SDWG members, submit a free listing on our bulletin board for a reading, workshop, or service you’re offering
REQUESTS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Missed an online SDWG event? Check out our YouTube channel for workshop and event recordings.
Perk for SDWG Members! Straw Dog Writers Guild is now an affiliate of Bookshop.org. If you are a current SDWG member and you have published a book, we can include your book on our members list on our Bookshop.org profile. Important instructions for inclusion: To be included, first, check to see if your book is available at: https://bookshop.org/ THEN, if it is, send your name and book title to admin@strawdogwriters.org. This platform will give greater exposure to your book. “Bookshop.org is an online book marketplace launched in January 2020. Its stated mission is “to financially support local, independent bookstores.” Bookshop, Inc., a privately held company, has been certified as a B Corporation.” NOTE: Some books may not be available on this site.
Valley Society has completed its first collaborative writing project, Remember Seta. Read it HERE.
SDWG member Steven D. Brewer shares happy news, “I have a story “Always a Destroyer” in a new anthology “Romancing the Rainbow“. The book features stories of LGBTQIA+ couples meeting and falling love and is a fundraiser for the wife of an editor, LJ Hachmeister, who passed away recently.
MEET UPS
Valley Society Black Writing Group
Valley Society, a SDWG committee, is open to new writers for our AWA writing group. We meet Sundays from 2-5 virtually. Visit valleysociety.org/about/writing-group/ to sign up.
Forbes Library Writing Room Wednesdays at 9:00am-12:30pm
This is a free, structured, facilitated drop in community writing group. We check in at 9:30, then write together for two hours, followed by the opportunity to read what you wrote (5 minutes). Follow the link for ZOOM meeting
BOOK LAUNCHES/CONCERTS/READINGS
Ellen Meeropol will read at the Dream Away Reading Series with Essie Chambers and Nerissa Nields on the September 21, 2024. The Dream Away Lodge, a delightful and funky venue in the woods of Becket, MA, opens for dinner at 5 pm; the reading is from 6:30 -7:30pm, followed by live music.
Join J.A. MacIntosh as she celebrates the launch of her book, “Swift River Secrets” on Wednesday, September 25 at 6pm at the Athol Public Library and Saturday, September 28 at 10:30am at the Swift River Valley Historical Society in New Salem, MA. “Swift River Secrets” is a contemporary mystery that starts with a murder at the Swift River Valley Historical Society. Emma Wetherby, the society’s archivist, feels compelled to investigate, while also navigating a high-risk pregnancy and a reluctant partner, who is also the local police chief. Motives and historical grudges go back to the flooding of four towns in the Swift River Valley to create the Quabbin Reservoir.
J. A. McIntosh, a recovering attorney, still lives in the small Massachusetts town where she was born. She writes about imperfect people, seeking justice. Her latest novel, “Swift River Secrets,” takes place at the Swift River Valley Historical Society; she is the president of the society. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Sisters in Crime/New England and on the program committee of Straw Dog Writers Guild.
WORKSHOPS/RETREATS/CONFERENCES
Monday Evening Zoom Poetry Workshops with Jan Freeman
This 6-week poetry workshop will begin via Zoom on Monday, September 9 @ 7:00 p.m. EST. Each 2-hour workshop will include feedback on poems; exercises to help you open your memories, imagination, and creative expression; and unique writing prompts accompanying images from art and the natural world. Themes include grief, family, childhood, home, love, and fear. Please send 3 poems to apply. Tuition is $435. Payment via Venmo, Zelle, or check. Email Jan Freeman at janfreemanpoetry@gmail.com to submit poems or to request information.
Election Week MASS MoCA Writing Through Art Poetry Retreat with Jan Freeman
Thursday, Oct 31, 2024 – Wednesday, Nov 6, 2024, North Adams, MA. Join renowned poet, editor, and teacher Jan Freeman for the Election Week 2024 MASS MoCA Writing Through Art Poetry Retreat, a generative-writing experience for poets at the MASS MoCA Artist Residency Center in the Berkshires. During our pivotal election week, in the supportive community of poets from near and far, we will create dozens of new drafts and poems. Together we will experience the many ways that painting, sculpture, and photography open inspiration, perception, and memory in this expansive 6-day writing retreat. Culminating in a poetry reading at The Artist Book Foundation, located on the MASS MoCA campus. Daily workshops include prompts, exercises, readings, and discussions in the galleries of MASS MoCA, the Clark Art Institute, and the Williams College Museum of Art. Included: one-hour conference to discuss your poems and writing goals; a private studio with 24/7 access at MASS MoCA; housing in MASS MoCA apartments; boxed lunches from Lickety Split; free parking; admission to MASS MoCA, the Clark, and the Williams College Museum of Art. For more details, visit www.janfreeman.net/workshops-readings or email janfreemanpoetry@gmail.com.
Dreaming on the Page Writing Circle with Tzivia Gover, Author and Certified Dreamwork Professional
First Tuesday of each month, 11 am-2 pm US Eastern Time, on Zoom.
Combining dreams and writing helps to increase self-awareness, reinvigorate your creativity, and supercharge your writing. Each workshop includes information and inspiration for combining dreams and the imagination, plus writing prompts and time to write and share your work.
$55 with accessible pay-what-you-can options for those with low/limited incomes. Learn more and register at: thirdhousemoon.com/event/dreaming-on-the-page-writing-circle/
Miss T’s No Bull Writing Workshops
Miss T here and I’m developing a series of two-hour $10 workshops on various writing topics. Cool, right? The first will be backstory. I call it “Don’t Put the Backstory in the Front.” Future topics include dialogue, show don’t tell, an editing cheat sheet, personal essay, cutting down on adverbs, using power verbs, etc. And, of course, I am open to your suggestions. For the workshop, I’d like you to bring a doubled-space page 12 pt font – about 250 words. It would be best if you could bring in the beginning of your story, or somewhere where you think you may be having an issue with backstory.
