Our classes for winter 2010 have already begun, but if you’re interested in hearing about new courses as they’re announced, please email writingworkshopsla@gmail.com to get on the mailing list!
There are still a couple of spots left in the Winter 2010 Short Fiction Workshop, taught by Leslie Parry. See below for the course description. Email writingworkshopsla@gmail.com to sign up!
Leslie Parry
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Short Fiction Workshop (taught by Leslie Parry)
Thursdays, 7:30 to 9:30 pm
January 28, 2010 to March 18, 2010 (8 weeks)
For the first four weeks of this eight-week course, we will do in-class writing exercises and discuss published short fiction from a craft perspective. We will cover such topics as characterization, point of view, structure, voice, and scene, and there will be short take-home writing assignments. For the final four weeks of the course, we will workshop student work in a serious environment meant to challenge and inspire every member of the class. Each student will have the opportunity to workshop one short story manuscript.
This course will take place in the instructor’s home in Beachwood Canyon (Hollywood), where wine and sparkling water—and the occasional gourmet cheese—will be served.
Enrollment limit: 8 students
$360 for new students; $320 for returning students. Payment plans available.
If you’re interested, email writingworkshopsla@gmail.com
Check out the CLASSES page for new courses on offer in January of 2010. Leslie will be teaching an 8-week Short Fiction Workshop, and I’ll be teaching the Introduction to the Novel Workshop. There are also a couple of spots left in the one-day Fiction Writing Exercises Session.
To sign up, email writingworkshopsla@gmail.com
2009 has been a terrific year for Writing Workshops Los Angeles. We’ve started to teach novel writing in addition to the usual and beloved short fiction workshops. We’ve hired new instructor Leslie Parry, who will begin teaching in 2010. We’ve consumed copious bottles of sparkling water, and many a fine cheese plate. And the students have continued to impress! To wit:
Maya Sloan sold her first novel, High Before Homeroom, to Simon & Schuster. Maya worked on a short story with WWLA–so we can’t and won’t take any of the credit for her book, but the novel manuscript went out to publishers in the last week of class, and it was so exciting to reunite a few weeks later to celebrate her success. High Before Homeroom will be published in June of 2010. Learn more about Maya here.
This summer, J.P. Bumstead starred in “Proof” at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, and he was really spectacular. The entire Advanced Novel Workshop went to see him perform. When J.P. isn’t acting, he’s working on a beautiful novel about…actors in Los Angeles.
Paria Kooklan recently had a short story accepted for publication in Edge Magazine. She workshopped “Burial” in class, and this will be her first fiction publication. In the meantime, you can follow Paria’s exploits on her hilarious blog, Stuck in the Safety Net, and read her guest post at the Vroman’s Bookstore blog about writing her novel.
Mindy Farabee began her first year in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Edinburgh, where she is the recipient of the Saltire Scholarship. Other WWLA students are currently applying to MFA programs and writing fellowships, so we hope to have news next year of their admittance.
Sarah Tomlinson co-wrote Todd Bridges’ memoir, Killing Willis: From Diff’rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted, which comes out next March. When she’s not helping celebrities find le mot juste, Sarah is writing her own fabulous novel and workshopping it in the Advanced Novel Workshop.
In September, Stephanie Eve Halpern gave birth to a beautiful baby boy: Jonah Eli Shultz! A warm congratulations to her and proud new dad, Elan Shultz.
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If you’d like to announce writing-related news, or any other news that might interest your fellow students, please email writingworkshopsla@gmail.com. I’d love to write a follow-up post, as I know I haven’t covered everything…
Happy New Year, and happy writing!
Writing Workshops Los Angeles is proud to introduce a second instructor to its roster: the wonderful and talented Leslie Parry, who will be teaching the 8-week Short Fiction Workshop in early 2010 (details forthcoming).
Ms. Parry holds a BFA from New York University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction. She has taught writing at the University of Iowa, the Iowa Arts Summer Program, Vroman’s Bookstore’s Education Program, and was a featured speaker at the Midwest Literary Festival. Her fiction has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review. She is currently at work on a novel.
Leslie Parry
Here’s what Leslie has to say about the short fiction workshop, and her role as instructor:
In class, we will aim to both liberate and discipline our creative minds. We’ll work to discover and have faith in our unique visions of the world while concurrently addressing the fundamentals of form and technique. The myth of the fickle muse will be abandoned, and in her place we’ll foster curiosity, bravery, and diligence. No style or school of thought is favored above the other; the goal is to cultivate and inspire every writer’s individual voice. Through weekly exercises and rigorous workshops, students will be challenged to be the best writers they can be, no matter where they are on their path.
Stay tuned for course schedule and enrollment details. Email writingworkshopsla@gmail.com to join the mailing list.
I am elated to announce that I won the 2009 James Duval Phelan award! This is a prize offered to a writer born in California, and it’s given by the Intersection for the Arts, and sponsored by the San Francisco Foundation. I will be reading in San Francisco on Monday, November 16th, along with Youmna Chlala and Page McBee, winners of the Joseph Henry Jackson Award and the Mary Tanenbaum Award, respectively.
