We’re now taking registrations for Writer’s Center workshops at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, 801 Chase Street, Annapolis, Maryland. You can register for all Writer’s Center workshops at www.writer.org or call us at 301-654-8664.
Turning Points: The Role of the Volta in Poetry
Workshop Leader: Sue Ellen Thompson
Saturday, January 18, 2014 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Tuition: $50
Although we associate the term volta with the traditional sonnet form, it has been used with great success by many contemporary poets. Marking a shift in the poem’s tone, subject or logic, the volta has been compared to a change of key in music. In this workshop, we will explore how turning your attention in a new direction can open up a poem, allowing it to leap to another level of significance or meaning.
How Poems Begin
Workshop Leader: Sue Ellen Thompson
Saturday, March 8, 2014. 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Tuition: $50
“Let us go then, you and I,/ When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table…” Poets and poems are often remembered for their opening lines, but is there a “right” or at least a “better” way to begin a poem? In this workshop, we will explore some of the ways in which poets have traditionally chosen to open their poems and then look at some poems that break with tradition and still draw the reader in.
Ten Steps to a Great Tale
Workshop Leader: Lynn Schwartz
Saturday, March 15, 2014. 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Tuition: $50
Let’s discuss the necessary elements to make your story compelling, resonant and accessible to the reader. Learn to identify where to begin, how to end and the skills needed to traverse the murky middle. Appropriate for those writing short stories, novels and those who wish to incorporate fictional techniques in memoir.
Workshop Leaders:
Lynn Schwartz’s plays have been performed in Atlanta and NYC, including the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center. Her stories have appeared in literary journals, and she has authored numerous lifestyle features. She founded the Temple Bar Literary Reading Series in NYC and received an Individual Artist Award in Fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council. She is a graduate of The City College of New York, Columbia University, and The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater. She teaches fiction at St. John’s College.
Sue Ellen Thompson is the author of four books of poetry, most recently The Golden Hour (2006), and the editor of The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. Her work has been included in the Best American Poetry series, read on NPR by Garrison Keillor, and featured in U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s nationally-syndicated newspaper column. She taught at Wesleyan University, Middlebury College, State University of New York at Binghamton, and Central Connecticut State University before moving to the Eastern Shore in 2006. She was awarded the 2010 Maryland Author Prize from the Maryland Library Association.