September 2010

Writing about Food and Travel with Rich Rubin
Tuesdays, September 14 - October 5, beginning at 7:00 PM

Description:
You love to travel. You love to eat. How do you turn these things into a story? The class will consider the basics of writing about food and travel: what information is important? How do I contact the chef and what should I ask him/her? How are recipes obtained and submitted with a story? And, most importantly: what makes a destination (or a chef, or a concept) unique and of interest to a travel or culinary publication? We’ll also talk about more practical issues, such as dealing with a magazine/newspaper world that is shrinking daily.  How does someone go about earning a living when magazines are folding and newspapers are in increasingly precarious shape?  How do you overcome the tendency away from using freelancers?  What opportunities exist in other media?  What might be the interest of more generalized magazines, and how can a writer gear a travel or food story to that publication’s area of interest?  In short, how can a writer make the move from "I've always loved to travel and eat" to "I'm capable of being paid to write about travel and food"? 

October – December 2010

World Building for All Genres with Jack Hillman
Saturday, October 23 starting at 9:00 AM

Description:
No matter what type of novel you are writing, you will need to create the world your characters live in.  Some of the simplest world building occurs if your story is set here and now, but even in those instances, you need to watch what building you put at what corner of the street, or even where you put the street.  And if your story takes place in another milieu or some far away land (or some far away planet), your world building just became exponentially more involved.  We will discuss how to construct the setting of your novel to maintain the continuity of your story, places to find the information needed to make sure you use the right clothing or the correct vehicles and even how to build a world from scratch, complete with its own solar system.

Materials:
Bring your pen, paper, and perhaps a slide rule, and be prepared to discuss the in' and out's, above ground and below, of the world setting of your novel.

Be Your Own Best Fiction Editor with Lisa Diane Kastner
Thursdays, September 30 - December 2, starting at 7:00 PM (excluding Thanksgiving)

Description:
Lisa Kastner will pull from her own writing experience as well as proven prescriptions of industry greats such as Noah Lukeman, Sol Stein, Tim Esaias, and Nancy Zafris to assist writers in editing their works. Each week, Lisa will guide the class in an element of the revision process. Attendees will bring draft manuscripts for hands on work. Through dialogue and exercises, attendees will strengthen key elements of craft that well-known agents and editors look for when reviewing submissions.

Prerequisite:
A completed draft manuscript.

Note:
This course will require significant work. If you are serious about revising your manuscript then I highly encourage you to sign up. This is an instance of “you get out of it as much as you put into it”.