To indicate your interest in this or future $10 workshops, click on the link DON’T PUT THE BACKSTORY IN THE FRONT!
Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop
At PVWW, there’s definitely no better time to dive deeply into creative work and goals! They always have A LOT going on, from a full lineup of virtual workshops (one-day and multi-week) to regular readings, panels, and gatherings! And monthly Community Writing (and Community Reading events) – free and open to all – continues. Applications for PVWW’s 10-Month Manuscript Program (in all genres) open each year in the fall as well. Browse their current workshop schedule HERE!
And visit them online at www.PioneerValleyWriters.org!
Writers in Progress
Writers in Progress, the Valley’s Literary Arts Studio, is excited to re-open our gorgeous physical space this September, launching our Fall Session with a huge variety of weekly, half day and one-day generative and craft workshops. We will also continue to offer many workshops online. Some of our many offerings this fall include: Morning Jumpstarts, with Dori Ostermiller, Writing From Life with Emily Lackey, the Craft of Memoir with Cathy Luna, the Blueprint Your Book Series, with Susanne Dunlap, Fiction Essentials with Jacqueline Sheehan, Poetry Workshop with Sarah Browning, Word for Writers, Tarot for Writers, and many more. We also host a monthly community writing workshop, the first Sunday of each month, open to all. Founded in 1992 by author Dori Ostermiller, WIP has been supporting writers and creating community for three decades and has ‘midwifed’ dozens of published books. Our workshops are limited to 8 participants and emphasize writing time, community and craft development, nurturing voice, giving and receiving constructive, encouraging feedback. We believe that the writing process calls for both rigor and playfulness, both craft and inspiration. We also offer our legendary year-long manuscript intensive for writers working on book-length manuscripts, a six month revision intensive, as well as one-on-one coaching, editing and consulting. Our published alums include Ellen Meeropol, Steve Bernstein, JoAnne Jones, Dusty Miller, Ruth Lehrer, Dinah Mack, Kris Holloway, David Lovelace and many, many more. We host a seasonal Live Literature reading series in our studio and online. Check out our amazing lineup of fall workshops and events at www.writersinprogress.com. Hope to see you soon!
SERVICES
Manuscript Consultations and Editing Services with Jan Freeman
With 40 years of editorial experience, I am available to review works of prose and poetry, including full-length manuscripts, chapbooks, and selected collections. Through multiple readings, I evaluate literal and emotional narratives and a manuscript’s organization, texture, shape, tension, and emotional flow. I am author of 3 books of poetry and co-editor of Sisters: An Anthology; from 1995–2018, I directed Paris Press (now an imprint of Wesleyan University Press), which published critically acclaimed books by Emily Dickinson, NBCC award winning Ruth Stone, Virginia Woolf, and many others. Jan Freeman, janfreemanpoetry@gmail.com
Mentoring and Editing Services with
Michael Favala Goldman
I know how difficult it is to be objective about one’s own writing. Having skilled readers and mentors helped me gain the skills to publish16 books of prose translations, poetry translations and original poetry. I have been leading poetry critique groups since 2018. I give direct, compassionate feedback, to help clarify and magnify the author’s voice. I am happy to look at a few short pieces or an entire manuscript. hammerandhorn@gmail.com.
Dreaming on the Page Writing Consultations with Tzivia Gover
This one-on-one consultation is appropriate for writers at all stages of the journey, from journalers to published authors and anyone in between.
More of a coaching session than a critique, our time together will be spent setting goals and intentions for your writing in general, or specific projects. Sessions may include:
* Reviewing your goals, habits, and rituals as a writer, and exploring ways to tap into dreams, imagination, and the subconscious to support and sustain your creativity.
* Identifying the big dream for your project and setting intentions and next steps to help you get there.
* Implementing Dreaming on the Page techniques, tips, and prompts as appropriate.
* Receiving guidance on up to 500 words of your writing or a project summary submitted in advance of the session.
Mentoring Services with Lesléa Newman
Lesléa Newman has created 75 books for readers of all ages and mentored hundreds of writers including Newbery Award-winner Kwame Alexander (The Crossover), novelist, Leah Henderson (One Shadow on the Wall) and poet Floyd Cheung (Jazz at Manzanar). If you are working on a manuscript, I’d love to take a peek and see how I can help you make your book the best it can be. Whether you write for kids, teens or adults, whether you write poetry or prose, whether you write fiction or non-fiction, you name it, I can critique it. I will mark up your manuscript in purple ink, write you a long, editorial letter, read one revision, and if appropriate, offer publishing suggestions.
Consultation w/ Gail Thomas
I am available for individual consultation on your poetry submissions, manuscripts and residency applications. With more than 40 years of publishing and teaching experience, I offer feedback that not only focuses on your writing goals, but also strengthens your craft. If you are assembling a chapbook or full-length manuscript, I will work with you to organize and present your best work for publication. Gail Thomas, gailthomaspoet@gmail.com
Straw Dog Writers Guild YouTube Channel
Having your events and other writing notes on this Bulletin Board is one of the many benefits of SDWG membership.
- We ask that events be in or within driving distance of the Western MA area.
- Text of up to 100 words
- Link to website or email where further information is available.
- Please send at least six weeks before the event to be placed in our newsletter.
Click here to Submit to the Bulletin Board