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Fall Courses at The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center


Fall Courses at The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center

This fall, we are pleased to offer a number of exciting opportunities for experienced and aspiring writers of all ages. Learn to write everything from page-turning fiction to poetry that challenges the status quo and encourages each budding writer to find his or her own voice. Courses are one-day intensives or meet weekly over longer periods of time. View the website for full details about our distinguished and talented instructors, course times and membership discounts, and to register online. http://writerscenter.org/courses

 

Memoir Writing Workshop with Susan Hodara

Begins September 8th

Morning session begins at 10:30 am

Afternoon session begins at 1:30 pm

Are you inspired to record the transforming events of your life? Are you drawn to explore the circumstances surrounding your most vivid memories? For those with a work-in-progress or those starting fresh, this class will offer a supportive environment wherein each week you will read aloud and receive constructive feedback. Writers at all levels of accomplishment, and with projects both full-length and short-form, are welcome.

 

Exploring New Poems with Amy Holman

Begins September 9th, 10:30 am

This class is designed to inspire and support poets who want to return to writing, try new ideas, and refine their voices, and is open to beginning and emerging poets. The new poems explored in this class are both those you will write from assignments and those we will read from poetry books.

 

Year of Your Book: Poetry

Begins September 9th, 12:30 pm

How long have you been saying that you want to compile all of your polished poems into a full-length collection? How much longer do you have to wait? This series of classes begins at the start of 2015, when the New Year inspires serious resolutions. A combination of workshopping new and old poems and deep revision, serious critique, deadlines, and mutual support, the goal is a solid draft (and celebration of your accomplishment) by the end of the year. Participants are encouraged to enroll for every session, but the class is designed to accommodate ebb and flow according to where you are in the process.

 

Wednesday Night Fiction Workshop

Begins September 9th, 7:00 pm

A writer is someone who writes, and this workshop respects and honors the desire to write. Writing can be a much more fun and satisfying activity than we often make it, and together we will support each other’s growth by encouraging creative exploration, experimentation, and trust in our unique, individual voices. To help writers feel comfortable exploring various types of writing techniques, prompts and suggestions will be offered. After each exercise, there will be time to read work written in workshop.We will then respond to the newborn work by commenting on its strengths.

 

Family History with Donna Zucker

Begins September 10th, 1:00 pm

Working in a small group with a professional writer specializing in family history, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and begin working on your family’s history book. Focus on writing detailed biographies, research, structure and style.

 

Year of Your Book: Mystery

Begins September 10th, 4:00 pm

“Who Dunnit? How? And Why? These are the basic questions underlying the Mystery novel. For the reader, the fun is to be carried along on the wild ride for the answers to these questions, and the challenge is to answer the questions before the narrative does. But for the writer the challenge is greater, to create a world that is morally disordered by murder, and to investigate the denizens of that world, their society, their laws, their beliefs, their desires, loves and passions, their losses and gains, in order to bring to life the tensions and betrayals that make up the world we live and love in.

 

Page-Turning Fiction 

Begins September 10th, 7:00 pm

If you’ve ever stayed up ‘til three with a compelling novel, you’ve probably wondered, “How do they do that?” Study the literary techniques of popular genres and learn how to create compelling plots in a unique voice, by harnessing the conflict and tension between sympathetic protagonists and disquieting antagonists. Whether your characters inhabit the extreme world of detection and intrigue, or the everyday life of private agonies and personal satisfactions, your writing can benefit from that special “can’t-put-it-down” magic.

 

Friday Poetry Workshop

Begins September 11th, 10:30 am

One of the joys of writing and reading poetry is that each poem is its own unique universe. This workshop will encourage each participant to hone his or her own “voice.” The purpose of this workshop is for all participants to provide constructive feedback on each individual poem presented so the writer can return to editing and work on making the poem the strongest and most finished piece possible. Each week, students will bring a poem or two to workshop. Most of the class will be devoted to specific suggestions on poems workshopped as well as general advice about the process of editing.

 

Year of Your Book: Fiction

Begins September 11th, 1:00 pm

How long have you been saying that you want to write a book? How much longer do you have to wait?A combination of in-class writing, creative play and exploration, serious critique, deadlines, and mutual support, the goal is a solid draft (and celebration of your accomplishment) by the end of 2015. Participants can go the distance, but the class is designed to accommodate ebb and flow according to where you are in the process.

 

Finding Your Voice: Poetry Workshop for Teens

Begins September 12th, 12:00 pm

This one-day class is taught by poet/editors Lynn Melnick & Brett Fletcher Lauer. Taking inspiration from a diversity of poets, this one-day workshop will encourage students to explore a range of contemporary poetry as they uncover their voice.

We will spend the first part of the class discussing the work of contemporary poets, focusing on the work in the Please Excuse This Poem Anthology edited by the instructors. and then dive into student work for the majority of the day.

 

Monday Night Poetry with Kathleen Ossip

Begins September 14th, 6:30 pm

Poetry is a way to pay attention — to language, to the world, to what it feels like to be alive. In this workshop, we explore how to balance that attention with craft, intuition, and inspiration. We look at the building blocks of poems from individual words through lines, stanzas, fragments, paragraphs. We look at important elements of style: tone, diction, form, metaphor, clarity. We also investigate inspiration: what activities or inactivities can summon it, how to use it when it happens. We’ll read a variety of modern and contemporary poets, selected according to students’ interests and needs.

 

Workshop of Pure Critique 

Begins October 8th, 9:30 am

Whether writing in a garret, ivory tower, or a fever pitch of blind faith, at some point a writer needs to see other people, preferably equally deranged. For people writing fiction or nonfiction who need regular, astute feedback on ongoing projects of any length, this class provides that hothouse work environment. We’re going to put our manuscripts on the table and ask what works, what seems less effective, and why? Are there several narrative possibilities to the draft? Is the writer’s aim inchoate or focused? Are the form, structure, and pace helping or hindering the essential goal of the narrative?

Event Location and Ticket Information

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Hudson Valley Writers’ Center
300 Riverside Drive
Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591
Handicap Accessible? Yes

Date: Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Times: 12:00 am

Ticket pricing:
Free event
Get tickets now