Master Classes

For adult writers of all ages, Telling Room Master Classes are taught by accomplished writers and artists who, as experts in their fields, will part the curtain for a night or a series of nights to demonstrate how they approach the craft of writing and storytelling. As the community of writers, artists, teachers, readers, and creative folks that helps support The Telling Room grows, we've developed these classes to engage that community directly. Whether you are an aspiring writer, someone who is enamored with the work of one of our Master Class instructors, or a professional writer, artist, or teacher looking for new insights into your work, these classes should leave you feeling inspired and invigorated.

Summer/Fall 2010 Schedule:

What Are You Waiting For? A Writing Kit from Monica Wood
Monday, September 20th, 6-9 pm

For this first master class, novelist Monica Wood will offer a “fiction-writing kit”: eight components that will keep you writing into the foreseeable future. In this lively three-hour workshop you’ll collect lots of ideas, a few nifty techniques, and a renewed motivation. You’ll work both individually and in small groups, and everyone who wants to will have a chance to read work aloud. Bring a sense of adventure, pen-and-paper or laptop—and your heart and soul.

Monica Wood is a fiction writer whose most recent novel, Any Bitter Thing, was an ABA bestseller. Her other fiction titles are Ernie's Ark, My Only Story, and Secret Language. She has three books for aspiring writers: The Pocket Muse (vols 1 and 2) and Description, a fiction-writing manual. She lives in Portland.

What I Write About When I Write About Place
Instructor: Susan Conley
Thursday, October 28th, 6-9 pm

This is a creative nonfiction workshop that excavates locales. What gets distilled or magnified when you write about certain places ? The journeying in class will be about the details: the people you meet, the visceral connections, the trunk of memories. In the workshop we will write following a set of fun, innovative prompts and work towards getting a piece of writing ready for publication.

Susan Conley is a co-founder of The Telling Room. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines including The Paris Review, The Harvard Review, Ploughshares and The North American Review. In the past she taught at Emerson College and then later at Harvard's Teachers as Scholars Program. She has received two MacDowell Colony fellowships for her work as well as a Bread Loaf fellowship and a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship. Her memoir, The Foremost Good Fortune, is forthcoming from Knopf in February 2011. Her recent article, "The China Flu Blues," was published in The New York Times Magazine.

In Cold Ink: Penning the Ultimate Thriller
Instructor: Alex Irvine
November 1st and 8th, 6-9 pm

We all know what we love about thrillers--the pace, the nonstop twists and turns of plot, the shocking revelations! But how do you create a thrilling story that is more than a bunch of events strung one after the other? The best thrillers aren't all car chases and occult conspiracies. They put an individual in conflict with the institutions that surround him (or, more and more often, her). That's going to be the key to our understanding of thriller and how to write them. In the first class, we'll take some outstanding examples of thrillers and figure out what makes them tick; in the second, students will bring in proposals and we'll work through them to make them more--thrilling!

Alex Irvine's most recent novels are Buyout, The Narrows, and Transformers: Exodus. He also is the author of nonfiction books including The Vertigo Encyclopedia and John Winchester's Journal, as well as comic series Daredevil Noir and Hellstorm, Son of Satan: Equinox. His short fiction is collected in Unintended Consequences and Pictures from an Expedition. He teaches at The University of Maine - Orono.

To register, or for more information, please call us at 207.774.6064 or send us an email, telling us which Masters Class interests you. Master Classes carry a $50 fee, $35 for our regular volunteers, except those marked with an "*". Unless otherwise noted, classes are held at our Writing Center at 225 Commercial Street, Suite 201, Portland. Click here for complete directions. Thanks!

Master Classes

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