Book Notes: Get Lit! writing workshops set
Do you want to work on your poetry? Your nonfiction? Your playwriting?
The Get Lit! writing workshops have been announced for Spokane’s premier literary festival on April 13-17.
Most of the workshops take place on April 16. Here’s a listing:
• Poems as Portraits, with Lowell Jaeger.
• Edit Like a Pro, with Henry Covey and Gretchen Stelter.
• The Zine Scene, with Julia Lipscomb.
• Developing Your Blogging Style, with Molly Johnson and Dan Webster.
• Mining Family History for Stories, with Julie Otsuka (fiction).
• The Second Draft of History, with Jack Hamann (journalism).
• Conflict: The Key to Drama, with Nancy Rawles (playwriting and fiction).
• Sneaking Past the Dragons, with Ruth McLaughlin (memoir).
• Writing Off the Page, with Nance Van Winckel (poetry/art).
Also available for professional development credits:
• Nitro Nonfiction: How to Write and Teach Dynamic Nonfiction with Kelly Milner Halls and Claire Rudolf Murphy
• Putting Pen to Paper with Barbara Crumb and Beverley Wolff.
• Igniting the Inner Reader with April Niemela.
Only 25 people can attend each workshop, so preregistration is recommended. Go to www.spokaneparks.org, then click “register for classes” and select the “activities” tab to find the Get Lit! workshop, or call (509) 625-6200.
Workshops are $30 each, or $20 for students with a current ID. Youth workshops are free.
A North Idaho ‘Hotel’
North Idaho, here’s your reading assignment: “The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet,” by Jamie Ford.
That’s the “Our Region Reads” selection – a “big read”-style event – for Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Hayden and surrounding areas.
I mention it now so you’ll have plenty of time to have the book finished by March 15 and 16, when Ford will make appearances in Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene. Go to http://ourregionreads.blogspot.com/ for a complete schedule of events.
“The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” is the story of young love in Seattle’s International District. This bittersweet – yes, that word accurately describes the tone – novel will tell you what life was like in that neighborhood during the years before and during World War II.
Get slammed
Seattle slam poet Buddy Wakefield will perform at Coeur d’Alene’s North Idaho College on Thursday, 8:30 p.m. in the Edminster Student Union Building.
Wakefield has serious slam credentials: He’s a two-time individual world champion who has been heard on NPR, BBC and HBO.
It’s free, and the public is invited.
Lost Horse Press news
Here are a few updates from Sandpoint’s Lost Horse Press:
• The Press’ new anthology, “Of a Monstrous Child: An Anthology of Creative Writing Relationships,” edited by Nate Liederbach and James Harris, is now available.
It pairs writers and poets – including names such as Rick Moody and Robert Wrigley – in partnerships that display “the often-shared uncertainty of creative writing as community act.”
• Lost Horse Press is accepting entries for the Idaho Prize for Poetry 2011. All U.S. poets are eligible. Go to www.losthorsepress.org for entry guidelines.