FAQ - Classes

Q: Do you do online writing classes? I don't live in the Asheville area but would love to take a class with you.

A: Alas, no online classes. The ones I teach through the Great Smokies Writing Program (see side bar) keep me pretty busy.  But if any of you are interested in spending a week in the mountains and doing a class, I will be teaching at Wildacres Writing Workshop, July 9 -16. 

There are classes in non-fiction, flash fiction, poetry, short story, and novel writing.  And if that doesn't tempt some of you prolific bloggers out there . . .

My class will be  'contemporary commercial fiction' -- that basically means popular fiction as opposed to literary (though some popular fiction is rather literary and some literary fiction is popular . . . )

The tuition, which includes room and board is pretty reasonable.  And there are a few scholarships available.

 I'm really excited about this opportunity. Ron Rash, just to drop a name, is leading the short story class  and I'm hopeful I'll get a chance to sit in at some point. And the poetry offering is so tempting . . .


I haven't been to Wildacres before but the area is beautiful and I've heard nothing but good things about the facility and the food and the programs.


Do check out the links.   It sounds fairly idyllic.

Great Smokies Writing Program Celebration

The Great Smokies Writing Program, in which I've taught for almost four years now, is celebrating its tenth year of offering classes through the UNCA (University of North Carolina /Asheville) extension program. It's also celebrating the second year of its online literary magazine: The Great Smokies Review.


Yesterday, at Malaprop's Books in downtown Asheville, Tommy Hays, the director of the program, kicked off the celebration by reminding us of the many and diverse students who have been part of the writing program. 

Then we heard reading from some of these students whose work had been selected for inclusion in The Great Smokies Review.  Two of the students who read had taken my classes and I felt like a proud mama as they stood up and read their pieces.  (You can read them too  -- just click on the hot links!)

Joy Boothe, who was a member of my most recent class, read her essay "Jesse"-a powerful  piece with a voice as authentic as the southern Alabama from which it springs. 

And Linda McCracken read an excerpt titled "Elephantizer Grows 'Em Big" from her haunting Young Adult novel String Weavers which she worked on in one of my classes. 

I saw more of my students at this gathering and was so happy to learn that they were still working away at their writing. Though I'm not always confident that I know enough to teach anyone anything, I certainly enjoy trying! It's a rewarding facet of the writing life!


And tomorrow I get to experience yet another -- also fun and rewarding. I'm off to speak to/with a book club in Morganton about Signs in the Blood -- and the writing life. I'm looking forward to it -- they meet at a restaurant on a lake.  I'll take my camera and post about it on Wednesday.

And then I'll get into the garden!

Novels in the Making

I kind of hated to leave the warm house yesterday afternoon. The weather was perfect for the Canada geese at river -- not so much for driving.

But I soldiered on into Asheville, wipers slapping, defroster roaring, to be there for the final meeting of my fall fiction workshop. There were five separate first or second chapters awaiting the class's attention. Obviously I had no choice.

After a quick stop at Accent on Books to pick up another box of Christmas cards (I always forget how many friends we exchange cards with,) I called on my friend Josie to chat and have a cup of tea in our usual pre-class ritual. And while I was comfortably ensconced on her love seat, outside the window the sky began to clear and do wonderful things.

Speaking of wonderful things (note clever transition,) this has been an especially talented class. And wildly diverse in their choice of subject matter too. We've got women's fiction, alternative history (Revolutionary War,) cozy mystery, drug cartel thriller, paranormalish thriller, past life regression story, straight mystery, historical fiction (pirates Mary Read and Ann Bonney and the foppish Captain Jack Rackham, for whom someone in class came up with the term swishbuckler. Which cracked us all up. Then I found out, courtesy Mr. Google, that it's a known term and there's a movie of that name coming out soon. We thought we were so clever.)

Once again, the class has been fun. I feel privileged to share what little I know about this baffling business and hope that I help my students some and pray that I don't discourage them any.

Except for the money part -- I do always warn them that they better not quit their day jobs.

Elevator Speech

For aspiring writers, an elevator speech is a few sentences you have ready in case you're ever in a elevator with an editor or an agent and they ask you what you're writing.

Your elevator speech needs to describe your novel in terms that will intrigue the editor or agent and make them ask more. It also needs to be REALLY concise -- their stop may be the next floor.

Most of all you need a HOOK -- some way of communicating the thing that sets your book apart from others.

Story Sensei has a nice formula for coming up with those magic two sentences.

A convention such as the one I've just been at is crawling with editors and agents and aspiring writers -- all of whom take an elevator now and then. (Giving a pitch in the restroom is frowned on -- though Herself, my editor, swears that someone once shoved a manuscript under the door of the stall she was occupying at the time.)

But that magic moment could arrive at some place other than an elevator and you need to be ready.

For example . . .

On Saturday, Herself and I had finished lunch and she suggested taking a turn around the book room. Just outside the book room door, we came upon a friend of mine from the mountains. I introduced Linda to Herself, mentioning that Linda had been in one of my writing classes.

And then it happened.

"So what's your novel about?" asked Herself.

I couldn't believe it. I was seeing a moment I'd heard about and warned my students about.

I looked at Linda, anxious to see how she would do. There was a brief stunned silence (she may have been having trouble breathing) and then she launched into a pretty decent summary of the important points of her novel.

Well done, Linda!

I wonder how many elevator moments there were during the four days of the convention?

Critique

My workshop on writing popular fiction meets tonight and we begin the critiques of twenty pages from each of the first two victims - er, make that class members. Folks in this group are not just dabbling at writing, they're actually trying to write (or have written) a novel or, in a couple of cases, a memoir. And the genres are all over the place -- sci-fi, cozy mystery, coming-of-age, thriller, western, fantasy, young adult -- I'm sure I've left out something.

So how do we deal with such diversity? Good question.

The fact is that very few people like every kind of reading -- but that's what we've got here. So each of us has the task of opening our mind to this particular type of writing and trying to determine if it is working -- does it engage the reader from the beginning? are the characters compelling? is the world of the story consistent?

It's never fun having people criticize something you've worked hard on, especially if you think you've done a good job. And there's bound to be a certain amount of trepidation among first timers to the class. One of the students commented on the fact of signing up for (and paying for) "a gut-wrenching experience."

Really, it's not that bad. As a Southern lady of a certain age, I require politeness in our criticism. We begin by saying what worked well in the pages under consideration before moving to what, in our opinion, isn't working. At no point do we say things like "This sucks!" or similar harsh, unhelpful statements.

But we do say what isn't working. And to soften the blow when I hand back the pages, all marked up with my comments, I usually bring in one of my manuscripts, similarly marked up, just so they can see how important it is to get another viewpoint.

I have learned so very much from my editor's comments and corrections. Even when she wants me to change who done it (ART'S BLOOD) or to excise a major character and attached subplot (DAY OF SMALL THINGS aka Birdie's book), I'm grateful for the learning experience.

Just as I hope tonight's writers will be.