Fall 2009 Classes and Workshops
Archive of Workshops and Classes held in the Fall of 2009

Three Week Workshop with Sue Wheeler
Straight Up: Writing Workshop
Saturdays, Sept 12, 26, and Oct 3, 9 a.m. to Noon
Members $150; Nonmembers $200

Four Week Class with mystery writer Tom Eslick
Workshopping the Modern Whodunnit
Wednesdays, September 16 to October 7, 7 to 9 p.m.
Members $175; Nonmembers $225

One Day Workshop with Walter E. Butts, NH Poet Laureate
The Private Made Public
WEBSTER HALL, ROOM 110, Saturday, September 26, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Members $125; Nonmembers $165

One Day Flash Fiction Workshop with Carla Gericke
How to Write Flash Fiction
The Writer's Center in White River Junction, VT, Saturday, Oct 3, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Members $125; Nonmembers $165

Four Week Workshop with M.F. Bloxam
The Stagecraft of Dialogue
ROBERT FROST, ROOM 104 and WEBSTER HALL, ROOM 110, Thursday, October 8 to October 29, 7 to 9 p.m.
Members $175; Nonmembers $225

Workshop with best-selling author Ann Hood
The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth?
WEBSTER HALL, ROOM 110, Sunday, October 25, 3 to 6 p.m.
Members $65; Nonmembers $80

And don't miss our lineup on November 14, 2009, prior to the NH Literary Awards ceremony hosted by NHPR's Virginia Prescott. Take classes with Harvard's Director of Creative Writing Bret Anthony Johnston, NHPR's Elaine Appleton Grant, and attorney Paul Durham. Stay tuned for more details!

Straight Up: Writing Workshop for Fiction, Nonfiction, and Creative Nonfiction
Sue Wheeler

This may be the course for you if:

* You’ve written sporadically & now want to dig in & take your writing seriously.
* You want to hone your writing skills and learn more tricks of the writing craft.
* You want the stimulation and the supportive, constructive feedback from a group of like-minded souls.

In this class we will first point out your strengths. New writers often don’t know them. For possible problem areas, we’ll all brainstorm solutions. Come to our first meeting with eleven copies of up to ten pages of your own writing, typed and double spaced. Come with the intention of helping every other writer to improve. Class limit 10. All levels welcome; beginners encouraged.

Sue Wheeler has taught fiction, creative nonfiction, and first year English at UNH. Her short stories have appeared in The North American Review, Bradford Review, Willow Springs, and other literary magazines. She has published newspaper feature articles and written for radio and television. With Rebecca Rule, she published True Stories: Guides to Writing From Your Life and a book on fiction writing, Creating the Story, published by Heinemann. Currently Sue is an editor and teaches writing workshops at the Dover Adult Learning Center.

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Workshopping the Modern Whodunnit
Tom Eslick

Those wily participants of the first Whodunnit course offered in June 2009 have expressed interest in continuing to develop skills and explore further the nuances of crafting a successful modern mystery. So, here’s the deal. Whodunnit is, of course, open to those who took the original class, but new recruits who have been working on a manuscript and would like group feedback are also encouraged to attend. The only prerequisite is that you have written something, preferably an opening chapter, and are ready to workshop it. While there will be some instruction, the focus will be on what you produce. Emphasis will be placed on the importance of strong opening chapters with discussion of errors writers make that are an immediate turn off for editors and agents. All levels welcome.

Tom Eslick is the author of Tracked in the Whites, Snow Kill, Deadly Kin, and Mountain Peril. He has taught English for more than forty years on both the college and secondary levels. He has given lectures, led workshops and participated in numerous panel discussions through libraries, and organizations such as Seacoast Writers, Monadnock Writers, and Bouchercon, the worldwide mystery convention. In addition to being an enthusiastic supporter of NHWP, he is also a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and The Authors' Guild.

