To learn, or not to learn, that is the question.

Some friends and I attended the Texas Writers Conference event on Monday night at Schreiner University.  The keynote speaker was Bret Anthony Johnston, who is from Corpus Christi but is currently the director of creative writing at Harvard University.  Bret read for us and took questions.  He was funny and charming and complimentary of the questioners.  I figured he had to be pretty damned smart to be teaching at Harvard.  I wasn't disappointed.

Bret's writing is character-centric, which now seems different to me than storyline-centric.  The action in his stories is inside the characters.  I think this might be the way to write the Great American Novel; I am still trying to write a story as good as Last of the Mohicans.

My question for you is, can creative writing be taught?  There are a lot of classes which offer this.   My friend Tom learns well by reading and in classroom settings.  I learn best by doing.  What about you?  Your comments are invited.

  Bret Anthony Johnston

Right Here! Three Summer Workshops for Writers

Fredericksburg Writers Conference Workshop

Dr. Eva Pohler has a day job as a professor of writing and English at the University of Texas in San Antonio, but she is also a wildly successful indie writer.  She didn't find this success by accident, but after a steep learning curve in generating publicity and readership for her Gatekeeper series of young adult novels.

The Fredericksburg Writers Conference has heard presentations by Dr. Pohler twice in our year plus of existence, and it was clear that her strategies take much longer than an hour to lay out.  Because we found such value in her advice for self published writers, we have set up a workshop:

Saturday, June 28th, 2014.  (location to be announced)

8:30 AM: Register/Coffee and Pastries/Introductions

 Creating Brand Awareness

 Using Social Media

 Soliciting Reviews

 Make Amazon Work for You

 Form Alliances/Box Lunch

 Format Your Book to Sell

1:30 PM:  Go home and get to work!

 

The fee is $60 including lunch. 

Texas Tech University Summer Workshops:
 

Reaching People Through Their Own Stories is set for 9 a.m.- 5 p.m., July 9 and 10. The workshop will provide attendees with a wealth of material—fiction, poetry, nonfiction, memoir—that is about a community both student and teacher actually live in, the issues and concerns that students see, talk, and wonder about.

How to Get Your Manuscript Published is set for 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., July 23 and 24. The workshop will provide attendees with the knowledge of how to write an author biography, query letter to an agent or publishing house and where to market your writing.
The presenter will be the delightful Christine Granados, author of six books, who was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.  These two-day sessions are $275 each and will earn CE credits.  Contact Christine Granados, christine.granados@ttu.edu or (830) 990-2717 for more info.