Past events at WriterHouse
Thursday, May 23, 2013
7:00 pm
Family stories often rattle around in our minds for years or even decades before we are ready to bring them to life in our writing. Virginia Pye, author of River of Dust (Unbridled Books, 2013) talks with Clifford Garstang, author of What the Zhang Boys Know (Press 53, 2012), about how to determine which stories are worth exploring and using family facts as inspiration for new and surprising creations. Free and open to the public. Books available for purchase and signing.
Friday, April 26, 2013, 7:00pm
Tennessee poet and teacher Lisa Dordal will read from and discuss her chapbook, Commemoration (Finishing Line Press, 2012), which explores issues of psychological confinement arising from damaging and restrictive societal expectations for women, focusing on the specific experience of a closeted lesbian trying to fit her life into the prescribed script of heterosexuality and on the deep points of interconnection between the speaker's life and that of her mother. Free and open to the public.
Lisa will also be teaching a seminar the following day, Saturday, April 27, 2013: Exercising the Poetic Mind.
Thursday, March 21, 2013 4:00pm
Barbara Slate (author of You Can Do a Graphic Novel and Getting Married and Other Mistakes) discusses the process of pairing words and drawings for a graphic novel. A program of the Virginia Festival of the Book.
Missed the event? Listen to the podcast below.
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Sunday, February 10, 2013, 7:00pm
Poet Mary-Sherman Willis and her publisher, Katherine McNamara of Artist's Proof Editions, talked about her recent book of poetry entitled Caveboy, which has been published on iBooks and also in a limited print edition. They discussed incorporating multimedia into the manuscript and how the publishing process encompasses much more than the traditional codex (bound books with pages as we know them). It was free and open to the public.
Missed the event? Listen to the podcast below. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Thursday, November 1, 2012, 7:00pm
Join the Launch Party at WriterHouse and prepare to write a novel in a month!
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is an annual month-long novel writing project that brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world. At WriterHouse's NaNoWriMo you can track your progress, get pep talks and support, and meet fellow your fellow Wrimos ... er, writers. Enjoy pizza, soda, and buckets of coffee as we set sail into the adventurous Nanoland! WriterHouse has plenty of desks and outlets as well as wi-fi for updating your wordcount. Good luck!
Thursday, October 11, 2012, 7:00pm
In the process of writing her middle grade novel Come August, Come Freedom, author Gigi Amateau spent time researching primary documents in several archives. A document, a journal or a blacksmith account book became a time machine, transporting her to 1800, and the true life of a twenty-four-year-old slave named Gabriel, plotting a rebellion. Gigi talked with Brendan Wolfe, Managing Editor of Encyclopedia Virginia, about historical research for the purposes of fiction.
Missed the event? Listen to the podcast:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
WriterHouse and Piedmont Council for the Arts teamed up to present a panel discussion at CitySpace. Visual artists Craig Pleasants and Sharon Shapiro, writers Avery Chenoweth and Wendy Gavin Porter, Sheila Pleasants of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and moderator Rachel Unkefer discussed the ins and outs of artist colonies and residencies.
Missed the panel? Listen to the podcast below:
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Photo courtesy of Virginia Center for Creative Arts
Thursday, September 6, 2012, 7:00pm
"I talk funny. How can I become a writer when I speak Hawaiian Pidgin and read by flashlight in the outhouse?" In her new memoir, Kapoho - Memoir of a Modern Pompeii, Frances Kakugawa digs through tons of lava to unearth childhood memories. Missed the event? Listen to the podcast below.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Thursday, November 29, 2012, 7:00pm
Clifford Garstang, author of What the Zhang Boys Know, discussed the literary form of the novel in stories.
Missed the event? Listen to the podcast:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013, 7:00 PM
Writers who participated in the winter class session read brief selections of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They enjoyed refreshments and socializing with other writers during intermission and after the event. Open houses are a great way to meet other writers and find out about WriterHouse.
Friday, January 25, 2013, 7:00pm
Steven Cramer discussed his fifth collection of poems, Clangings (Sarabande Books), with fellow poet John Casteen.
In a wild and original departure from his previous work, Cramer imagines the "clangings" of schizophrenic and manic speech into a poetic narrative that exults in both aural richness and words’ power to evoke an interior landscape whose strangeness is intimate, unsteady, and stirring.
David Ferry (National Book Award-winner for 2012) calls Clangings "inventive all the way, hilarious a lot of the time, and scared, scary, distanced and objective, and very moving. Clangings is a wild ride." The editors of Memorious's blog calls Clangings "one of our favorite books of 2012," and the book is a recommended 2012 poetry collection at Split This Rock and New Pages.
This event was free and open to the public.
