Workshops
Creativity Workshop
Intermediate Level meets privately each month.
Critiquing of writing projects
Beginners: Eight-week and on-going courses
Writing Crash Course
Three hour class designed to jump start new or stuck writers
Two day weekend workshop that introduces the basic elements of writing
Reading Like a Writer
Three hour class that explores how published writers of short and long fiction employ different techniques to various effects
Eight-week class (in depth analysis of literary techniques)
Memoir Workshop
On-going exploration of how to turn memories into entertaining reading. Includes manuscript critiquing
Please contact me if you're interested in participating in any of these workshops.
Where have I taught? Grub Street Writer's Center; Libraries; Elementary, Middle and High Schools (Riverdale, Dedham Country Day, Milton Academy); Retirement Homes; Community Centers; privately.
Here's me with the possible
future Prime Minister of England
(I'm the one with the stylin' tie)
Brasenose College Photo, Oxford
Uh, I'm in here somewhere...
USING LITERATURE TO TEACH WRITING TECHNIQUES: CHARACTERIZATION
Notice how these first introductions of characters are influenced by the voice, or perspective, of the narrator
1. As strong as she was physically, most of the power was in her eyes, small and blue, and when she squinted, and she would squint with a murderous intensity that meant, unmistakably, that, if pushed, she would deliver on her stare's implied threat, that to protect what she cared about, she would not stop, that she would run right over you. But she wore her strength casually, had a trusting carelessness with her flesh and muscles. She would cut herself while slicing vegetables, cut the living shit out of her finger, usually her thumb, and it would bleed everywhere, on the tomatoes, the cutting board in the sink, while we watched at her waist, awed, scared she would die.
Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
2. By the time he turned twenty, Ray Dwyer looked like a movie gangster's bodyguard, and was either feared or adored by everyone who knew him. He drove trucks on the local route for Tamco, one of the many quarries in South Joliet, and when he wasn't working, Ray Dwyer liked to dress up in nice shorts and slacks from Baskin's on Roosevelt Avenue and take pretty girls to elegant dinners and shows. There was never any shortage of girls who wanted to accompany Ray Dwyer, for not only was he naturally muscular with green eyes and handsome black hair he combed slick with Royal Crown hairdress, but he was always a perfect gentleman who didn't force or even expect anything beyond a kiss at the end of the date, no matter how much he'd spent on the evening.
Patrick Michael Flynn, Where Beautiful Ladies Dance for You
3. I thought, watching Jimmy go up to the bar, about him saying he felt old. When he was so slender and vivid! Had I ever really tried to understand the ways in which a gay man's aging might hurt him differently from my own? The boy in fake Prada at the counter was laughing up at him. Everyone liked Jim because he had an open face and a quaff of straw-colored hair, just like Tintin's. Of course, he didn't want to look like Tintin – he wanted to look like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.
I think you are looking a bit Dean-ish this evening, I said to him when we were settled. Those narrow, hot eyes, you know? Eyelids bruised from nights of excess?
Jet lag, he said.
Nuala O'Faolain, My Dream of You
4. They were dressed for services, he in ill-fitting dark suit and she in a pale-green gingham dress and white shoes. Her new Easter outfit. But her dress hung below the wool coat that she had outgrown and that would need to be replaced next winter. Weaver guessed she was about seven or eight. The color of her hair and the geometry of her jaw – she was without a doubt her mother's daughter. But her father's as well. She wore the same unguarded, ready-to-smile expression as the tall, wide-shouldered man at her side.
Larry Watson, Orchard