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The Private Made Public: Writing Beyond the Self
Walter E. Butts

In this poetry workshop we will discuss how the compilation of seemingly disparate events and experiences embedded in our memory might culminate in a poem of discovery and surprise, for both reader and writer. We’ll look at several examples of the use of persona, metaphor, symbolism, and discursiveness that take the poem beyond personal statement, and lead to a more inclusive relevance and evocative implication. Through writing exercises, we will experiment with association, juxtaposition, and line breaks as strategies to extend the poem. Participants should expect to leave the workshop session with a poem in progress. All levels welcome.

Walter E. Butts is Poet Laureate of New Hampshire. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Sunday Evening at the Stardust Café, winner of the 2006 Iowa Source Poetry Book Prize. His most recent chapbooks are What to Say if the Birds Ask (Pudding House Publications, 2007) and Sunday Factory (Finishing Line Press, 2006). The recipient of two Pushcart Prize nominations, his poems appear frequently in such literary journals as Berkeley Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Mid-American Review, and Poetry East, as well as several anthologies. He teaches in the low-residency BFA in Creative Writing Program at Goddard College.

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How to Flash: Writing a Story in 500 Words or Less
Carla Gericke

Think you can write a story in under 500 words? How about six? From Hemingway’s classic six liner, “For sale: Baby shoes, never used,” to Aesop’s Fables, flash fiction practitioners include Chekhov, O. Henry, Kafka, and Lydia Davis. When you “flash,” you are forced to write with flair and care. Whether you are writing poetry, blogging, or working on longer works, flash fiction can improve your prose. We will explore the genre in depth, including potential publishing markets. We will study award-winning flash fiction, do in-class exercises, and participate in a group critique session. The focus of the class is on improving your craft and generating new material. All levels welcome.

Psst! If you are planning to be a contestant at Literary Idol during the Upper Valley Literary Festival on October 16, this is a great class to hone your three-minute submission.

Carla Gericke was born in South Africa, raised in a diplomatic family, and has lived and traveled all over the world. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from City College of New York, where she also taught. Before turning to writing, she practiced law in South Africa and California. Carla was a 2007 scholarship recipient from A Room of Her Own Foundation. The first writing contest she ever won was for her flash fiction piece The Mighty Zuluman, and her flash Duck, Duck, Goose was named one of Wigleaf's Top 200 Online Short-Shorts for 2008. Her work has appeared in anthologies, literary journals, and online. Carla is the program manager at the New Hampshire Writers' Project. 

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The Stagecraft of Dialogue
M.F. Bloxam

Dialogue-heavy passages can be powerful workhorses in your fiction, generating tension, muscular prose, and vivid scenes—or they can be limp exchanges of talk. In this workshop we’ll learn how to use the playwright’s tools to build layers of meaning into dialogue: we’ll explore using setting to convey a scene’s import, and we’ll focus on weaving action and character “business”—handling of objects and subtleties of behavior—into dialogue to telegraph meaning. There will be in-class exercises and readings, and we’ll workshop our own writing. Bring your inner ham! All levels welcome.

M.F. Bloxam has taught English to college students and American servicemen and women overseas. She is the author of prize-winning short fiction and creative nonfiction, and is a recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship grant from the NH State Council on the Arts. Her novel The Night Battles is a Finalist for the 2009 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award. Says Nashua Telegraph columnist Rebecca Rule: "Remember the name M.F. Bloxam – she's a rising star."

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The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth?
Ann Hood

Eudora Welty said: "All fiction is a lie." But is she right about that? How do we decide whether to tell our stories in fiction or nonfiction? And what exactly is the difference? Using in-class exercises and examples from literature, this workshop will examine the props we use in writing both--character, setting, plot--and how to look beyond them to find a universal emotional truth in our writing, no matter what the genre. Join bestseller Ann Hood and learn ways to take your own emotional truths beyond the personal and make them resonate with your reader. All levels welcome.

Ann Hood is the author of ten books, including most recently the bestselling novel The Knitting Circle, and the memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, which was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and was chosen as one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly. Her short stories and essays have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, Bon Appetit, Traveler, Food and Wine, More, Tin House, Glimmertrain and The Paris Review. She has won a Best Spiritual Writing Award and two Pushcart Prizes.

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