graver. Elizabeth Graver is at work on a project titled Plants and Their Children, a novel set in a summer community on Buzzard’s Bay from 1942 to 1999. She is the author of three novels: Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling. Her short story collection, Have You Seen Me?, won the 1991 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories (1991, 2001); Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards (1994, 1996, 2001); The Pushcart Prize Anthology (2001), and Best American Essays (1998). Her story “The Mourning Door” was awarded the Cohen Prize from Ploughshares Magazine. The mother of two daughters, she teaches English and Creative Writing at Boston College.SESSION 4F: “The Joy of Revision”
Description: So you have finished your novel! Now it’s time for the real work to begin: Revision! Nabokov claimed he rewrote—sometimes several times—every word he ever wrote. John Irving says half his life has been spent revising. In this session, I will give concrete tips for how to revise your work, from small things to larger problems, such as plot, tension and conflict. I will also share my secret for how to be sure you are keeping your readers engaged and eager to keep reading. There is no shortcut to revision, but you can learn to embrace it and even enjoy it.Type: Lecture with Q&A
Author: Ann Hood. Ann Hood is the author of eight novels, including the bestsellers Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine and The Knitting Circle; a collection of short stories, An Ornithologist’s Guide to Life; and the memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, which was a New York Times Notable Book and was selected by Entertainment Weekly as one of the ten best non-fiction books of 2008. She has won two Pushcart Prizes, a Best American Spiritual Writing Award and The Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction. Her essays and stories have appeared in The New York Times, Tin House, The Paris Review, The Washington Post, Bon Appetit, Traveler, Glimmer Train and many other publications. Her new novel, The Red Thread, will be published in May 2010 by WW Norton.
SESSION 4G: “The Essentials of Point of View”
Description: In both fiction and nonfiction, the story is in the eye of the beholder. The tale of Little Red Riding Hood might be completely different if told by Grandmother--or the wolf! In this session, we'll explore the fundamentals of point of view. We'll discuss the benefits and limitations of different viewpoints and see how a story might change based on who's telling it. You'll leave with a better understanding of what point of view can do for your story--and of how to how to choose the most effective viewpoint for the story you want to tell.Level: Beginner/Intermediate
Type: Lecture and Discussion
Author: Celeste Ng. Celeste Ng holds a BA from Harvard and an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction. Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, Subtropics, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere; she is also a blogger for the Huffington Post and contributing editor at Fiction Writers Review.***SOLD OUT*** SESSION 4H: “Marketplace Panel: Agents on the Hot Seat—Fiction Focus”
Description: You send them your life’s work, and they take months to respond, or they don’t respond at all. What are they doing with their time? What are they looking for, anyway? How should you approach them without “turning them off?” Get these questions and more answered in this panel discussion with some of the country’s most influential (and busy!) literary agents. We’ll start by quickly responding to some basic concerns, i.e: What does an agent actually do? Do you really need one? How do you choose the right one to approach? What are some general “do’s” and “don’t’s” for sending them manuscripts? Then we’ll discuss the current fiction market specifically, and open up the conversation for a free-for-all Q&A.Panelists: Lisa Grubka, PJ Mark, Denise Shannon and Rachel Sussman. Moderated by Sophie Powell.
SESSION 4K: “Marketplace Panel: Agents on the Hot Seat—Non-Fiction Focus”
Description: You send them your life’s work, and they take months to respond, or they don’t respond at all. What are they doing with their time? What are they looking for, anyway? How should you approach them without “turning them off?” Get these questions and more answered in this panel discussion with some of the country’s most influential (and busy!) literary agents. We’ll start by responding to key concerns, i.e: What does an agent actually do? Do you really need one? How do you choose the right one to approach? What are some general “do’s” and “don’t’s” for sending them manuscripts? Then we’ll discuss the current non-fiction market specifically, and open up the conversation for a free-for-all Q&A.Panelists: Richard Abate, Elizabeth Evans, Jennifer Ferrari-Adler and Elisabeth Weed. Moderated by Ethan Gilsdorf.