About this event
Connecticut Center for the Book is pleased to bring you this series of four 90-minute writing workshops by Connecticut-based authors. Each session is $15.00. Sign up for all four and it is discounted to $50.00. Please use promo code: ALLFOUR
If you are interested in a scholarship, please email ctbook@cthumanities.org for the promo code.
October 27 | 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Susan Schoenberger | Answering Your Questions about Writing a Novel: An Interactive Session
Writing a novel is highly personal and subjective, and each project comes with its own challenges. If you are ready to start, halfway through, editing, or getting ready to submit, this session will help you focus on the pain points and how to work through them. We’ll also talk about common missteps and how to avoid them.
About the Presenter
Susan Schoenberger is the award-winning author of A Watershed Year, The Virtues of Oxygen, and The Liability of Love. She worked as a newspaper reporter, editor, and copy editor for many years, including for The Hartford Courant and The Baltimore Sun, and now serves as Director of Communications and Educational Outreach at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. Susan recently became a contributor to The New Yorker, which published a humor piece she wrote with her illustrator daughter. Her latest novel, The Liability of Love, received a coveted starred Kirkus Review and was the gold medal winner in popular fiction from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. susanschoenberger.com
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November 3 | 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Dana Meachen Rau | Writing for Children
This workshop will dive into a bit of history, perspective, structure, and requirements of writing for children, but most importantly, we’ll discuss the depth, subtlety, and responsibilities of wrapping big themes in small packages.
About the Presenter
Dana Meachen Rau has worked in the publishing world as an editor, author, and illustrator and has written more than 350 books for children in a variety of genres, fiction and nonfiction, from picture book to young adult. Most recently, she has written many biographies for Penguin Workshop’s popular Who Was? Series. After attending Vermont College of Fine Arts for her master’s degree in Writing for Children and Young Adults, she has taught writing and literature classes at the University of Hartford (CT), the Highlights Foundation (Honesdale, PA), the Writing Barn (Austin, TX), the Mark Twain House, and art centers near her home in Burlington, Connecticut. Visit Dana at www.danameachenrau.com and on Instagram @danamrau.
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November 10 | 7:30-9:00 p.m. – Please note time.
Bessy Reyna | Poetry as Memoir
Limited to 10 registrants
This popular workshop has been presented in numerous venues including the Mark Twain House, Hartford Public Library, Bolton Senior Center, and on Zoom for several cultural and community groups. The main goal of the workshop is to introduce participants to ways in which poetry can be a bridge to their own experiences and emotions and a guide to write about their own lives. Among the poets included for inspiration are Richard Blanco, Sharon Olds, Maria Guillan and many others. The workshop can be presented on a different schedule, from one-two-hour session, to several sessions depending on the sponsoring group and the program it is developed for. The workshop is limited to 10 participants to allow for sufficient time to discuss each poem, and the participants’ writings inspired by them.
About the Presenter
Bessy Reyna’s work has been published in literary magazines and anthologies in the USA and Latin America. She’s the author of the chapbooks The Battlefield of Your Body” and “She Remembers” and the bilingual poetry book “Memoirs of the Unfaithful Lover.”Reyna has been a guest in poetry festivals in the USA and Latin America. She was selected as “Bolton’s First Poet Laureate.” Among her many honors and awards are: The Lifetime Achievement Award from the CT Center for the Book of the Library of Congress in Service to the literary community and Inducted in the CT Immigrant Hall of Fame. She is a graduate of Mt Holyoke College, So. Hadley, MA (BS) and the University of Connecticut (MA, JD). www.bessyreyna.com
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November 17, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
P. Djéli Clark | Using History in Speculative Fiction
Clark will discuss how understanding history helps us shape tales of fantastical pasts, the surreal present, and far flung futures. This workshop explores how established speculative fiction writers utilize history in their storytelling and worldbuilding, and offers some tips on how attendees can do the same.
About the Presenter
Phenderson Djéli Clark is the author of the novel A Master of Djinn, and the award-winning and Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon-nominated author of the novellas Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. His short stories have appeared in online venues such as Tor.com, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in print anthologies including Griots and Hidden Youth. https://pdjeliclark.com/
