Posts filed under 'Events Around Texas'
Winter Writing Practice Retreat
Relax and Prepare for the New Year with Saundra Goldman
Saundra Goldman
at Austin’s Casa de Luz
1701 Toomey Rd
$109 WLT members / $169 nonmembers
(Advanced reservations must be made through the Writers’ League.)
This winter’s retreat will help you set the tone for the season with a day of writing practice and meditation. While the media tells us to shop, party and overeat, the Earth gives us a different message, that it is time to withdraw, to go under. May Sarton wrote that, “Winter is the season when both animals and humans strip down to the marrow.”
Topics and exercises at the retreat are designed to help you go deep inside yourself, to strip to the marrow, and get grounded for the weeks and months ahead.
A macrobiotic lunch is included in the registration price. We will be breaking for lunch, so students also have the option to leave campus and purchase food during that time.
Open to all levels of writers.
Who Should Attend?
- Anyone interested in starting a writing practice
- Writers who want to deepen their writing experience
- Students of past “Build a Writing Practice” classes
Writer and art historian Dr. Saundra Goldman brings years of experience in writing practice, including intensive study with Natalie Goldberg. Her short stories, essays, and reviews have been published in literary journals, museum catalogs, textbooks, anthologies, and professional journals, including Art News, New Art Examiner, Art Papers, Theater and Drama Review, and the Texas Observer. She also served as art critic to the Austin American-Statesman and the Austin Chronicle. She is currently writing a book about the feminist performance artist and sculptor Hannah Wilke.
Interested? Register here.
Add comment November 24, 2009
Our WLT Holiday & Raffle Party!
You’re Invited!
5:30 – 8:30 PM Thursday, December 3, 2009Nuevo Leon Restaurant
1501 East 6th Street, Austin, TX 78702
Come celebrate the holidays with us and fellow Writers’ League members! We’ll enjoy complimentary appetizers and the cash bar at Nuevo Leon Restaurant, and then we’ll raffle a few writer-worthy prizes.
The price of entry is one raffle ticket ($5 each or $20 for 5 tickets) either purchased at the door or contact the Writers’ League to purchase tickets prior to the event. You do not need to be present at the party to receive the raffle prizes. The only prize you must be present to win is the WLT Agents’ Conference registration. Please contact us if you have any questions about the event!
RAFFLE PRIZES INCLUDE:
- One free registration for the 2010 WLT Agents Conference (must be present to win)
- One free session with an agent at the 2010 WLT Agents Conference OR $50 towards any WLT class
- Two hour Social Media consultation (courtesy Nettie Hartsock)
- Dinner for 6 with Angela Shelf Medearis (courtesy Frances Townsend)
- Italian dinner with H. W. Brands (courtesy Louis Brusatti)
- Two hours of editing (courtesy Sheila Allee)
- $50 Gift Certificate from BookPeople
- A two-hour publicity consultation with Jennifer Hill Robenalt of Hoopla Media
For more information, visit our website.
Add comment November 19, 2009
WLT Supports All Members Participating in NaNoWriMo
November is National Novel Writing Month!
The goal is to write 50,000 words by the end of November. (Learn more about this fun and painstaking goal at the NaNoWriMo website!)
Wrimos are almost two weeks into their novels by this point. We know it can get stressful. Maybe it’s starting to feel like the end is nowhere near? Well, we believe in our Wrimos! The goal may seem unattainable, but it is perfectly attainable.
The WLT is hosting NaNoWriMo related events all throughout the month. Feel more than free to stop by our office, meet other Wrimos, and write non stop!
NaNoWriMo
Friday the 13th Lockdown
Come join fellow Wrimos for a “killer” all-nighter on November 13 from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. here at the WLT offices. We’ll also snack, socialize a little, and play a game or two. The 12-hour lockdown is a great way to boost your word count.
Please:
- Be a registered NaNoWriMo participant
- Be actively working on a novel
- Be 18 or older – this is required by the Writers League insurance company
- Plan to stay the whole twelve hours – that’s why it’s called a lockdown!
- RSVP to receive the secret password.
Space is limited.
RSVP is first-come, first-served. Once we’re full, we’re full. After that, we’ll start a waiting list. If you RSVP and then can’t make it, please let us know so someone else can take your place. Please don’t show up without the password!
What you’ll need to bring/do:
- Bring potluck snacks to share during the long, long night
- Wear comfortable clothes, and bring a sweater in case it gets chilly
- If you think you’ll need a nap, bring a pillow/blankie
- Bring headphones – please make sure the sound doesn’t bleed through
- Arrive by 7 pm if possible. We’ll post the phone number at the door for emergency late arrivals.
No drugs or alcohol allowed.
