Francesca Lia Block’s monthly workshops generate powerful inspiration and creativity in a safe, supportive environment. One Saturday per month 1:00-6:00.
Fiction and Poetry Workshop with Francesca Lia Block and Acclaimed Poet Molly Bendall
Saturday July 24th 1-6
5028 Pickford Way Culver City CA 90230
323 519 3431
$100.00
For more information or to sign up, send me a message.
WRITING WORKSHOP WITH FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK AND MOLLY BENDALL
Many prose writers are looking for ways to improve their language, making it richer, and more sensory as well as rhythmic and lyrical. Poets interested in venturing into prose may struggle with story structure. This workshop is designed to help fiction writers interested in improving their craft or experimenting with a new medium and poets who would like to learn about storytelling while utilizing their natural skills with language. Students will have the benefit of working with an established poet and fiction writer simultaneously.
Francesca Lia Block has been writing and publishing since 1989. She has received numerous awards, including the Margaret A. .Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award and her books have been translated into many languages. Her monthly workshops have been generating powerful inspiration and creativity in a safe, supportive environment since 2006.
Molly Bendall is the author three collections of poetry, After Estrangement (Peregrine Smith, 1992), Dark Summer (Miami University Press, 1999, and Ariadne’s Island (Miami University Press, 2001). Her new collection Under the Quick is forthcoming from Parlor Press, 2009. Her poems, reviews, and translations of the French surrealist poet Joyce Mansour have appeared in Paris Review, Field, Poetry, American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Volt, Denver Quarterly, Pool and many other journals. She has received the Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry Magazine, the Lynda Hull Poetry Award from Denver Quarterly and two Pushcart Prizes. Her poems are forthcoming in the anthology American Hybrid: The Norton Anthology of the New Poem. Poems have also appeared in anthologies, American Poetry: The Next Generation, The Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative Poetry, 2007, and The New American Poets. She has also co-authored with poet Gail Wronsky two collections of “Cowgirl” poetry and has a forthcoming collection in collaboration with her entitled Bling and Fringe. She currently teaches at the University of Southern California.
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Cash is preferred. In order to reserve your place please send a check for $50., made
out to Francesca Lia Block, to the above address as soon as possible. This is not refundable but I will credit you for the next workshop if you give me 48 hours notice The remaining $50 is due when you ARRIVE at the workshop. Please try to be on time!
Please bring snacks to share with ten other women, paper, pen (or laptop). You may take home the extra snacks you bring that aren’t eaten
Please submit up to 5 pp. double-spaced 12 point, regular margin of prose or five poems
via email to the workshop list for notes from everyone. Put your name and page numbers on the submission.
Please print out everyone's submissions, make notes on them, write your name at the top and return them to the author on the day of the workshop after we have discussed the pieces.
Molly and I will also give you our detailed notes.
Please send these pages asap but no later than one week before the date of the workshop.
We will also do some free-writing exercises in class and share them in a very supportive environment. These are meant to stimulate creativity and need not meet any special standards other than expressing your most spontaneous, honest response to the exercise.
These exercises will not be critiqued.
Work-Shopping Guidelines
Sharing our manuscripts can be a very emotional, exposing experience. Please, above all, be kind and respectful of one another. Try to focus on the technical aspects of the writing and not judge or critique the writer as a person.
Be specific and constructive in your criticism. In other words, don’t just say, “That was great,” or “I didn’t like that” but express exactly why something worked or didn’t work for you. Always try to start with positive, honest feedback. If something does not work for you, use the principles we have learned in class and your own knowledge of literature to express specifically why it might not work. You may offer suggestions as to how to solve the problem but it is not necessary to do so. Try to avoid being overly didactic if you do suggest specific changes. A calm, neutral and observant tone is best.
Stay focused on the work at hand and do not divert onto unrelated topics. It goes without saying that you should avoid personal attack or insults of any kind.
