Gene Berson - Poetry Workshop - January 9th

This workshop will open with falling asleep, letting our conscious, verbal restraints lapse, talking without hesitation, our ears alive. I invite you to speak to discover what you want to say. This will separate you from your story. I will improvise work in front of you while you
similarly improvise on paper. As we put them together, a group consciousness will inevitably judgment of you as a writer. That worry is baggage. We will make ourselves up, hear how we sound. Hear yourself. Who's that? There's always an element of danger in any new utterance. It will be like taking a trip out of the country or falling in love—exciting yet scary. The world may never be the same.
become visible. This workshop is not about how good you are. It is not about judgment of you as a writer. That worry is baggage. We will make ourselves up, hear how we sound. Hear yourself. Who's that? There's always an element of danger in any new utterance. It will be like taking a trip out of the country or falling in love—exciting yet scary. The world may never be the same.

Sierra Writers meetings are free and open to the public.

Meetings are held the 2nd Wednesday of each month January - June

Open Book, 671 Maltman Dr., in Grass Valley.

Upcoming Workshops

The Joy of Writing - January 12th - with Diane Covington Carter
(530) 802-4224 | dcovingtoncarter@gmail.com

Writing Classes with Rachel Howard

Life Into Literature: Explorations in Memoir 
Novel Writing Foundation Workshop
Reading Chekhov for Our Times
Drop-In Workshops
One-Day Classes
MONSTER MEMOIR MANUSCRIPT CLASS
For prices, details and enrollment information, visit Yuba Writers Workshops.

Patricia Dove Miller Workshops

(Jan 21st registration required)

The Bird-song Writing Practice Group
The Art and Craft of Creative Writing Workshop
The Advanced Technique and Critique Workshop

For prices, details and registration contact Patricia Dove Miller at pat@patriciadovemiller.com or visit her website: patriciadovemiller.com.

Early Bird Conference Tickets on Sale through 1/15/19

4th Annual Sierra Writers Conference
January 26, 2019

Josh Weil, Keynote Speaker

Early Bird tickets available through January, 15th

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Writing Classes with Rachel Howard

Life Into Literature: Explorations in Memoir
Six Mon. nights, 6:30-9 p.m., Jan. 21st, 28th, Feb. 4th, 18th and 25th, and March 4th (no class Feb. 11th)

Novel Writing Foundation Workshop
Eight Wednesdays, noon to 2 p.m., February 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th, and March 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th.

Reading Chekhov for Our Times
Friday afternoons, Noon-1:30 p.m., January 18th, February 22nd, March 22, May 17, and June 14, 2019.

Drop-In Workshop 
Fridays, noon to 2 p.m., January 11th and 25th, March 8th and 22nd.

One-Day Classes
For those who want to GET SERIOUS:
Paths to Publication: Navigating the Literary Landscape
Flexible scheduling, by demand

MONSTER MEMOIR MANUSCRIPT CLASS:
Everything You Need to Move from Middle Stage to Finished Book

For prices, details and enrollent information, visit Yuba Writers Workshops.

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February Writing Classes with Patricia Dove Miller

The Bird-song Writing Practice Group, which teaches basic Writing Practice based on Natalie Goldberg's books, begins during the week of February 4. Please register by January 28.

The Art and Craft of Creative Writing Workshop, which helps you work on your draft-in-progress or begin a new story, begins during the week of February 4. Please register by January 21.

The Advanced Technique and Critique Workshop, which helps you revise and finish your current story, begins during the week of February 4. Please send a manuscript sample by January 21.

Patricia is also available for private lessons, editing, coaching, and manuscript consultation.
For more details or to register for any of these classes, please contact Patricia Dove Miller at pat@patriciadovemiller.com or visit her website: patriciadovemiller.com.

Open Read - Dec. 12th

Writers can help uplift and inspire society. 

Photo Credit: flickr | Aberdeen Proving Ground Toastmasters

By reading our work aloud and receiving feedback, we help each other find our voice, and create pieces that have meaning and integrity. 

With California's natural disasters and politics, writers need to be heard and supported.

