Posts filed under 'Writing'
MARY Magazine’s Call for Submissions
MARY Magazine is in search of great work to publish! They’re sending out a last-minute call for poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and art for their Winter Issue. Writers selected for standard publication are awarded $50. The NouVeau section, which is dedicated to unpublished, emerging writers, are not paid.
Deadline: December 1
There is no fee to submit.
MARY Magazine is the online arts journal sponsored by Saint Mary’s College of California’s MFA in Creative Writing program. Since 2002, MARY has published contemporary poetry, prose, and new media arts from a diverse group of established artists and talented emerging writers. MARY Magazine has conducted interviews with award-winning writers.
Student-run, MARY Magazine grants MFA candidates the opportunity to work on all aspects of a small-press literary journal, while publishing some of the Bay Area’s most prestigious writers and writing.
When you’re ready to submit, email MARY your work.
Interested? Check out their site.
Add comment November 19, 2009
Writing the Successful Synopsis and Query Letter (or Selling Your Book Without Selling Out)
John Pipkin presents how to create a successful pitch!
John Pipkin
at the Writers League Office
611 S. Congress Ave. Suite 130
$99 WLT members / $159 nonmembers
This two-part class is designed to teach you how to write a concise, interesting, one-page synopsis of your novel or nonfiction book and how to compose a pitch-perfect query letter that will attract the attention of an agent. Whether you are just starting to write your book or have already finished writing, this class will help you see how the synopsis and query can not only help you sell your manuscript but can also help you develop and polish your work.
The class format will be primarily lecture with some in-class writing assignments and opportunities for class discussion and Q&A. Students will not be required to share work or critique work in class, although students are always welcome to share portions of their synopsis and query if they wish to do so.
By the end of class, each student will walk away with the following:
- a completed a synopsis
- a completed query letter
- a written critique from the instructor of their synopsis and query
- an understanding of what agents are looking for in the synopsis and query
- insights into how the synopsis and query can help you develop, edit, and polish your manuscript
- a written critique from the instructor to help him/her polish the synopsis and query
John Pipkin’s first novel, Woodsburner, was published to national acclaim by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday in April 2009 and recently sold his second novel to Doubleday based on just a query and synopsis. Woodsburner very recently won the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize! John received his Ph.D. in British Literature from Rice University in 1997 and was an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Rhetoric at Boston University, before working as an editor and content specialist in educational publishing. He is the former Executive Director of the Writers’ League of Texas.
This class is already very full, so please contact the office before registering. Or you can risk it and go ahead to register here. If the class reaches its limit, we will notify the registered students about potential cancellations.
Add comment November 12, 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
Book in a Month: Novel Writing Tool Kit
Novel Writing Online Class with Kit Frazier
Kit Frazier
Self study, online course
starts Oct. 26 – Nov. 30, 2009
$149 WLT members / $209 nonmembers
Kit Frazier
Just in time for National Novel Writing Month! Whether you’re thinking about writing a novel or mired in the middle of your work in progress, this is the class for you. The intensive course of study reviews Christopher Vogler’s The Hero’s Journey’s three-act structure and Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation, and Conflict: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction, and breaks these concepts down into a manageable, 30-day writing regimen, with particular emphasis on those all-important first five pages and middle-of-the-story conflict.
The Book in a Month Tool Kit includes:
- PowerPoint Videos of Class Instruction
- Personal Goal Tracker Calendar
- Character Worksheets
- Character Goal, Motivation & Conflict Sheets
- Story Board Worksheets
- Time Tracker Worksheets
Add comment October 22, 2009
The Craft of Writing
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Kathleen Allen-Weber
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Ann McCutchan
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- Kathleen Allen-Weber
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- Ann McCutchan
Choosing the Writing Life: Art and Practice with Kathleen Allen-Weber & Ann McCutchan
Saturday, September 12, 10a.m. – 5p.m.
Whether you are thinking about becoming a writer or living the writer’s life but desperate for a booster shot, this six-hour intensive workshop offers the ideas, tools and inspiration for turning desire into flow, and flow into finished manuscripts. Team-taught by essayist, journalist and three-book author Ann McCutchan, a professor of creative writing at the University of North Texas, and licensed therapist and writer Kathleen Allen-Weber, Ph.D., “Choosing the Writing Life” addresses the three critical components of the writer’s way: awareness, commitment, and practice.
