JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
Get connected to Charlottesville’s writing community.
Read more
FEATURED EVENTS
May 2018
Free Members-Only Event: Essential Tools for Writing a Picture Book Biography
Instructor: Katherine Erskine FREE for WriterHouse Member Wednesday, 5/16/18 | 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM Kathryn Erskine shares her research, approach, and multiple drafts of the recent award-winning Mama Africa! How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with her Song, along with the key elements in writing a successful picture book biography. Come ready to try rooibos tea and cookies from South Africa. About the Instructor: Kathryn Erskine is the author of six children’s novels including National Book Award winner, Mockingbird, Jane…
Find out more »An Evening of Fiction with Writers Fran Hawthorne (The Heirs) and Meredith Cole (Posed for Murder)
May 18, 2018 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM This event will take place at New Dominion Bookshop 404 East Main St, Charlottesville, VA 22902 Join us for an evening of fiction with Fran Hawthorne (The Heirs) and Meredith Cole (Posed for Murder). This event is cosponsored by New Dominion Bookshop and is free and open to the public. Until now, Fran Hawthorne spent more than three decades writing award-winning nonfiction, mainly about consumer activism and business social responsibility. Her book Ethical…
Find out more »The Writer’s Lens
Instructor: BettyJoyce Nash $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Sunday, May 20 2018 | 1:30 PM – 5:00 PM Our best fiction writers are famous for crafting breathtaking stories from everyday experiences, stories that stop us dead in our tracks with wonder. Why does that character jump off the page? Why does that setting grab us by the throat? How did the author engineer the “turn” that surprises, delights, or shocks us? In this class, we’ll closely read a masterful story…
Find out more »WriterHouse 10-Year Birthday Celebration
Join us for special readings, cake, and delicious food as we celebrate 10 years as one of only three independent writing centers in the state of Virginia. During our celebration, we'll give away ten special prizes in honor of our tenth birthday.
Find out more »June 2018
Picture Book Boot Camp
Instructor: Hannah Barnaby $80 Members | $87 Nonmembers Saturday, 6/2/18 | 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM What makes picture books so magical? The alchemy of text and art creates a unique medium for a story, turning it into something more than just the combination of works and pictures. It might seem like a mystery, but writing picture books is far from impossible -- it just takes a special set of skills and a peek behind the curtain. Hannah Barnaby --…
Find out more »Revisiting the Sonnet
Instructor: Neil Perry $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 6/9/18 | 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM The sonnet is the room in the house of poetry that just won't go away. It is unassuming - a small bedroom perhaps - yet essential. Why do we still write sonnets? How should you write one? What do they mean? This seminar will explore these questions by thinking on the history of the sonnet, the contemporary variety of sonnets, the use of the sonnet…
Find out more »Jump-Start Your Narrative
Instructor: Ariel Stess $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 6/16/18 | 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM Have you been trying to start a new play, short story, memoir, or novel? Or, are you in the middle of writing a new piece and feeling stuck? This workshop will help you to step outside of your familiar modes of writing to create characters, worlds, and settings that surprise you. Students are asked to bring paper, a pen, and a desire to generate…
Find out more »Brand New Jew, A DNA Comedy by Monica Bauer
What happens when a DNA test gives an adoptee a brand new view…of herself? Playwright and performer Monica Bauer (Edinburgh Fringe Festival's “The Year I Was Gifted”) takes on her own unexpected results, along with a cast of comical characters, including a reassuring Rabbi, a Brit who’s not British, and Judy from Atlanta, who may be related to George Clooney. Biology, religion, and culture are all fair game in this Comedy of Identity Errors. Raised Catholic, but expelled from St. Agnes school…
Find out more »July 2018
Reading featuring Novelist Andrew Martin
Tuesday, July 17, 2018 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM This event will be held at New Dominion Bookshop 404 East Main, Charlottesville, VA 22902 Join us for a reading with novelist Andrew Martin, who will be reading from his debut novel, Early Work. This event is cosponsored by New Dominion Bookshop and will be free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided. For young writers of a certain temperament—if they haven’t had such notions beaten out of them…
Find out more »Strong Openings: Right from the Start
Instructor: Noley Reid $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Sunday, 7/22/18 | 1:00 PM - 4:30 PM After the title, a short story’s opening can make or break its connection with a reader. After all, the first words, first sentence, first paragraph are the most visible and the spot where most readers, editors, and agents decide to stop reading altogether. In this workshop, we will examine the openings to dozens of well-published authors’ short stories, noting the many techniques used and how…
Find out more »WRITERHOUSE NEWS
When Publishers Fail to Market Your Book
This post appeared in the August 1, 2018 edition of the WriterHouse Newsletter. Jane is teaching Getting Your Book Published: A Year-Long Master Class during the fall 2018 term. As may have heard, not all books are adequately marketed by publishers, who may rely...
The Power of Digression
Lately, I’ve been editing my own work, trying to put together a collection of short stories I’ve worked on for three years. Revision, for me, involves a lot of cutting. I value clarity to a fault in my early drafts; later I aim to lose the excessive unnecessary...
Read the Winning Entries from the 2018 JMRL and WriterHouse Poetry Contest
We received an overwhelming response to this year's JMRL and WriterHouse Poetry Contest judged by former Virginia Poet Laureate Ron Smith. We'd like to congratulate winner Erin Wells for her poem "Nevertheless, Isabella Gibbons Reads" and co-runners-up Cynthia...