Sierra Writers Open Reads are intended to be a safe place for writers to experiment with craft, share vision, and develop voice. 

Guidelines:

1. Bring a single copy of your piece, double-spaced, Times New Roman (or similar) font. Reading from electronic devices is not allowed.
2. Limit your piece to 750 words (2 to 3 pages), double-spaced, or about 3 minutes, read aloud. If submitting poetry, no more than three short poems.
3. Work should be anonymous. Please be sure author’s name or other identifying information is removed
4. Work can be whole pieces or excerpts, poetry or prose. If it would help the group, please feel free to indicate the genre or tell us it is from a larger work. The piece will be critiqued on its own.

Please consider these suggestions for how to get the most out of the Open Read:

• Be gentle, kind, and supportive.
• Be an active listener. Take notes; be prepared to be specific with your comments.
• Begin with a positive comment. In order to grow as a writer, it is important to be able to identify what is working in a piece, even if you don’t like the topic, have issues with the voice, etc. What is the author doing that is working well? Where is the energy? What images are potent and interesting?
• Keep your criticism constructive. “I didn’t like it” is not helpful to a writer, but “I disagreed with the point the author was making, which made me lose interest in the piece. Maybe the author could look for a way to make it more accessible to people with diverse opinions.” Another example: “It was hard to follow” isn’t nearly as helpful as “The point of view moved from person to person very quickly, which I had a hard time following.” Follow up with specifics from your notes about where this happened in the piece, if possible.
• Focus on the writing. Our goal is to give the author feedback on their writing. If you find you are talking more about yourself and your own experiences related to the topic in the piece, consider talking with the author about those after the Open Read is over. Give the writing and the writer the attention during the few minutes that are allotted to their work, and engage on a personal level afterward.

Sierra Writers Business Topics

Volunteers needed;

• Manage and judge 2019 Young Writers Competition - click here to sign-up
• YWC Nevada County Language Arts Teacher Liaison - click here to sign-up
• Grant research, writing, and fund-raising - click here to sign-up

Kirsten Casey- Poetry & Borrowing Your Ghosts - Nov. 14th

 Kirsten Casey is a 25 year resident of Nevada City, which makes our town the place she has lived the longest, continuously, which also means she will always call it home. A California Poet in the Schools, Creative Writing teacher to kids ages 8-18, she has taught in the county for over 14 years. Currently, she is a coordinator of Dream A Difference, an international non-profit poetry exchange between Grizzly Hill School and Washington School students, with international refugee camp students, with the goal of fostering empathy, emphasizing similarity, and promoting not only the writing of poetry, but its therapeutic and unifying qualities. Her book of poetry, Ex Vivo: Out of the Living Body, was published by Hip Pocket Press in 2012. She is currently working on a new manuscript, with the working title, Borrowing Your Ghosts. She is still married to her first husband, a Nevada City native, and has three children over the age of twenty (at least two of which like poetry.) You can’t win them all.

"I equate poetry with borrowing. The poet borrows lines, words, emotions, and points of view. Still, it is what we do with the borrowing that makes the poems entirely singular. We can even borrow from our own memories, which often transform over a lifetime. Borrowing suggests that we will return what we take temporarily, but once a poem is written and put into the world, it is entirely the readers. This relationship is the purpose of the poem. The true goal of poetry is sharing, creating a connection between the written word and the reader. Together, through some writing exercises, we will explore ways to borrow from the world, and from our own memory, to discover something new," says Kirsten Casey

Sierra Writers meetings are free and open to the public.

6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Open Book
671 Maltman Drive 
Grass Valley

Sierra Writers Business Topics

It's membership renewal time!
(Links to your website or blog will be added to the SW website as renewals are received.)