Topics include:
Don’t miss out on this workshop. To register for, click here!
Add comment September 4, 2009
Summer Writing Retreat Submission: John Doherty
Koen's Class at the Summer Writing Retreat
John Doherty has been writing fiction off and on since he was a kid (lately more “off” than “on,” unfortunately). John attended Karleen Koen’s Something Novel workshop at the 2009 Summer Writing Retreat in Alpine. This character sketch is based on a rather curmudgeonly fellow John spotted while having dinner one evening at the Gulf Station Café in Alpine. John lives in Austin with his wife and two young children. He can be reached by email at dohertyjt@me.com or through twitter @jtdoherty.
Character Sketch-Doherty
by John Doherty
In 1953, when Vernon Hicks was 11 years old, he’d been out a bird hunt in southern Kansas with his daddy and younger brother, Will. All of seven years old, it was Will’s first hunt and his daddy intended to make sure the boy knew how to properly carry and fire a shotgun.
On the second day of the hunt and with dusk quickly approaching, Vernon caught site of a mess of birds lighting in the trees on the far side of the tank. Vernon raised his shotgun and let go with a blast of buckshot toward the top of the tree line. This did nothing more than send the birds flying across the tank, shotguns flinging into the air to try and get ahead of them. Unskilled as he was, and in the excitement of potentially getting the first dove of his young life, Will swung his shotgun rapidly to the left and fired. The shotgun blast never made it more than a few feet, hitting Will’s daddy in the neck and killing him instantly.
Will and Vernon had stayed there near that tank with their daddy, sobbing over his dead body for hours, their clothes turning from shades of olive and beige to blackish crimson. Vernon couldn’t bring himself to say anything at all to his younger brother, his heart (more…)
Add comment September 4, 2009
Opinionated: The Art and Craft of Op-Ed Commentary
9am – 1pm, Saturday, March 14
A Master Class with Journalist, Evelyn C. White
Writers’ League of Texas, 611 S. Congress Ave., Suite 130, Austin
Commentary is a perfect microcosm for exploring nonfiction writing. Journalist, Evelyn C. White, will lead students in producing a 600- to 700-word op-ed that can be submitted to newspapers following the class. Students are encouraged to bring an idea and a self-addressed, stamped envelope addressed to a newspaper. $99 WLT members; $159 nonmembers.
Don’t miss Evelyn’s other Austin appearances:
- International Women’s Day Lecture at UT, 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 11, Main Building, Room 212 (free)
- Talk on Alice Walker’s life and impact and book signing at BookWoman at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 15
Add comment March 9, 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
Good Query Letters
Chuck Sambuchino, the editor of The Guide to Literary Agents,
offers tips on sites with samples of good query letters. Here’s an excerpt:
- Query Shark. This site is devoted entirely to evaluating queries. they come in, and agent Janet Reid tears apart the bad ones and tells you why they’re bad. The good thing here is that you get a lot of examples. The bad thing here is that most of them are not up to snuff, according to the Shark; however, she does praise some of them.
- Agent Nathan Bransford’s Anatomy of a Query Letter Part I, then don’t forget about Part II.
- BookEnds Literary is starting to post some of their successful query letters online. See the first one here. [Note: Oddly enough, this refers to our WLT friend Karen MacInerney's query letter!]
Chuck, who appeared at the 2008 WLT Agents & Editors Conference, is a great observer of the publishing industry, and his blog is worth bookmarking. Check it out.
Add comment February 12, 2009
2009 Manuscript Contest
Deadline: March 6, 2009
The Writers’ League of Texas is now accepting entries for its annual manuscript contest for unpublished fiction, creative nonfiction, children’s, and young adult books.
Prize: The winner in each category meets individually with an agent or editor during the annual Writers’ League of Texas Agents & Editors Conference.
For guidelines and more information, view the 2009 Manuscript Contest brochure (pdf format).
Add comment February 9, 2009
