Author: Ina

We had a great group on Wednesday, with so many ideas that I can’t cover them all!
First the bragging:
Christine Shaffer is one of five finalists in a memoir contest being judged by the University of Minnesota. First prize is $1000 and publication of her book. We’re rooting for her!
Ina Chadwick talked about the new writing contests  – more chances to submit!
Shira ‘fessed up that she’d finally submitted something – a huge leap forward!
Elsie showed us her two memoir essays published by the New Canaan library in a book of memoirs.
I had an essay published on the Partnership at Drugfree website. http://intervene.drugfree.org/2011/06/5-things-i-wish-id-known-about-mental-illness-and-teens/#comments

We talked about informal writers’ critiquing groups, and how to set them up. If you’re interested, let us know, and we’ll see what we can do to organize something.

I was inspired by Ina’s mentioning the current NPR series on All things considered – Summer Sounds. So I submitted a piece today, about the sounds I remember from the age of the dinosaurs (the 50’s) in England. We’ll see.

Margaret Rumford told us about the self – publication of her memoir. She used a company in Vermont, who did the design, layout, (but not the proof-reading) and got it printed very reasonably. Email me if you’d like to contact Margaret for more information.

We talked about the 30 creative things in 30 days, and I rashly committed to doing it and reporting on it via my Facebook page (see below).

That’s enough about me.  Keep writing! Gabi
See you next month – Wednesday July 13, 12.30-1.30ish at the Westport Arts Center

It was great to see all of you (12!) who came to the Writers’ Arts Café on Wednesday, March 6. Gabi  started with a bragging session, where we asked anyone who’d had something good happen since the last meeting to share it. This took a long time – because so many people had good news.

Carol Shaffer won the Fairfield Public Library Food Memoir writing contest

Penny Pearlman had an item accepted for an online inspirational book, and an “idea for the day” accepted for a calendar

Robert Williams had an article accepted for the online magazine “The Good Men Project” in which he described his first yoga (terrifying ) yoga class.

Susan Hood has had a series of illustrated children’s books accepted for publication

Carol Boas had a story accepted for Echook, the new short writing app

Shira Linden is an now an honored writer for Echook

Speaking of Echook, we talked about their fascinating new publishing idea. To find out more, click the link below.

Then we talked about the main subject – writers’ workshops and groups – worth the time? Worth the money?

We defined that writers’ groups as informal gatherings of like minded writers, and decided that finding a group of writers in the same genre was crucial to productive feedback.  Echook has a very good summary of how to start a writers’ group here:

http://echook.com/how-to-run-a-successful-writing-group-and-get-published-and-paid-for-your-work/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eChook+%28eChook+Digital+Publishing++%29

The Fairfield Library runs a series of free writers’ groups in various genres: http://www.fairfieldpubliclibrary.org/writers.htm

They have a writers’ blog, too, which you might want to check out : http://fairfieldwriter.wordpress.com/

Other writers in the group talked about their best and worst writers conference/workshop experiences. Places mentioned were:

Breadloaf, VT: http://www.middlebury.edu/blwc

Squaw Valley, CA: http://www.squawvalleywriters.org/

Wesleyan Writers’ Conference, CT: http://www.wesleyan.edu/writing/conference/

Have you ever wondered who is that person everyone is crowded around at a party? That’s the best storyteller, or the richest man in the room who is looking for a wife, or, Lady Gaga dressed for the best of show. But you don’t have to have diamonds and coinage in your pocket, or be wearing 10 inch steel heels to connect.

It isn’t hard to stay socially involved with other people. It really isn’t. Despite how wonderful digital connections are because they expand our world of  like minded people all across the globe,  it is psychologically and physically rewarding to be face-to-face with those in your actual geographical circle. Hearing people laugh together at something funny you’ve told them, or watching their faces as they relate to something that happened to you is one of the biggest  endorphin (those good good hormones!) boosters that nature gave us in life.

Also, being part of an audience with friends and neighbors is humanizing.  Well, that beats chit chatting in the checkout line. The launch of Westport Arts Center’s first ever storytelling program is coming in January. Get in touch with me: ina@mousemuse.com, or gabi@mousemuse.com, and ask about the program. Tickets go up for sale through WAC, but storytellers are welcome to stay in touch anytime. Multiple themes will be posted this week for the whole season.

On Wednesday, November 17 at the Writer’s Cafe, I gave my favorite exercise to the women and men in the group, “Nine Things I Don’t Remember”  and “Nine Things I Do.”  This extraordinary writing prompt was given to me by Abigail Thomas, whose memoir writing and instruction can be easily found on http://www.abigailthomas.net/.