Volunteers needed;

• manage and judge 2019 Young Writers Competition - click here to sign-up
• YWC Nevada County Language Arts Teacher Liason - click here to sign-up
• grant research, writing, and fund-raising - click here to sign-up

Read, Write, Sell Event Coordinator(s) Needed for December  -  This event is for those who have recently published a first, second, or third book. Each author will get 15 minutes and the event will last a minimum of 1.5 hours and a maximum of 3. Sierra Writers will give up its Wednesday evening slot in December for this event, but the event coordinators could also choose to do a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Authors must be a paid-up member of Sierra Writers to participate. If you are interested please send an email to sierrawriters@gmail.com with "Author event" in the subject heading.

January Workshop:

The Joy of Writing

Writing can be fun, freeing, even exciting!

Sound impossible? It’s not…

In a safe environment and through creative, sensory exercises, you will unleash your inner writer

Saturday, January 12, 2019

9:30-4:30

$95

Diane Covington-Carter is an award-winning and best-selling writer and the author of three memoirs and a novel.

For more information, email dcovingtoncarter@gmail.com,

call (530)802-4224 or go to www.dianecovingtoncarter.com 

Will Staple - Poetry Reading & Workshop - Oct. 10th

Staple grew up in Oakland “in the shadow of the Beats,” and attended UC Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement. 

In his own words, “From 1970 to 1995, I published over 200 poems infused with the Grand Canyon and mountain forests, on the sassy, sexy side of spirituality, filled with a sly humor, condensed form, depth of content, detailing the culture that left the cities in the 1970s for a more archaic path with a heart.” 

Listen to Will Staple reading poetry on KVMR.


Sierra Writers meetings are free and open to the public.
6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Open Book
671 Maltman Drive 
Grass Valley

Sierra Writers Business Topics

It's membership renewal time!
(Links to your website or blog will be added to the SW website as renewals are received.)

Volunteers needed;

• manage and judge 2019 Young Writers Competition
• grant research, writing, and fund-raising

Open Read - September 12th

 .   

Enjoy an inspired evening of constructive and supportive feedback on your work (open to all genres) at 6:30pm on September 12th at the Open Book, 671 Maltman Drive in Grass Valley. 

Please review the following guidelines:

1. Bring a single copy of your piece, double-spaced, Times New Roman (or similar) font. Reading from electronic devices is not allowed.
2. Limit your piece to 750 words (2 to 3 pages), double-spaced, or about 3 minutes, read aloud. If submitting poetry, no more than three short poems.
3. Work should be anonymous. Please be sure author’s name or other identifying information is removed
4. Work can be whole pieces or excerpts, poetry or prose. If it would help the group, please feel free to indicate the genre or tell us it is from a larger work. The piece will be critiqued on its own.

Please consider these suggestions for how to get the most out of the Open Read:

• Be an active listener. Take notes; be prepared to be specific with your comments.
• Begin with a positive comment. In order to grow as a writer, it is important to be able to identify what is working in a piece, even if you don’t like the topic, have issues with the voice, etc. What is the author doing that is working well? Where is the energy? What images are potent and interesting?
• Keep your criticism constructive. “I didn’t like it” is not helpful to a writer, but “I disagreed with the point the author was making, which made me lose interest in the piece. Maybe the author could look for a way to make it more accessible to people with diverse opinions.” Another example: “It was hard to follow” isn’t nearly as helpful as “The point of view moved from person to person very quickly, which I had a hard time following.” Follow up with specifics from your notes about where this happened in the piece, if possible.
• Focus on the writing. Our goal is to give the author feedback on their writing. If you find you are talking more about yourself and your own experiences related to the topic in the piece, consider talking with the author about those after the Open Read is over. Give the writing and the writer the attention during the few minutes that are allotted to their work, and engage on a personal level afterward.

Writers often do the heavy work of lifting and inspiring a society. This is important work and needs to be supported. Through reading our work aloud and seeking feedback, we can help each other find our voices, and create pieces that have meaning and integrity. Sierra Writers’ Open Reads are intended to be a safe place for writers to experiment with their craft and share their vision and voices. Be gentle, kind, and supportive.

6:00 p.m. Organizing Meeting: To those interested in discussing the future of Sierra Writers, the need for volunteers, and programming.