What we’ll provide:
- Liquids – sodas, water, tea, and coffee, ice (there is also a soda machine in the building)
- Extension cords and surge protectors (though it wouldn’t hurt to bring one if you have it)
- Tables, chairs, and one small couch
- Access to the internet for folks who just can’t write without it
- Access to the Writers’ League library
Last Chance Write-In
November 30 from 9 a.m. to midnight. Use your final writing hours wisely by spending them at our WLT offices.
Additional NaNoWriMo Support
If you are a WLT member who receives the official NaNoWriMo Certificate of Completion, the WLT will give you 50% off of the submission fee for WLT manuscript contest.
Best wishes to our Wrimos!
Add comment November 10, 2009
WLT at the Texas Book Festival
The Writers’ League of Texas will be at the Texas Book Festival this weekend. We will be located at booths 122 & 123 in the exhibits tent on Colorado between 12th and 13th streets.
Four Reasons Why You Should Stop by the WLT Booth:
1) Consider this an opportunity to meet and mingle with other literati-lovers in Texas. We know we’d love to meet you. Stop by and say hi!
2) This serves as a nice time for you to meet our new staff: Publicity and Programming Manager Jan Baumer, Office Manager Bethany Hegedus, and Bookkeeper Kate Meehan. We’re delighted to have these intelligent ladies working with us. Come welcome them!
3) We’re lucky to have WLT members who will be in our booth signing their books, click here to learn more about the member book signings. Come get your book signed!
4) We’ll be announcing the 2009 Book Awards winners! The ceremony will take place 3:30 Saturday in Room E.026 at the State Capital Extension. Come honor the winners and finalists!
Add comment October 29, 2009
Master Class: Character in Fiction and Nonfiction
Successful Characterization with Tracy Daugherty
- Tracy Daugherty
1 – 5 p.m. Friday, October 30
at the Writers’ League office
611 S. Congress Ave., Suite 130$99 members / $159 nonmembers
One way to think about successful characterization in either fiction or nonfiction is to say that characters work best when they match the narrative situation. That is, in the short-hand that is literary craft, everything they do illustrates their core qualities and values. Within the narrative parameters you have established, everything about the character’s nature is clear to the reader.
Instructor and acclaimed author Tracy Daugherty will help explore strategies for creating successful characters in a narrative, whether it is fiction or nonfiction. Together the class will write and share work and ideas, and the instructor will provide published examples of characterization. The class will be in a lecture/discussion format.
Students will learn:
- a firm concept of characterization
- a sense of effective dialogue in fiction and nonfiction
- an understanding of tone, as it relates to characterization
- strategies for developing narrative situations that effectively illustrate character
- an understanding of how to build story from character, rather than the other way around
Interested? Register here.
Add comment October 27, 2009
The Writers’ League of Texas 2009 Bookish Brunch
Reservations extended until Wednesday, October 28th!
The Bookish Brunch
Honoring:
Texas Book Festival Authors
Click on their image and read the author’s bio.
Also honoring the 2009 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award Winners
9 to 10:30 am, Sunday, November 1
At the home of Frances Townsend & Ted Gilman in Austin
$40 WLT members/$50 nonmembers
Proceeds benefit the Writers’ League of Texas
For more information, please visit our Bookish Brunch page.
Add comment October 2, 2009
O. Henry Museum inaugural Short Story Master Class
Amanda Eyre Ward, author of Love Stories in This Town, will teach the inaugural Short Story Master Class at the O. Henry Museum, in Austin, Saturday, October 3rd and Saturday, October 17th. Students will leave the two-part class with a finished story that will be judged by a Texas Book Festival author for the chance to be acknowledged at the festival and published on the O. Henry Museum website. More information can be found by going here: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/ohenry/programs.htm.
Add comment August 26, 2009
Natalie Goldberg Book Signing
Natalie Goldberg Book Signing
Congregation Beth Israel
Wednesday, April 1, 2009, 7 p.m.
Best selling author Natalie Goldberg shares her wisdom on writing and
life in her latest book, Old Friend From Faraway: The Practice of
Writing Memoir.
Goldberg’s ground-breaking book, Writing Down The Bones: Freeing The
Writer Within (1986), cracked open the world of creativity and started
a revolution in the way writing is practiced in America. The book has
sold over one million copies and been translated into fourteen
languages. Since then she has written nine other books, including the
novel Banana Rose.
For more information, call Jennifer Smith, 454-6806.
Add comment March 25, 2009
Attention, Screenwriters!
Screenwriters won’t want to miss a free event in Austin on February 17: “Hollywood vs. New York: Three Writers’ Perspectives,” with Shauna Cross, Owen Egerton, and Stephen Harrigan.
The event is presented by the Future Forum and the Texas Book Festival. For details and information on reservations, here’s a link.
Add comment February 13, 2009