Check out the announcement here. And look at this(!):
The official award citation for Edan Lepucki’s 2009 James Duval Phelan Award winning fiction manuscript “Days of Insignificance and Evil” states: “But wait. I want to tell you another story, one that happened a few years before this. It must be related.” So says Rosalyn, the fourteen year old narrator in Edan Lepucki’s Days of Insignificance and Evil. In this remarkable and revelatory new novel we find Rosalyn carried along by events beyond her control—parents who abandon her to an older sister’s care, a new home life full of fracture, secret liaisons, and mysterious clues to a violent historical event; the all-female 1904 Los Angeles Iron Foundry Rebellion. As readers we’re carried along by a narrative voice in total control. Lepucki gives us a character that comes across as true and familiar as someone we know very well. Someone willing to share their secrets with us. Like the narrator we are quickly on the hunt to find out more about that past event. Members of the rebellion surprise us by interrupting Rosalyn’s narrative and bringing their flesh and blood voices to the mix. Via that weave of past and present Lepucki makes disparate worlds and time periods cohere in ways the reader never anticipates. Here’s a writer who has the extraordinary ability to make both worlds—and all worlds—true simultaneously. And as we turn each page we know there’s always another story waiting, another twist and turn, a dog leg into the past, a time bomb in the present. Go ahead, we want to say. Tell us another one. Serendipity or coincidence, chance or fate. It must all be related. - 2009 Panel of Judges: Persis M. Karim, Toni Mirosevich, & giovanni singleton.
Fall 2009 courses have already begun, and the next session will start in January of 2010. If you’d like to sign up for the mailing list, please email me at writingworkshopsla@gmail.com.
In the meantime, happy writing! Here is a picture of my muse (and dog), Omar Little:
This fall I’ll be teaching Introduction to Fiction Writing at UCLA Extension. The ten-week class begins Tuesday, October 6th and it will be held at their downtown location. (To all you eastsiders out there, you’re welcome).
The folks at the Writers’ Program were nice enough to put up this little interview with me on their website. Here’s a bit:
Q: In your fall course Introduction to Fiction writers learn the fundamentals of fiction and even begin sharing their work with others. This “workshop” experience can be a bit scary for first time writers. What’s your advice for students who have never allowed anyone to read their work before?
A: The workshop experience can be daunting, but it’s also enormously exhilarating to have people reading and commenting on your work. If you’re new to the workshop format, I would say that it’s okay to feel a little nervous about sharing your writing with others; that nervousness simply signifies how important your writing is to you. In my classes, I try to establish a comfortable and compassionate environment where we can discuss material seriously and constructively. I ask students to find the “dream” of a workshop manuscript–what it wants to be, rather than what it might be currently, as a draft. There’s a real sense of the group helping each other to become better writers. We’re all in it together. I think, too, that people are often surprised by how much fun a writing workshop can be–it’s a wonderful intellectual conversation and exchange of ideas.
Check it out. And sign up for the class!
Check it out, writers. If you’re interested, email me at writingworkshopsla@gmail.com
5-Week Summer 2009 Short Fiction Workshop
Thursdays, 7:30 to 9:30 pm
July 30, 2009 to September 3, 2009 (no class on August 6th)
This course is designed for the experienced writer who already has material to share in a workshop format. For our first class meeting, we will do some writing exercises, discuss published short fiction, and get to know each other as writers and readers. Two weeks later, we will reunite to further discuss craft, and prepare for our student workshops, which will begin the following Thursday and continue until the end of the session. Student manuscripts will be critiqued in an intense yet respectful environment meant to challenge and inspire every member of class. Each student will have the opportunity to workshop one short story manuscript. The class will take place in the instructor’s Los Feliz home.
This course is similar to my regular short fiction workshops except that it’s on an accelerated schedule. This means we will begin our workshops after two meetings, rather than four, and there will be fewer students so that we have only three weeks of workshops, rather than four.
Enrollment limit: 6 students
Class Fee: $230 for new students; $200 for returning students (A great opportunity to take a W.W.L.A. course at a lower rate!)
Long time Writing Workshops Los Angeles student Caroline Donahue has done a podcast interview with me about writing and teaching writing. Caroline is the mastermind behind Remabulous Coaching, a business designed to help people follow their creaive dreams. If you’ve ever been in a class with Caroline, you know she’s smart, funny, compassionate, and dedicated to writing and leading a life of joy and making art. (I also know she has helped a client finish and publish a book!)
To listen to the podcast go here.
This podcast also serves as a sort of introduction to a teleseminar on Tuesday, 4/14 at noon (Pacific time), where I will be the guest. The teleseminar is the preview of a teleseminar series Caroline will be leading, called The Road Not Taken. On Tuesday we will be speaking about the writing life, how to get started on a writing project, and so on. Basically, you get on a conference call, listen to Caroline and I talk about these issues, and then you are free to ask questions and interact–all over the phone.
To join us on this free preview call for the Reclaiming the Road Not Taken teleseminar series, RSVP to teleseminar@remabulous.com.