Writing Conferences - Creative Writing Workshops, Conferences, Retreats, Festivals Writing Conferences & Festivals A guide to writing conferences, writing workshops, writing retreats, writing centers, residencies, symposiums, plus book & literary festivals Conference Classifieds Sponsored Conferences - Complete Conference List Posted April 17, 2014 Chesapeake Writers' Conference at St. Application deadline: Rolling The Chesapeake Writers’ Conference at St. Click image to open PDF The Creativity Workshop Creativity Workshops in New York, Florence, Dubai, Crete, Barcelona, Prague, Amsterdam, Singapore. click image to open PDF Dylan Thomas' Wales July 8-15, 2014 Writer who loves to travel? Posted April 10, 2014 click for larger image Windsor International Writers Conference, November 13th-16th, 2014 Registration deadline: Rolling Join us for "Writing Across Boundaries," a fun-filled intense learning experience for published authors and beginners alike! Posted April 3, 2014 top of page The Frost Place Poetry Programs Moravian Writers' Conference June 6-8, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Alabama
The Seven Basic Plots: Christopher Booker Examines Common Narratives in Storytelling According to the British journalist and author Christopher Booker, there are only seven ‘storylines’ in the world. In his book, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, a work that took over forty years to write, Booker surveys world literature, outlining commonalities and showing that, although there are a multitude of tales and endless variety in the telling, all narratives are really variations of the basic seven. Booker’s work is detailed, interesting, and very long—over 700 pages—but his message is simple. Whether they represent the deep psychological structures of human experience or whether they are merely constructs of tradition, no matter what the story, you’ll find one or more of these basic plotlines: Rags to Riches Someone who has seemed to the world quite commonplace is shown to have been hiding a second, more exceptional self within. Although it may seem reductive to restrict all narrative to these seven basic plots, it is actually quite instructive.
Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling « Aerogramme Writers' Studio These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar’s Story Artist. Number 9 on the list – When you’re stuck, make a list of what wouldn’t happen next – is a great one and can apply to writers in all genres. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.Once upon a time there was ___.
The Victorian Period The Victorian period formally begins in 1837 (the year Victoria became Queen) and ends in 1901 (the year of her death). As a matter of expediency, these dates are sometimes modified slightly. 1830 is usually considered the end of the Romantic period in Britain, and thus makes a convenient starting date for Victorianism. Similarly, since Queen Victoria’s death occurred so soon in the beginning of a new century, the end of the previous century provides a useful closing date for the period. The common perception of the period is the Victorians are “prudish, hypocritical, stuffy, [and] narrow-minded” (Murfin 496). Another important aspect of this period is the large-scale expansion of British imperial power. Literature of the Victorian Period: It is important to realize from the outset that the Victorian period is quite long. The drive for social advancement frequently appears in literature.
The Interactive Fiction Renaissance: The Weblog Roundtable A reprint from the March 2013 issue of Gamasutra's sister publication Game Developer magazine, this article explores the world of cutting-edge interactive fiction. You can subscribe to the print or digital edition at GDMag's subscription page, download the Game Developer iOS app to subscribe or buy individual issues from your iOS device, or purchase individual digital issues from our store. Text games have come a long way from Zork. Thanks to new tools, new authors, and ubiquitous mobile devices enabling new players, the interactive fiction genre is enjoying a revival of sorts. Game Developer spoke with Inklewriter dev Jon Ingold, longtime author Andrew Plotkin, indie dev and advocate Anna Anthropy, Failbetter Games CEO Alexis Kennedy, and interactive-fiction pioneer Emily Short about how (and why) the IF scene is expanding. Jon Ingold, longtime text-game author (Fail-Safe, All Roads), now spearheads interactive fiction innovations at Cambridge, UK-based Inkle. AP: Oh, geez. Community.
In Praise of Concision Some guy on TV is describing how he fitted his automobile with a new skin: gluing them one by one, he has blanketed every inch of its exterior with beer-bottle caps. Or he’s recounting how he fashioned, from zillions of ordinary toothpicks, a toothpick ten feet long and a foot thick—something Paul Bunyan couldn’t lift to his mouth. Or he’s displaying the dozens of photo albums that catalogue, exhaustively, the individual stacks of pancakes on which he has breakfasted daily for the past six years. And as I sit watching, one of my daughters ambles by, glances at the screen, and mutters, “Whoa, free time.” Whoa, free time. In a minimum of space, it speaks volumes. Concision. AdamHad ’em. One of Gillilan’s specialties was light verse, and a sympathetic reader will remark on how the poem, brief as it is, formally does what good light verse typically does: with its unlikely rhyme, it smoothes seeming clumsiness (“Had ’em”) into antic dexterity. I go,you stay;two autumns.
