Milwaukee Writers Workshop

MWW: Short Story Group

Here is the information for the upcoming session:

Time: 1pm-4pm
Day: October 25th
Place: Anodyne Coffee Roasters


Material: "Too Close to Nothing" by Ian Jackson and another story, to be determined (will be updated)


Workshop Topic: Language and Usage; we'll be discussing some syntax and grammar techniques to vary language.


As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to Contact Me.

MWW: Ozaukee Group


Here is the information for the upcoming session:


Time: 6:30pm-7:45pm
Day: October 22nd
Place: U.S.S. Liberty Memorial Library (Grafton, WI)


Material: At last Thursday's meeting, I gave an exercise to write something using the introductory sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night." If you'd like to bring something based on that, please do.


Workshop Topic: I will talk a little about motivating yourself to write, setting aside time to write, and working on generating new ideas for writing.


As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to Contact Me.

MWW Newsletter
Updates 10/1/09

For all updates, locations, and other events for the Milwaukee Writers Workshop, visit www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com. Also, email me at boone@milwaukeewritersworkshop.com if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.

In this issue, you'll read:

General Updates
Co-working

Roundtable (writing-intensive group)
Poetry Group
Short Story Group
Novel Group
Stage & Screen Writing Group

General Updates

Hello everyone. I hope you're looking forward to the quickly-approaching Fall here in Wisconsin. We're already into October. Here a few things:

1. On Thursday, October 8 at 6:00pm, I will be holding an informational meeting at the Grafton Public Library for a new Ozaukee Writers Group. If you're interested in attending, please just come along; there's no need to make reservations.

2. This weekend is BarCamp (www.barcamp.org or barcampmilwaukee.com for those who aren't aware) and was the inspiration for WriteCamp. I will be giving a few discussions about writing and technology, as well as a few others. I know there will be some intellectual property discussion, as well as creative commons, and other writer-related things. It begins at 10am on October 3rd and ends at 4pm on October 4th. Everyone is welcome. It will be at the Chase Commerce Center on the corner of Chase and Oklahoma.

3. For those who are new or who have just been added to the email list, please let me know if you do not have the submission guidelines for works, and I will send that over to you. Do let me know if you have any questions.

Co-working

There will not be any co-working this week, as we have the roundtable. We have four seats reserved for writing; four more are available for anyone wishing to join the critique. Please email me, so I can send you the material.

Roundtable

The roundtable meets this Tuesday at 6:30pm at the UWM Library West Wing (Daniel Soref Commons).

Poetry Group

The Poetry Group will be meeting at Boswell Book Company on Downer on October 8 at 6:30pm. Please be sure to bring something to present to the group. It can be a poem of your own, one you enjoy, or a visual presentation of some kind. You must bring something to share.

Short Story Group

The next Short Story Group will be on October 11 from 1pm-4pm at the Anodyne Coffee Roaster on S. Kinnickinnic Ave.

We have no stories right now for review so please let me know if you have something prepared, and we can add it to the schedule. I would also like to do an exercise for those interested in writing prompts.

We are also looking for more material to be critiqued in the coming sessions. If you have a piece that you would like looked over, please email me and let me know, so that we can put it into the schedule. Remember that you must attend two meetings before we critique your work.

If you have any questions, please email me at boone@milwaukeewritersworkshop.com.

Novel Group

The next Novel Group will be on October 12 at the Wauwatosa Public Library at 6:30pm.

The current novel is Gryphon's Song by Ami Kriho, which can be downloaded from the website. We'll be reading the first portion.

Stage & Screen Writing Group

This group is on hiatus until further notice. Anyone with scripts is welcome to bring material to the short story group.

As always, if you have any questions, please let me know.

Cheers,

---
James Boone Dryden
Director, The Milwaukee Writers Workshop, www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com
Director, WriteCamp, www.writecampmilwaukee.com
Regional Coordinator (SE Wisconsin), WRWA, www.wrwa.net

Hello everyone,

This is just a friendly reminder that we are in need of material for our short story critique group. If you have something that you'd like to get critiqued, please let me know in an email.

For those who might be new, here are our critique submission policies:

* In order to ensure that material is protected, new users are put on a trial period and must either contact me or attend one meeting before they are allowed to view works in our "Current Stories" section on the website.
* To prevent high turn-over (which we've had in the past), members are asked to critique at least two stories before posting their own works for critique.
* Please send all submission requests to me (or the guest facilitator) before posting them to the website for review. This allows for the moderator to know who's presenting and form a good discussion based on the material up for review.
* To get to as many people as we can, please limit your submissions to once a quarter. If there is no other readily-available material, we can put yours on the list, but please do ask before submitting work if you already have within a three-month period.
* Because we try and get two stories in each meeting, please try and submit works under 10,000 words. This allows for a thorough discussion in the time-frame. Longer works are suitable for the novel group or submitted in parts (please ask first).

If you have any questions, please do ask.

Cheers,
James Boone Dryden, MWW Director, www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com

At 6:30 Monday, September 28th at the Wuawatosa Library we will have an open session for the Milwaukee Writers Workshop Novel Group. Novel group members were asked to do some research on any topic related to writing that they found relevant (plot, characters, pacing, genre, whatever) and write a short summary. In this session we'll spend a few minutes on each topic discussing them in typical round table format.

If you have written a novel, are planning to write one or are curious as to what this group is about, I highly recommend stopping by on the 28th. Not only will you get some quick-hitting knowledge about the craft of writing, but you can get a sense of how the group functions. Plus, following this session we'll be starting the review a new novel, the perfect time to join us. So come on down and see what the Novel Group is all about.