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Category: Writing news

Writing Workshops at 3rd Ward All Summer

THREE new writing workshops at 3rd Ward starting this week and continuing throughout the summer:

1–Learn to write a press release, release it into the wilderness, and talk about how you’ll be promoting your event. One night workshop.

2–Create an artist statement for your portfolio in a workshop setting that helps you explore what you’ve always wanted to say about your art, without using clichés.

3–Write This: Bring any writing project you are stuck on to this one-night workshop that feels more like a one-on-one consulting session than a class.

 

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100 Days, 100 Essays

I’ve been working on a new project this summer, 100 Days (or sporadically on Twitter, #100days). I am writing one 1,000-word essay every day for 100 consecutive days.  I don’t have any plans to post these anywhere while the project is in-progress, although once I pass day 30 I’m going to start editing a few of my favorites.

I’m not alone in “100 days,” which I learned the first week. Through the #100days hashtag I discovered a painter on a similar mission who is releasing prints of her 100 days of paintings. Coincidentally, we started on the same day. Then I found out that a friend of mine, local artist Cameron Blaylock, has also started a paint-on-consecutive-days project, An Apple a Day. He’s painting an apple every day (and then he eats it). He also started on the same day, July 1, but as far as I know he’s going to stop after 30 days. Lots of coincidences lately. In fact, on two separate days, while I was writing the day’s essay, a butterfly joined me–landing on my hand and then on my keyboard on both occasions.  I can’t think of better writing coaches.

I’ve overwritten the word count on most days, and I’ve also written two essays a couple of times–once as a false start, and then yesterday a new idea came up as soon as I finished the first essay, so I wrote two. I don’t have a total word count, and I didn’t plan to count, but I can safely say that I’ve written 25,000 words in the last 22 days, in 23 separate first drafts. As every other writer says at some point, but my friend Audi  said to me most recently: writing is a verb.

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1441 at Pine Box Rock Shop for BOS2012

Bushwick writers collective 1441 has a literary reading right in the middle of Bushwick Open Studios, Saturday at 6 PM, at Pine Box Rock Shop. You have plenty of time to listen to some words, have a drink, and catch the 27 other parties on your list of things to do in Bushwick on June 2nd. So please come. I’m going to read a brand-new Bushwick-arts-themed essay. While you’re waiting, here are our bios…

Dolan’s work has appeared in The Lifted Brow, The Believer, Contrary, Field, apt, TRNSFR and numerous other journals. He spends his time mythologizing every airplane hijacking in history, and will throw your money away in the street if you buy his terrible book of reviews. More at www.dolanmorgan.com.

Michael Lala is the author of two chapbooks: Under the Westward Night (Knickerbocker Circus 2011) and [fire!] ([sic] Press 2011). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM; the Red Cedar Review; Sink Review; No, Dear; La Fovea; Explosion-Proof; and elsewhere. Currently, Lala curates for Recession Art/Culturefix NYC and Fireside Follies Reading Series.

Joel Marino is a short-story writer and full-time copy editor for UrbanDaddy (it’s an online magazine, not an escort service). He’s originally from Miami, Florida, where he worked several years as a crime reporter for a major daily newspaper. He specialized in homicide–writing about it, not committing it.

Eric Nelson has performed at Presentation Party in Bushwick and at the renowned Dixon Theatre in the Lower East Side. Nelson’s fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Volume 1 Brooklyn, We’ll Never Have Paris, Constellation Magazine and ZineWorld; and his book of short stories, The Silk City Series, was released in 2010 by Knickerbocker Press.

Matthew Zingg’s work appears in The Awl, Cider Press Review, Front Porch, The Rumpus, The Madison Review and Opium Magazine among others. He received his MFA in poetry from Adelphi University.

Robin Grearson is a nonfiction writer based in Bushwick whose essays have appeared in The New York Times and The Brooklyn Rail. She also writes about artists for Artlog.com and other outlets, produces art events and teaches writing workshops at 3rd Ward.

1441 is a collective of essayists, fiction writers, and poets based out of Bushwick, Brooklyn who meet regularly for workshops and to foster literary discussion and community. For more information about upcoming events or to contact 1441, please track us down on Facebook or something.

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Alias Anonymous in Brooklyn Rail May 2012

I loved writing for The Brooklyn Rail this month about the culture I discovered when I arrived in Brooklyn: everyone has an alias, a second identity or a superhero life. Am I only the only one I know without a second self?

I’m told it’s hard to date a writer, you never know when they’re going to write about you…

Alias Anonymous: The Brooklyn Rail

 

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Art break: reading & writing

I have a poem forthcoming called “7.2 Miles” set to appear soon on Robert Lopez’ blog, “No News Today,” and it will also appear in print, as part of an anthology of writing by Brooklyn writers created by Kelley Brannon to celebrate the first anniversary of the popular First Sunday storytelling series at Bodega Wine Bar. Congrats Kelley & Bodega! In  support of the anthology launch, I will be part of a reading at Bodega on April 1, 2012. Also reading will be Dolan Morgan, Eric Nelson,  Mariette Papic and many other great readers. I will be sharing a brand-new, unpublished essay that explores the world of pseudonyms. Come!

More writing news: I started contributing to Artlog.com. Last weekend the first three posts, all related to the Fountain Art Fair, were published on the same day as Bushwick’s Beat Nite, where I was holding down the fort for Dreaming Without Sleeping. I’m still catching up on my sleep from last weekend, but I was so glad to connect with everyone related to Fountain and I have always loved the Artlog family. There’s more news coming soon, wait for it…

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