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Tuesday, February 6, 2018
The Basement, 21 Center Street
(Down the drive, in back of building, next to the Northampton Police Department)
Northampton, MA
7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Featured Reader: Ruth Lehrer
Ruth Lehrer is a writer and sign language interpreter living in western Massachusetts. Her writing has been published in journals such as Lilith, Jubilat, and Trivia: Voices of Feminism. Her poetry chapbook, Tiger Laughs When You Push, is available from Headmistress Press. Her debut young adult novel, Being Fishkill (Candlewick Press, 2017) is described by Entertainment Weekly as, “...the year’s most heartwarming, heartbreaking teen novel.” Ruth can be found at ruthlehrer.com and you can read this wonderful feature about her in the Gazette.
Doors open at 7 - with an Open Mic. If you'd like a chance to read, place your name in the hat up until 7:10. Ten names will be randomly selected. The reading starts at 7:15, and each reader will have five minutes.
Admission is free; participants are encouraged to buy a drink (alcohol and non-alcohol available) and tip well in support of the venue.
Please join us!
Further information: Beth Filson at wno@strawdogwriters.org
SAVE THE DATE
Featured Reader for March 6 - Tzivia Gover
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Words at the Mic!
A new challenge for people who attend
Writers Night Out
Each month, host and MC Jacqueline and Beth will select words or phrases from those we hear during the open mic. We’re listening for whatever strikes our fancy, and that we hope will get your Muse talking. We will announce the phrase at the end of the presentations.
Your challenge is to use those exact words, or phrase, in a poem, short story, or prose piece -- no more than 500 words -- and submit it by the 15th of the month. That gives you about two weeks.
Make sure your name is on your submission. In the subject line of your email, put Words at the Mic Challenge! We'll share a new prompt at WNO on February 6th.
The winning submission will be chosen by anonymous vote, and will be read at the next Writers Night Out. It will also appear in the SDWG month-end circular. Send to Beth Filson at wno@strawdogwriters.org. This contest is open only to those who attend Writers Night Out.
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Co-sponsored by:
Straw Dog Writers Guild and Nan Parati (owner, Elmer's Store and the Inn at Norton Hill)
Featured Reader: Erik Sherman
Erik is an independent journalist, author, consultant, and playwright. His work covering business, technology, economics, finance, law, science, and public policy has appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Inc, and Technology Review. Mr. Sherman is a regular contributor to the online sites of Inc and Forbes and he is the author or co-author of ten non-fiction books. MORE
Here's how it works: The featured writer reads recent work and describes the journey to publication, followed by Q & A. Then the floor opens to other writers, who read for five minutes each. If you want to read, put your name in the hat before 3:15. (Hint: you get five minutes.)
Hosted by Jane Roy Brown
INTERESTED IN BEING A FEATURED READER?
please email Jane Roy Brown at brownjaneroy@gmail.com
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Are you curious about world building? Do your characters inhabit living rooms in the future, or trek miles at the turn of the century? Setting connects readers to a narrative and is part of the allure that transports them from one place to another, but setting is so much more than the streets our characters walk down, the oceans they swim. In this Read like a Writer program we’ll use short stories and novel excerpts to examine setting and explore how writers use it to establish the worlds in which their protagonists live, foreshadow plot, create mood and tone, and reveal psychological traits. We’ll work on a passage of our own to see how different approaches to setting can add various layers to our work. This session is good for beginning and established writers who want to develop revision strategies to make their fictional worlds breathe.
 Jennifer Jacobson is the Director of the Juniper Summer Writing Institute and the Juniper Institute for Young Writers. She is also the Associate Director of the MFA for Poets and Writers at UMass Amherst. She founded the non-profit organization When Children Save the Day to unite language arts and social action. Her work has been honored with a Creative Teaching Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the National Storytelling Network’s Brimstone Award for transformative community projects, along with support from the Solidago Foundation and the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. Her short story “Heat” received an honorable mention from Glimmer Train, and “Trouble and Bones” was a Tennessee Williams Festival’s Fiction contest finalist. Jennifer teaches creative writing at Smith College’s Young Women’s Writing Workshop and, with Voices From Inside, created the Family Storybook Project curriculum for incarcerated women and their children.
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A benefit for our members
We began accepting applications on January 1, 2018
A Straw Dog Writing Residency includes 6 days, 5 nights, starting Sunday at 3:00 pm through Friday noon, in one of the lovely, unique places at Patchwork Farm Retreat in Westhampton MA.
Residencies are self-guided and residents provide their own meals, with access to cooking facilities. Costs of accommodation are covered by a grant from a generous Straw Dog member.
More information HERE
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Come listen to presenter Marya Zilberberg discuss how to break down the barriers and put Twitter, blogs and other online formats to work. Social media seem to be a necessity for marketing anything in the 21st century. But are they? What are the best approaches for a writer? We will discuss some of the successful strategies and potential pitfalls of this brave new communication ecosystem.
Marya is a physician-health services researcher living in Western Massachusetts. In addition to over 120 academic articles, she has authored the book Between the Lines: Finding the Truth in Medical Literature, which, thanks to her blogging and tweeting, is used by many residency programs as a textbook of evaluative medicine. Her creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Six Hens, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, Cleaver, Vox Poetica, The Blue Hour and Boston Poetry Magazine, among others. If you want to follow Marya on Twitter, her handle is @murzee.
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