• creative support and inspiration
• exercises and ideas to help shape your pieces
• thoughtful feedback and careful editing
• guidance getting happily published
• simpatico and talented women writers to encourage you
• a lively writers’ community
Elizabeth Fishel (click here for bio) created the first Wednesday Writers group in 1991 and since then has been leading groups both Wednesdays and Fridays in her Rockridge living-room, just a few blocks from the Rockridge BART stop. To guide and inspire each writer to find her own voice, she draws on her wide experience as a writing instructor and the author of four nonfiction books and dozens of magazine articles.
The groups are open to writers at all stages, from those just beginning and writing for their own pleasure and self-discovery to those who are publishing their work. Our group members’ essays have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The East Bay Monthly, Diablo, The Contra Costa Times, and The Christian Science Monitor, among others, and several have published books and contributed essays to anthologies.
More info about the groups and how to join:
• Both groups meet from 10 am - 12 pm in 2 sessions, fall and winter/spring
• The Wednesday group meets weekly; the Friday group meets twice a month
• The new ’10 winter/spring Wednesday group meets weekly from February 3rd
through June 2nd (No classes on March 31, April 7 and May 26). 15 meetings
and the fee is $525.
• The new ’10 winter/spring Friday group meets twice a month from February 12th
through June 18th. The meeting dates are Feb. 12, 26; March 12, 19; April 16, 30;
May 14, 21; June 4, 18. 10 meetings and the fee is $350.
• There is a $50 deposit to reserve a place
We welcome new members! Kindly contact Elizabeth for more information.
UC Berkeley Extension Workshop:
Writing and Selling Your Personal Essays
With Elizabeth Fishel and a panel of writers and editors
Saturday, March 6, 10 am – 5 pm
UC Berkeley Extension
1995 University Ave. — Room 213
Berkeley
Cost –$225 (EDP 023119)
An artful personal essay showcases your wit, wisdom, and window on the world. This information-packed one-day workshop takes your essays from ideas to potential publication. The instructor draws on more than twenty years of magazine essay-writing experience to share tips on style, structure, voice, the use of anecdote, and how to target what different publications want. A panel of writers share their expertise and perspectives on breaking into a variety of markets.
The panelists include:
Kate Moses is the co-editor of two popular essay anthologies, Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race & Themselves and Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood. She's also the author of Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath and a forthcoming, memoir, Cakewalk. She is a former senior editor and staff writer for Salon.
Michelle Slatalla writes the weekly first-person column "Wife/Mother/Worker/Spy" for The New York Times. Random House will publish her next book, a collection of humorous domestic essays, in early 2011.
Autumn Stephens is the co-editor of The East Bay Monthly and has edited two anthologies of personal essays, Roar Softly and Carry a Great Lipstick and The Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedded Wives. She is also the author of the Wild Women book series and has written for The New York Times, SF Magazine, and numerous Bay Area publications.
Mark Trautwein has been the editor of KQED's first-person radio essay series, "Perspectives," since 1999.
Click here for more info and to enroll
extension.berkeley.edu/cat/course273.html