The Art of Criticism No. 1, Harold Bloom Recently, Harold Bloom has been under attack not just in scholarly journals and colloquia, but also in newspapers, on the op-ed page, on television and radio. The barrage is due to the best-seller The Book of J, in which Bloom argues that the J-Writer, the putative first author of the Hebrew Bible, not only existed (a matter under debate among Bible historians for the last century) but, quite specifically, was a woman who belonged to the Solomonic elite and wrote during the reign of Rehoboam of Judah in competition with the Court Historian. The attacks have come from Bible scholars, rabbis, and journalists, as well as from the usual academic sources, and Bloom has never been more isolated in his views or more secure in them. He has become, by his own description, “a tired, sad, humane old creature,” who greets his many friends and detractors with an endearing, melancholy exuberance. What are your memories of growing up? That was such a long time ago. Almost none. I don’t think so. No.
The Age of the Essay September 2004 Remember the essays you had to write in high school? Topic sentence, introductory paragraph, supporting paragraphs, conclusion. The conclusion being, say, that Ahab in Moby Dick was a Christ-like figure. Oy. So I'm going to try to give the other side of the story: what an essay really is, and how you write one. Mods The most obvious difference between real essays and the things one has to write in school is that real essays are not exclusively about English literature. With the result that writing is made to seem boring and pointless. How did things get this way? During this period the study of ancient texts acquired great prestige. The time was then ripe for the question: if the study of ancient texts is a valid field for scholarship, why not modern texts? And so began the study of modern literature. What tipped the scales, at least in the US, seems to have been the idea that professors should do research as well as teach. Writing was one of the casualties. No Defense Notes
Jeffrey Eugenides's Advice to Young Writers The following text is adapted from a speech given to the 2012 Whiting Award winners. In his 1988 book of essays, “Prepared for the Worst,” Christopher Hitchens recalled a bit of advice given to him by the South African Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. “A serious person should try to write posthumously,” Hitchens said, going on to explain: “By that I took her to mean that one should compose as if the usual constraints—of fashion, commerce, self-censorship, public and, perhaps especially, intellectual opinion—did not operate.” It’s not very nice of me to bring up death tonight, as we gather to celebrate ten emerging writers. All of the constraints Hitchens mentions have one thing in common: they all represent a deformation of the self. Does that sound like you? That’s what you were probably like. So what I’m saying is, this is what got you here tonight: your over-stimulated, complicated, by turns ecstatic and despondent, specific self. You get what I’m saying. I’m winding down now.
What can Diane Arbus teach you about writing? I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse. -- Diane Arbus Diane Arbus (1923-1971) was an American photographer and a student of human diversity, often described as a "photographer of freaks." Maybe one should admit that freakishness comes from within and 'normal' is a mirage. Join me now, fellow freak, and let us contemplate the normalness of strangehood *Or normalhood of strangeness. Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006), starring Nicole Kidman, paints Diane as little more than a dissatisfied housewife who takes up photography to the detriment of her husband's serious -- if uninspired -- professional efforts. Curiously enough, for a movie that champions the discovery of your true self, Fur is not a little patronizing to the main character. Pfaugh. Diane did not orbit Allan like some apathetic satellite. Who was the real Diane? The year was 1923. 1929.
One Sentence - True stories, told in one sentence. 36 Writing Essays by Chuck Palahniuk 1: Establishing Your Authority Chuck teaches two principal methods for building a narrative voice your readers will believe in. Discover the Heart Method and the Head Method and how to employ each to greatest effect. 2: Developing a Theme At the core of Minimalism is focusing any piece of writing to support one or two major themes. 3: Using “On-The-Body” Physical Sensation Great writing must reach both the mind and the heart of your reader, but to effectively suspend reality in favor of the fictional world, you must communicate on a physical level, as well. 4: Submerging the “I” First-person narration, for all its immediacy and power, becomes a liability if your reader can't identify with your narrator. 5: Nuts and Bolts: Hiding a Gun Sometimes called "plants and payoffs" in the language of screenwriters, Hiding a Gun is an essential skill to the writer's arsenal that university writing courses almost never touch upon. 6: Nuts and Bolts: “Thought” Verbs 8: Nuts and Bolts: Using Choruses