2008 BOOKMARKS WORKSHOPS

Amy Knox Brown / “Possibilities and Pitfalls of the Short-short Story”

Join award-winning writer Amy Knox Brown for a discussion on the possibilities and pitfalls of the short-short story, those little morsels of literature running from 250 to 1500 words.

Amy Knox Brown received a Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska, as well as a J.D. from Nebraska’s College of Law and an M.F.A. from North Carolina State University. She is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and English at Salem College. She is the author of a short story collection, Three Versions of the Truth, and a poetry chapbook, Advice from Household Gods, which is forthcoming in September 2008. Brown’s fiction and poetry has appeared in Shenandoah, Missouri Review, Nebraska Review, Other Voices, and other literary magazines, as well as anthologies published by William Morrow, University of Wisconsin Press, and Backwaters Press. 

Quinn Dalton / "Jumpstart Your Writing Practice"

This workshop, open to all levels of writers, will focus on strategies for overcoming common writing challenges, such as making time for writing, setting realistic goals, developing ideas, getting started on new projects, getting “unstuck”? and building a support network. In-class exercises will jumpstart your creative impulse when you feel you just don’t know what to write. You”ll leave refreshed — and with a list of writing goals, exercises and resources in hand.

Quinn Dalton is the author of a new story collection, Stories from the Afterlife, published by Winston-Salem publisher Press 53, one novel, High Strung, and a previous collection of stories, Bulletproof Girl. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in dozens of literary magazines and anthologies, including One Story, Glimmer Train, Verb, StoryQuarterly, Indiana Review, The Baltimore Review, ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), and The Kenyon Review. Her story "Back on Earth" was awarded the 2002 Fiction Prize from Pearl magazine. “The Music You Never Hear,” published first by One Story, appears in New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2006.

Nathan Ross Freeman / “CHARACTERIZATION: Exploring Layers of Self: Film, Theatre, Spoken Word”

In writing fiction, nonfiction for scripts for stage and film, biographies, memoirs, journals, and poetry, you conjure personae, characters of self, who long to actualize. These personae ultimately achieve a breathing life on paper, stage and film.  The written characters must, therefore, be potent to behave: present authentic voices, grow into breathing icons and demonstrate lifestyles constituent to the reader and audience; a constituency who will experience from page to page or  stage and screen a view of themselves.    Each character you create is a conjured voice and persona reared in the 'dream consciousness,' experiential and enacted life.  For even the historic or biographical manuscript each character is born either to, from, or, through your layered self -  exhuming and healing exercise.   Script writer, fiction writer, educator, Nathan Ross Freeman, discusses characterization transcendent to the literary instrument.  He will share the extended benefit of the search and revelation of self, necessary to compose human interactions predisposed to live on page, on stage, on screen.

Nathan Ross Freeman, the Visiting Writer at Salem College from 2008-2009, is the creator of Author Through The Senses: an intensive creative writing and spoken word impact communications curriculum: writing, adapting narratives and poetry into Audio Visual Spoken Word Mediums.  Award Winning Script Writer, Filmmaker, Creative Writing & Spoken Word Educator, Mr. Freeman, is the Founder Montage Showcase Ensemble, Assegai Film Group, Winston-Salem Youth Arts Institute, Pen & Voice, LLC.  Mr. Freeman is former Co-Founder and Editor of  the Piedmont Pedlar, a monthly literary sampler;  former Associate Editor of the Crescent Review literary magazine and member of the NC Humanities Speakers Bureau. 

Joyce and Jim Lavene / "First Impressions: The Little Things that Lead to Success as a Writer"

There are a hundred different things that make the difference between
being a published author and a wanna-be published author. Many of these
things have nothing to do with the quality of your writing and everything to do with knowing the ins and outs of working with editors and agents. The small things that lie between being a writer and being an author can be pitfalls or bridges you can learn to build across the differences that add up to success.

Bestselling authors and award-winning photojournalists, Joyce and Jim Lavene, are a husband and wife team who started out writing novels in 1999 and have had more than 40 books published. They also wrote a book about writing (THE EVERYTHING GUIDE TO WRITING A NOVEL) as well as hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. Somewhere along the way, they decided to write mysteries and since then, they have been hooked on that genre. They currently write four mystery series and work for a small newspaper in Stanly County, North Carolina.

Ed Southern / “THE WRITER/AUTHOR DIVIDE: The Basics of Marketing Your Book and Yourself”

Anyone can be a writer: all you have to do is write.

To be an author, though, you have to have your writing published, which means having your work – and yourself – laid before the public.

Most writers have to be introspective, thoughtful, and comfortable with the solitude that the act of writing requires.

Authors have to be engaging, even charismatic, and comfortable with the crowds that (you hope) will want to hear you read from and discuss your writing.

How does one person handle both jobs?

Ed Southern became the Executive Director of the North Carolina Writers’ Network in January, after more than 8 years with John F. Blair, Publisher, the last two as vice president of sales & marketing.  He was a co-author of the first two editions of Travel North Carolina, and is the editor of the 2004 book The Jamestown Adventure.  He has three books coming out in 2009: a collection of first-hand accounts of the American Revolution in the Carolinas, an anthology of essays about sports in the Carolinas, and his first work of fiction, Parlous Angels.