Publish or Perish: Get Your Personal Essays Into Print

My new Wednesday class, originally entitled "Write That Book Now!" has morphed into something altogether different, and wonderful. The writers in the class all happen to be wicked funny practitioners of the personal essay. Which is probably the best way to go to get some publishing credits to one's name. And writing short pieces for long enough will yield a book eventually. As I am fond of saying, if you write one page a day for 365 days, you'll have a book! The class is not yet full, and as we are working on short pieces, it is an ongoing class. Meaning that anyone at any time who hankers to write short pieces for the magazine and newspaper trade, can jump in for ideas, support, and information about sending out their essays.

Here is one exercise that we use:

Make a list of all the things you want to write about. Anything from traveling with your dog to your grandmother's stories of farm life, to your frustrations with your tattoed twenty-something musician son. Choose one and write a two-page crappy first draft of an essay.

Book Groups Are Good

Had a fun and illuminating time at a Baypath College (Longmeadow, MA) event yesterday. It was entitled "Are You A Bookie?" and was a gathering of book groups in the area. There were appropriate snacks (tea and cucumber sandwiches -- really!), bookstores peddling books, authors reading and answering our salient or dumb questions, and of course, a slew of book groups. It was a great networking and info gathering opp. We also took away with us a huge list of book club reads, recommended by authors as well as the book groups. Suzanne Strempek Shea moderated, and as always was a gracious and accessible host. Leslea Newman, poet laureate of Northampton read and entertained us with her hilarity. Also, a young (16-year-old) writer named Amanda Butcher, Rebecca Flowers (an NPR Player and author of Nice To Come Home To, and Alan Hunter, Curry (?) College prof and author of Stories We Need To Know (he also hasa a great accent, perhaps Australian). So, put it on your calendar for next year, and also check out a similar event sponsored by the fantastic Odyssey Bookstore on Wednesday, June 10th.