Upon first glance, “Hermit Crabs” (stories or poems or essays that borrow another “shell” or form, also known as the False Document or Trojan Horse poem or Constraint Essay) look like literary play (and they are fun!). But they’re also great tools to break through writers’ block or overcome resistance to topics that feel heavy,
Join Straw Dog Writers Guild and presenter Jesse Lee Kercheval for our November craft workshop, “Translation: Reading the World” on Saturday, November 2 from 10:30am – 12:00pm via Zoom. This is a relaxed, open workshop about translating from any language into English for people just curious about translation as well as practicing translators of poetry
When giving feedback about poems, we’re often asked to point out what’s “working” and what’s “not working” and discuss revisions that would make poems “stronger.” But what would it mean to enter a different kind of relationship with our writing—one in which we let the poem itself guide us to what it needs? In this
Join Straw Dog Writers Guild on Saturday, June 15 from 1:00-2:30pm on Zoom with J. Scott Coatsworth as he shares his experience as an indie author. In this craft workshop he will present some of the tips and tricks he has learned in how to promote ones work and field questions. Scott stares, “I recently
Join Straw Dog Writers Guild and presenters Elizabeth MacDuffie and Tamara Fricke for “The Smell of Fear: Building Suspense & Tension with Subtext” on Wednesday, May 22, 7-8:30pm, at the Northampton Center for the Arts,33 Hawley Street, Northampton, MA. In this craft workshop, writers will be guided in the art of creating suspense and tension
The publishing market is brutally competitive. It’s not easy to get a query past the gatekeepers at publishing houses and literary agencies. You’re going to need an achingly good (and short) intro letter and an irresistible manuscript sample. You could pay an editor to buff up your prose, but with a little bit of elbow
Susan Sensemann will lead a 2 hour writing workshop at A.P.E. Gallery, 126 Main Street, Northampton in conjunction with a five-person exhibition “Physiotasmagorical” which investigates corporeal secrets that reside at the juncture of the clinical and the imaginary in fantastic conjurings of our internal selves. We will begin with a discussion of the “felt sense”
Join Straw Dog Writers Guild with literary agent Cherise Fisher for an informative workshop about the often daunting task of writing a query letter. When you are ready to search for an agent, learn how to write the best query letter possible. Experienced agents like Cherise have received thousands of query letters and she has
Join Straw Dog Writers Guild with presenter Adrie Rose on Sunday, February 11 via zoom from 3-5pm for this craft workshop. We will come together to work on pulling together poems into a chapbook collection. We’ll talk about what chapbooks are (and are not) and some strategies for arranging the poems in them. Participants are
Join Straw Dog Writers Guild for a community-based roundtable discussion to share your best ideas and most stubborn blocks with fellow writers to gain insight into your writing process and community resources. This craft workshop with Michael Favala Goldman and Lindsay Rockwell will take place on Saturday, December 16, from 10:30am-12pm at Northampton Center for
