Economic news got you down? The New Hampshire Writers' Project has the solution. Instead of fretting about things beyond your control, take one of NHWP's workshops offered this September and October at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. Studies have shown writing can improve your mood.
On Oct. 25, Ann Hood, bestselling author of The “Knitting Circle,” will teach “The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth.” Hood will examine both the props writers use in writing and how to look beyond them to find a universal emotional truth, no matter what the genre. $80, $65 for members.
Starting on Sept. 12, join Sue Wheeler for “Straight Up: Writing Workshop for Fiction, Nonfiction and Creative Nonfiction.” This class will help you hone your writing skills and learn more tricks of the writing craft. $200, $150 for members.
Starting on Sept. 16, join veteran mystery writer Tom Eslick for a four-week course on “Workshopping the Modern Whodunnit.” The only prerequisite is that you have written something, preferably an opening chapter, and are ready to workshop it. While there will be some instruction, the focus will be on what you produce. Emphasis will be placed on the importance of strong opening chapters with discussion of errors writers make that are an immediate turnoff for editors and agents. $225, $175 for members.
On Sept. 26, NHWP is offering a class with New Hampshire Poet Laureate Walter E. Butts. In “The Private Made Public: Writing Beyond the Self,” you will discover how the compilation of seemingly disparate events and experiences embedded in our memories might culminate in a poem of discovery and surprise, for both reader and writer. $165, $125 for members.
Starting on Oct. 8, take a four-week course with M.F. Bloxam, the debut novelist of “The Night Battles,” who was called “a rising star” by Rebecca Rule. In “The Stagecraft of Dialogue,” you will learn how to use playwrights' tools to build layers of meaning into dialogue. $225, $175 for members.
On Oct. 3, NHWP is offering a special one-day flash fiction workshop at the Writer's Center in White River Junction, Vt. This class, taught by NHWP's program manager, Carla Gericke, leads up to NHWP's Upper Valley Literary Festival on Oct. 16 and 17, during which Literary Idol will be featured. Literary Idol is loosely based on “American Idol,” in which participants have three minutes to showcase their best flash fiction before a panel of judges and the audience. $165, $125 for members.
For more information, visit nhwritersproject.org or call 314-7980.
