2006 Nobel Laureate in Literature Orhan Pamuk

Writers Retreat Workshop August 22 – 30, 2009 Erlanger, KY

Writers Retreat Workshop August 22 – 30, 2009 Erlanger, KY

Our annual 10-day workshop and retreat featuring the fabulous WRW Core staff and guest industry professionals. Featuring Edgar award author TJ MacGregor, The Simpsons writer Julie Thaker-Scully, literary agent Donald Maass, and more. An intense week of story structure workshops, 1-1 meetings, lectures, and lifelong memories revolving around you, your novel, and your writing life.

Visit: http://www.writersretreatworkshop.com/
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Tip of the Day: Literary Focus

Literary Focus
By Will Greenway

Focus in journalism is assumed, but many writers don't realize that it is of equal importance to fiction. In journalism, the focus is on facts and instilling knowledge. Extraneous words and ideas get in the way of the message the author is conveying. In a world of waning attention spans, the material must be catchy, evocative, and pull the reader in right away. In this media-saturated world, there are dozens of alternatives to whatever it is you are presenting. You must the hook the reader, or he will move on. This particular truth applies to ALL writing—YOUR writing.

When we consider letting others read our work, we turn our creative efforts toward polishing, and that's when focus comes into play.

Strange but Literary True: Joseph Mitchell's Legendary Writer's Block

Strange but Literary True: Joseph Mitchell's Legendary Writer's Block

From 1964 until his death in June of 1996, Joseph Mitchell, the famously brilliant staff writer for The New Yorker, suffered from, arguably, the worst case of writer’s block in literary history, frozen in place, unable to file a significant word all those years. After his passing, Mitchell’s colleague Roger Angell wrote: “Each morning, he stepped out of the elevator with a preoccupied air, nodded wordlessly if you were just coming down the hall, and closed himself in his office. He emerged at lunchtime, always wearing his natty brown fedora (in summer, a straw one) and a tan raincoat; an hour and a half later, he reversed the process, again closing the door. Not much typing was heard from within, and people who called on Joe reported that his desktop was empty of everything but paper and pencils. When the end of the day came, he went home. Sometimes, in the evening elevator, I heard him emit a small sigh, but he never complained, never explained.”

Note: Mitchell’s legendary block, coincidentally or not, occurred right after the publication of his greatest story, “Joe Gould's Secret,” the subject of which was…writer’s block.

The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose in NYC

The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose in NYC

Please join us for extraordinary nights of literary fun:

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Fun Lit Fact: Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee published her first, and ultimately Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” in 1960—and, amazingly, she never published another book again. Another interesting note: One of the book’s characters, Dil, was modeled after Lee’s childhood friend who went on to become a famous author as well—Truman Capote.

An Evening with Gay Talese

Fun Lit Fact: Hemingway & Faulkner

Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, both of whom won Nobel Prizes for Literature, were the fiercest of literary rivals from mostly the 1920’s through the 1950’s, with polar opposite styles. Hemingway wrote from his journalistic roots: simple words, tight, straight-to-the-point sentences. Faulkner’s prose, on the other hand, was a tangled web, sometimes without punctuation, and often hiding deep symbolic imagery. Yet the two are strangely connected in the history of one Bogart and Bacall movie in 1944, “To Have or Have Not.” Hemingway wrote the novel, Faulkner’s screenplay transferred it to the big screen.