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Other Literary Events

~Rachel Howard's November Writing Class Now Enrolling! Meets Monday nights, beginning November 5th, 6:30-9pm. The Class meets at 204 W. Main St., Grass Valley. To register, email Rachel at rachel.howard@gmail.com Enrollment strictly limited to six participants. www.yubawritersworkshops.com

~Book Exchange: Please bring a book or two to donate at each meeting. These books will be available to anyone for a donation ($1 - $5). Donations will go to the Young Writers Competition.

~Sierra Writers Conference 2019: Save the date - January 26th and Coming soon. 2019 Sierra Writers Conference details. for conference detail postings.

Workshop - Bringing Empathy and Compassion to Your Memoir - Bill Drake - June13

How can you bring empathy to those characters that are hard to write about in your memoir? How do you soften the human tendency to present your personal story in terms of right and wrong? How do you decide how much difficult or controversial material to share about yourself and others? This presentation and workshop will explore these subjects. The focus will not be on writing style but rather on ways to broaden one’s perspective. There will be short exercises and group discussion.

Bill Drake was born in 1945 and grew up in the Jim Crow South, where blacks sat in the back of the bus. His ancestors included three generations of slave plantation owners and a Civil War hero, and he was raised to be a Southerner who believed in white supremacy. Bill is the author of Almost Hereditary: A White Southerner’s Journey Out of Racism, which is part memoir. His book deals with difficult aspects of both his family history and his personal history. Not all of his relatives were happy with it.

Sierra Writers Meetings are held the second Wednesday of each month and are FREE and open to the public. [No meetings are held in July, August, and December.]

Wednesday, June 13th

6:30 - 8:00 p.m.

Open Book 671 Maltman Drive Grass Valley

530-273-4002

Nevada County Arts Council Public Meeting

Winning Young Writers Presentation - May 9th

Congratulations 2018 Young Writers Competition winners!

Prizes will be awarded and students will read their entries on Wednesday, May 9th at 6:30 pm.

Awards & Categories

Middle School Fiction 1. Kiko Natsumi [Gloria Grant] 2. Obscura [Kinsey Heaton] 3. Boltis [Ben Redfern]
Middle School Nonfiction
1. Maya Angelou [Ana Sagebiel]

Middle School Poetry1. Joy [Sana Sagebiel] 2. Sleep well [Kendall Vanderwouw]

High School Fiction 1. Blind [Rebecca Trogdon] 2. Her Voice [John Protiva] 3. Prelude to the Dark [Sierra Whitney]

High School Nonfiction 1.  Anhedonia [Raini Remley] 2.  Ecotourism [Adriana Avila] 3. Change [Rachel Trogdon]

Special mention - Renaissance Woman [Victoria Maung, NJ] **From New Jersey!

High School Poetry

1. Mind [Rios Solomon] 2. From Books [Nikayla Mitchell] 3. Living Room [Adriana Avila]

Sierra Writers Meetings are held the second Wednesday of each month and are FREE and open to the public.

Wednesday, April 9th

6:30 - 8:00 p.m.

Open Book

671 Maltman Drive, Grass Valley

671 Maltman Drive

Grass Valley, CA

530-273-4002

Elements of Short Fiction Workshop with Will Dane - March 14th at 6:30

Wednesday March 14, 6:30pm

Will Dane

 

Enjoy an inspiring, instructional evening and Q&A with local author Will Dane at 6:30pm on March 14th at the Open Book, 671 Maltman Drive in Grass Valley. 

Elements of Short Fiction Workshop: We will discuss a bit of theory, focus our writer lenses on a classic short story, and begin a fun writing exercise leading to a new complete draft. There will be ample opportunity to review and discuss each other's work in possible subsequent meetings (see below). All participants are further invited to join The Open Book’s ongoing in-person fiction group, every other Thursday at 10:30 a.m (the next being March 22).

Will Dane minored in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona, and earned an MA in Professional Writing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He teaches short fiction workshops through OLLI at Sierra College in Grass Valley. His writing, so far, has appeared in Temper and Sierra Musings. He is the owner of the Open Book and co-founder of the Open Book Press.