MASTER WRITER'S WORKSHOP WITH LEE MONTGOMERY

MASTER WRITER'S WORKSHOP WITH AUTHOR AND EDITOR LEE MONTGOMERY

Award-winning author and longtime book and magazine editor Lee Montgomery will be offering a master class and writers workshop this fall. Beginning October 8th through December 10th, the workshop will be held on Tuesday evenings 6 to 8 pm at the University Club in downtown Portland. Enrollment is open to both fiction and nonfiction writers and limited to ten students.

Designed to combine craft lectures, individual instruction, and workshop methodologies, Montgomery employs in-class exercises to inspire new work, outside reading assignments, as well as the classic workshop format. Students will present new work at least twice during the session in addition to a private consultation with Lee during the final weeks of class. Students should expect to leave with tools to take their work to the next level as well as tips on how to submit work to the marketplace. For those students who are interested in presenting their work to a broader audience, the class will culminate with a public reading. Class Tuition is $600.

Lee Montgomery is the author of The Things Between Us, A Memoir (Free Press, August 2006), Whose World Is This? Stories (University of Iowa Press, September 2007), and Searching for Emily: Illustrated (Nothing Moments Press, October 2007). The Things Between Us received the 2007 Oregon Book Award in creative nonfiction and Whose World Is This? received the 2007 John Simmons Iowa Short Fiction Award and was a finalist for the Ken Kesey Award in Fiction in 2008. Montgomery received her MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times magazine, Glimmer Train, Black Clock, Iowa Review, Denver Quarterly, Tin House, Story Magazine, Alaska Quarterly, the Santa Monica Review and the Antioch Review, among many others.

Montgomery is the editor of numerous anthologies and books for Tin House, Viking, University of Iowa Press, and Penguin. She was the fiction editor of the Iowa Review, the editor of the Santa Monica Review, and senior editor of Dove Books. Montgomery spent ten years at Tin House, as the executive editor for Tin House magazine, the founding executive director of the Tin House Writer's Workshop, and as the editorial director and associate publisher of Tin House Books. She is presently a fellow at The Attic's Athenaeum in Portland.

Montgomery has worked with many debut as well as established authors including Denis Johnson, Deborah Eisenberg, Wallace Shawn, Maggie Nelson, Jayne Anne Phillips, Antonya Nelson, Ron Carlson, Marilynne Robinson, Jim Krusoe, Mary Otis, David Foster Wallace, Robert Coover, William Gass, John Barth, Aimee Bender, and Kathy Acker, among others.

Please call (503-539-1458) or email Lee at LeeBMontgomery@gmail.com for more information or to register. www.leemontgomerywriter.com

Turn Up The Tension In Your Writing: 47 techniques for creating a page-turner with New York Times Bestseller April Henry

Tension and suspense are the cornerstone of all fiction, whether you're writing a mystery, sci-fi, romance, young adult book or a literary novel.  It makes readers’ hearts beat faster and their palms sweat.  Creating and sustaining suspense is key to holding reader’s interest. You'll learn 47 techniques for creating a page-turner.  

April Henry is the author of eleven mysteries and thrillers, including the New York Times bestseller Face of Betrayal (with co-author Lis Wiehl) with contracts for six more. She also reviews mysteries and young adult books for the Oregonian and has written for Writers Digest and The Writer.

Date & Time: Feb 2 from 6:30-8:00pm. 

Call 503-796-9224 to register. 

Cost: $30. 

Location: 917 SW Oak Street, Suite 405 (across from Powell's City of Books).

All proceeds support the nonprofit Write Around Portland and their free creative writing workshops held in prisons, hospitals, senior centers, schools, treatment facilities and low income residences.

Master Class with Steve Almond

In October there will be a rare opportunity to participate an intimate workshop with Steve Almond, where he will give you personal feedback on your writing.

YEAH, BUT IS ANY EDITOR GOING TO READ ON TO PAGE 2?

(A Workshop on the Radical Importance of Finding Your Narrator)

Writing's all fun and games, until the rejections start piling up. In this intensive (though informal!) workshop, we'll aim to make sure your stories, or essays, draw the reader in, rather than leaving them in the dark. We'll take a second look at your opening pages, as well as the opening pages of works by Lorrie Moore, Saul Bellow, and others, in an effort to understand how to create a strong, independent narrator. Note: participants should bring in the first 500 words of a manuscript -- ideally a manuscript that's been rejected. In fact, it would be best to bring in two manuscripts. Please resist the urge to rewrite them.

Date: Friday, October 7^th

Time: 1:00-4:00 pm

Cost: $50

Location: Writers’ Dojo,  7518 N. Chicago Ave, Portland

Register at: http://www.writersdojo.org/Almond+class

Questions? E-mail lizprato_AT_gmail_DOT_com

Steve Almond is the author the story collections My Life in Heavy Metal and The Evil B.B. Chow, the novel Which Brings Me to You (with Julianna Baggott), and the non-fiction books Candyfreak, Not That You Asked, and Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life. He is also, crazily, self-publishing books called This Won't Take But a Minute, Honey, and Letters from People Who Hate Me. His new story collection, God Bless America will be out in October.