I promised to post what I had written last February in a group class  that Abby conducted at the Woodstock Writer’s Festival. Alas, I can’t find the notebook with that entry. So I suppose that should be one of the “NIne Things I Don’t Remember” this time around.  But by way of proving to the doubters that this exercise is illuminating, I thought I’d give myself the same challenge, again. Old work is good to revisit when it needs to be revised. New work is a diversion and serious avoidance if you haven’t completed what you’ve started.

An aha moment for me!  I’m on a deadline with the third piece in my series about my father  for the www.goodmenproject.com, and this “remembering” exercise can get the juices flowing for that piece—which is slow in coming. It is tentatively called ” Scheherazade of the Stove.” In the opening of the memoir that I’m writing for publication on or about November 25, my parents are having a violent argument in the dining room in our lake house in the Berkshires. Here are “Nine Things I Don’t Remember” about that argument.

1. I don’t remember why my mother was in her dressing robe in the middle of the afternoon?

2. I don’t remember  how my mother kept that dressing robe, mended and tidy.

3. I don’t remember who followed who into the dining room where the argument escalated

4. I don’t remember if the sun was shining through the picture window that looked right out onto the tranquil lake

5. I don’t remember if they knew I was there?

6. I don’t remember what I said to god when I prayed they would get divorced?

7. I don’t remember when I switched to praying  they would stay together?

8. I don’t remember when I started thinking my father would kill her.

9. I don’t remember which one of us carried my mother to her four poster bed.

Tomorrow I will write the “Nine Things I Do Remember.” Obviously, I will by then have approached my looming deadline with more knowledge than I had at the start of this post. “Nine Things You Don’t Remember”  are a good way to come into your “memory room.” Sneak in. See what makes you tremble when you deny memory.

If you attended the Westport Arts Center’s November 11, 2010 performance and readings of memoir contest works about war, I could tell you that all of these works in the original written form didn’t have the dramatic core well integrated into the medium—which is often just a difference in writing a 1500 essay for print only, and writing for listeners.  The authors all  had stories to tell, and luckily they were open to having some of their work revised—the way editors revise. But this is performance work, and playwrights rarely give the director/producer carte blanche for narrative progression.

However, I can easily demonstrate how if you’re a writer, listening to your own work matters. I will be uploading the audio for both the October 17, 2010 readings and the Veterans Day readings next week, and you’ll easily be able to feel how if you “read” your work aloud, you’ll get the maximum bang for you ink-buck.

When I was an editor in a large noisy newsroom, I use to make my reporters read their stories aloud before they filed them for editing.  At 5 pm for a morning newspaper, there was always a low hum in the clicking clacking computer terminal humming newsroom—ten or twelve people yakking away to themselves —as if they were talking on a cell phone on a Manhattan street corner. But here’s the thing they all learned: You can be the best writer in the world, but you may have less than perfect pitch in your ear. No problem. If you read your work aloud, you will hear where you need to change up sentences, move descriptors, and “ings” and “howevers,” and all sorts of tricks to make the music of what you write sing louder. It can’t hurt. Try it.

Finally!

The Tuesday evening series that launches on January 25th  at the Westport Arts is in the casting phases.If you have a a good story on the following theme, email: ina@mousemuse.com or call 203 247 3346. If you’re selected, we will work with you to get that story into a dazzler, under 10 minutes no matter what, and you’ll see, you’ll be hooked. You’ll want to be a storyteller again and again.

The End of Innocence—We want to hear your stories of End of Innocence.

We often think that young kids are the only innocents in the world, and indeed we try to protect them from as much reality as we can. But we are all kids in certain ways, and the end of innocence keeps popping up throughout our lives. Maybe you were six years old when you noticed that the Tooth Fairy slipping out the door looked just like your mother? Or perhaps you were just at retirement when your genius stockbroker turned out to be Bernie Madoff?

Disillusion is a kicker no matter when it happens. Maybe the boneheaded guy who cheated on his exam in high school ended up getting into Harvard? Maybe you suddenly realized that the guy who finally asked you on a date really was only after one thing?  How long did it take for these eye opening realities to sink in? And how did they change your life? Did you go for vengeance or acceptance? If we’re lucky, and if we are to grow, each end of innocence brings some retrospective humor, wisdom, and knowledge.

Think about it. You’ve got a story. We want to hear it. So does everyone else.

