Events

One of Neil Gaiman’s writing rules is, “Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.” Like members of a project team, writers often become overwhelmed by the work required to carry a project to completion. In this interactive seminar, you will be guided through project management techniques that can help writers who struggle with focus or managing their time. We’ll talk about a different kind of setting: that which includes goals, priorities, and deadlines. We’ll also discuss common time management pitfalls, how to avoid them, and how to get back on track if you fall into them. You will leave the session with an action plan for how you can stay focused on the finish line, whether your goal is to complete a draft or a revision.

Join Trident in partnership with GrubStreet for a Pride month panel discussion about writing queer lives in both fiction and nonfiction with Chris Castellani, Garrard Conley, Kelly Ford, Catherine Guthrie, Brontez Purnell, and Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich.

Today’s the day! Cottonmouths is available for purchase in your local bookstore and online.

Harvard Book Store and GrubStreet welcome GrubStreet writing instructor and fiction author KELLY J. FORD for a reading from her debut novel, Cottonmouths—a tale of crime and desire amid small-town America’s meth epidemic.

A panel of authors answering your questions about the book publication process, from finishing your novel to finding an agent, dealing with editors from houses both large and small, launching your book, and everything in between. Moderator: Michelle Hoover, Brandeis Writer-in-Residence (The Quickening, Bottomland). Panelists: Bob Fernandes (A Big Box of YEAH!), Kelly Ford (Cottonmouths), Andrea Meyer (Room for Love), Louise Miller (A City Baker’s Guide to Country Living), Emily Ross (Half in Love with Death), and Jennie Wood (A Boy Like Me).

First drafts of novels can be messy, amorphous, and daunting. Sometimes, extensive critical feedback can be counterproductive before the first draft is finished, yet writers often find themselves losing focus without support and guidance. In class, we will do exercises, discuss craft issues—characterization, the protagonist’s desire, plot and outlining, point of view, voice, dialogue—and read short scenes from each other’s work, providing feedback in an environment that recognizes the specific challenges of the novel in progress. In the last class, all writers will be invited to submit twenty pages of their novels to receive a written critique from the instructor. Novels of all genres are welcome. Please bring the first page (double-spaced, 12-point font) of your novel to the first class.

One of Neil Gaiman’s writing rules is, “Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.” Like members of a project team, writers often become overwhelmed by the work required to carry a project to completion. In this interactive seminar, you will be guided through project management techniques that can help writers who struggle with focus or managing their time. We’ll talk about a different kind of setting: that which includes goals, priorities, and deadlines. We’ll also discuss common time management pitfalls, how to avoid them, and how to get back on track if you fall into them. You will leave the session with an action plan for how you can stay focused on the finish line, whether your goal is to complete a draft or a revision.

More writers are committed to diversifying their casts with LGBTQ characters. But the fear of “getting it right” remains a concern and a challenge. How can writers avoid problematic representations and common tropes? What challenges can one expect on the road to publication? Will writers get pigeonholed or labeled as just LGBTQ writers — is this a bad thing, should we care?

In this session featured at Boston’s 2017 The Muse and the Marketplace, authors of LGBTQ narratives will discuss some pitfalls and issues writers of these characters face, and offer advice for adding dimension to their characters without erasing important parts of who they are.

With Jennie Wood and Chris Goodwin.