Workshops
One Hour Workshops
Get insights and advice in fiction, drama, poetry and publishing during four special workshops hosted in the Gallery. These one-hour presentations focus on providing practical resources, useful strategies and illuminating ideas for writers.
Trouble-Shoot Scenes Like a Screenwriter Bob Bowersox
Screenwriters
are scene specialists who daily confront problems in structure, content, and the relationship of a story’s part to its whole. Learn scene-building tips to help you develop strong characters, connect underlying tensions, and pace dialogue and action
for effect. Get advice on resources and techniques in the competitive world of screenwriting.
What We Don’t Understand About Publishing Today Dustin Porta
Changes in publishing are dynamic and bewildering. You may be seeking traditional publishing with an agent or small press. You may be an agile marketer and technophile creating non-traditional Do-It-Yourself and Indie models of getting your work to readers. Whatever your approach, you need a more accurate picture of the shifting goalposts in publishing today. Find resources to avoid pitfalls and compare options in traditional and non-traditional / DIY publishing in the age of Amazon, Instagram, and authorearnings.com.
Beyond the Line Break: Poets and Their Prose Flower Conroy and Emily Weekley
Is there a poet in every prose writer? Don’t poets have to wax prosaic sometimes? Too often we assume that poets and writers of fiction and non-fiction stand on polar sides of an artistic divide. Two poets who also publish in prose shed light
on our preconceived notions about poetry as an elite form and prose as the voice of the commons. Gain insight into dual domains as we explore links between poetic practice and effective writing.
Keynote Workshop Presentation On Fiction with John Dufresne
Take a journey beyond the obstacles in your writing life with acclaimed novelist, short story writer, playwright and screenwriter, John Dufresne. He’s the author of three guides to writing. The most recent show us how to generate and shape long forms (novels) as well as the extremely short (flash fiction). His first guidebook, The Lie That Tells a Truth, highlighted the paradox in writing fiction: pretense enacts what we know is true. Learn more about narrative technique and writing habits that work. Practice strategies that spark creative response, mine the memory, and prompt questions that drive a story to the page.
Two Hour Intensive Workshops
Spend two hours learning and working in-depth with award-winning authors who are master teachers from two South Florida high-profile creative writing M.F.A. programs. Topic Intensive classes are designed in response to two of the most pressing needs of writers in our groups: (1) how to start and shape stories that compel readers; and (2) how to revise a project in progress in efficient, effective ways.
Memory Mash-Ups and Cover Copy Plot: Story Generation and Design
Chantel Acevedo10:00 am - noon in the studio
Practice new ways to generate stories and design plots.
Attendees will delve into memories, stretch them, and mash
them up in order to create new work of fiction. The workshop
offers exercises and techniques to jumpstart ideas, invigorate
characters and situations, and select memorable detail.
The session will also present strategies for plotting a
novel that’s still in the early stages, using back cover
copy as a model. Participants will be writing several pieces
together, as time allows, so attendees should bring paper/pens and/or
laptops and be ready to create.
Productive Revision Or How to Stop Perfecting Your Paragraphs and Strengthen Your Story
Lynne Barrett1:00pm - 3:00pm in the studio
What leads writers of fiction and narrative
nonfiction, long or short, to send out work that
is not ready? Or to get bogged down and lost in
the revision process? Sometimes problems arise
from polishing prose when the story still needs
development, and sometimes, exasperated and wanting
to be done, writers making desperate "fixes."
This workshop will offer strategies for identifying
habits that can limit you, tackling what you’re afraid
of, and using your writing time well. We’ll discuss the
value of using a messy draft as a way of opening up opportunities.
And we’ll look at methods that let you gain distance in order
to re-see what’s there, looking at scenic structure, time
and pace, presentation of characters, and measurable change,
to help you find your way along the path to a complete and satisfying story.