Staged Readings a Tremendous Success for Writers

The winning entries are appearing on WAC website now.
First Place
We Saw the Sea, by Katharine Weber

Second Place
Learning to Lie, by Margaret Rumford

Third-Place-Tie
Loving Lydia, by Marcelle M. Soviero
Crosswords, by Leslie Chess Feller

Honored Writers (alphabetical)
Connecticut Sopranos, by Liz Beeby
The Prom Dress and the Kugel, by Carol Boas
Tending Beauty, by Linda Clearwater
Pimp My Kitchen, by Ivy Eisenberg
On the Road Again, by Gayle Gleckler
Christmas 1944, by Sumner Glimcher
The Princess, by Susie Bedsow Horgan
Affirmative Action, by Elise Meyer
Kerplunkle: A Musical Memoir of My Greatest Worst Achievement, by Chad Rabinovitz
The Lobsters, by Christine Shaffer
The American Cocktail, by Ruth Sutcliffe-Heagney
The American Son, by Alan Swerdlowe
Learner’s Permit, by Linda Urbach Howard
Vocational Training, by Cathy Von Berkem
Holmes Street, Priscilla Whitley-Mathews
Away, by Teresa Yokoi

Writers of Promise Award
True Struggle, by Kayce Gillespie
Exile, by Zahary Wheat

Okay, so last night at the Garden Cinema where I dragged myself after an exhausting day, and later  from a rather large martini at Meigas restaurant on Wall Street in Norwalk (always great food!), I had an artist’s epiphany. The art of short film-making is highly specific, and I am not a fan of that genre.

Meanwhile, I am happy to say “take  heart” at how others were completely involved in each of what I thought were agenda-driven films. The short film series is presented by the dazzlingly successful lunchtime producers of “Play with Your Food.” The gold dust twins, Nancy Diamond and Carole Schweid, who run the series in several venues and are sold out, must be onto something with their  migration to night time shows and into another medium. While  not my cup of tea, these shorts are definitely thought provoking, entertaining momentarily, and valuable for others.

The five movies, each produced by a different country, were all nominated for Academy Awards and that kind of banner advertising regarding quality is enough to interest movie-goers. After-all, with YouTube, any one of us can make a movie, (Oh, no!) and with film programs installed in every worthwhile school, and not for profit arts orgs., there is an abundance of choices to put up on the silver screen. These were the creme de la creme.

After the third short  film (We are talking 6 minutes, 18 minutes etc. ), I ducked out to the ladies room, running into neighbors who were leaving because they had already seen this series at the Avon theater. It  was raining hard, so they wanted to get home. They were totally rhapsodic about the presentation, and especially about the  film that to me seemed as if it were two hours long,  but two-hours tiring.  There, in front of the Ladies Room on Isaac Street in Norwalk, I got it! I understood what they were saying and how they felt about the entry from India, 18 minutes of “Kavi.”

This was the ideal audience for the series. Most of the them grew up in another era, and not in the continuous news bombardment generation from the internet era, and they react deeply—from afar—to human rights violations. They were the original activists. They mourn any political ennui surrounding us.  “Kavi” deals with slavery from a child’s point of view, which is not so tortuous in Kavi’s bright, hopeful desire  to please his masters. Small consolation for what we know will be a terrible life in the class system, there. The film is affecting as the camera follows the naive and joyous little kid living in squalor. It’s vaguely akin to the kids’ lives in Slumdog Millionaire.

I wanted more. I wanted an arc where I can get into the drama first—be thrust into a situation, and then watch the character (s) struggle against their fates and environments. Will they win, will they lose? For me that takes time to develop, and perfect timing. Short films don’t allow me to travel that arc. I think I’m slow.

However, if you are moved by sensitive cinematic work, original metaphor, zippy and winkingly-smart irony, a hint of muckraking for certain kinds of political statements, but indeed enough animation with good humor, and art too, then take a short break from a long day next month. November 11, 2010. Check out Play with Your Food‘s website for the next showings.

Writers Artists Collaborative
Wednesdays from 12:30-1:30pm
Wednesday, April 15
Free & Open to the Public
RSVP here

Hemingway and Fitzgerald and all of the expat writers living in Paris had one unifying force besides liquor and deadlines, they met regularly at cafes and just talked, either about themselves, or the process of writing, or the terrors of not writing, and maybe they talked about the art all around them in those halcyon years. Come join other writers together for a cup of espresso, some tidbits, (but no absinthe, for sure) one Wednesday a month in the WAC gallery lounge.

Bring your successes, favorite rejection note, memory of your first byline, or maybe a line from a book that set your creative juices flowing. Show up.

Whether you’ve been writing forever, or are new to it, whether you’re published or hope to be, join us at the Writer’s Cafe at the Westport Arts center. Sympathy, support, new ideas and time to connect with other writers. We’ll bring the coffee, you bring your sandwich. For more details, please visit www.westportartscenter.org and www.mousemuse.com.