WIUITG Fall Offerings at Little Blue
New Submitting and Publishing Group starting in late September, plus weekly groups
“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”-Friedrich Nietzsche
Greetings, from the Adirondacks, dear writers!
I spent the summer becoming a freshly minted grad from my MFA program. Also recording an album. After two amazing retreats (see pics at the bottom of newsletter), including a delightful seven day summer camp with a rotating cast of writers, I’m very pleased to announce the new classes, retreats and workshops for Fall 2022. All workshops are 10 weeks for $360 with discounts for those who sign up for multiple groups.
The Monday 12:30-2:30 group is now a Submissions and Publishing group, which you can read more about here and below.
Other workshop groups:
Tuesday 12:30-2:30pm (all genres)
Wednesday 12:30-2:30 (all genres)
Wednesday evening 7-9 (all genres, including songwriters, currently almost full)
Thursday 12:30-2:30 (fiction writers)
Thursday 3:30-5:30 Weeding & Pruning, by application only, currently full, but let me know if you’d like to be added to the wait list.
All groups start the week of September 26. We’ll end the first or second week of December, depending on vacations and sick days. All groups available in person AND on Zoom. For those who would like to be in two groups (other than Submissions and Publishing), the total is $675. And because I am eager for each of you to start sending your work into the world, there's a special on the new group–– $650 for any group plus Sub & Pub, $965 for three, if one is Sub & Pub.
You can pay me via Venmo (@Nerissa-Nields-Duffy or 413-218-1786) or PayPal as a Friend/Family (Nerissand@gmail.com) or Apple Pay (413-218-1786). OR a good old-fashioned paper check! (Nerissa Nields 415 Prospect Street Northampton MA 01060--if you use this option, be sure to let me know when the check has been sent).
More about Submitting and Publishing (Sub & Pub):
In this group we spend the first 1/2 hour or so talking about a particular aspect around the work of getting our writing into the world. There will be opportunities for generative writing, revision and/or crafting a premise or log line. Who is your intended audience? What does your work need to allow it to shine from the slush pile?
Topics include:
-Editing work into publishable form
-Query letters and submission letters to literary journals and other publications
-Applying for grants, fellowships, residencies
-Social media
-Researching agents
-Tracking submissions
-Managing our limited resources to figure out which journals to support, where exactly to submit
Each week, we’ll discuss a different topic for about 20 minutes. I'll be getting guest speakers to share their experiences with us during the first half hour.
We’d then spend an hour working quietly together on whatever one's own next step might be, including generative writing, revision, crafting a premise or log line, or just doing the grunt work of submitting.
The last half hour will be spent checking in about what we did, how we are feeling. We all need support around this issue. We will remind each other how good our work is and how worthy an endeavor to continue to put it out in the face of (the inevitable) rejections. We’ll remind each other it’s a numbers game, not a meritocracy.
Nerissa’s publishing experience so you know she knows what she’s talking about:
-a novel Plastic Angel, Scholastic Books, 2005
-a craft book, All Together Singing in the Kitchen: Creative Ways to Make and Listen to Music as a Family, Roost Books/Random House, 2011
-a self-help book, How to Be an Adult, Leveler Press, 2008, revised Mercy House 2013
-“Blueprint” a short story, J Journal 2022
-“The Use of the Brahms Scherzo in The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner,” Maine Review, 2022
In addition, her work has been anthologized in:
-Water Music: Sixty-six Renowned Musicians from Around the World Celebrate Water in Words and Music, Marjorie Ryerson, University of Michigan Press, 2004 (“Snow”)
–The Good Mother Myth: Refining Motherhood to Fit Reality, Avital Norman Nathman, ed. Seal Press, 2014 (“The Good Enough Mother”)
Other publications credits include The Huffington Post, The Boston Globe, Performing Songwriter, American Songwriter and the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
Oh, and she has recorded and released twenty-one albums, including Gotta Get Over Greta on EMI/Guardian, Bob on the Ceiling, Razor & Tie, Play, Mercury/Zoe, Love & China, Rounder/Zoe and has a publishing deal with Maverick/Warner Bros. In short, she’s been around.
Congratulations to WIUITG writers/alums for recent publications! Kristen Holt-Browning's new book of poems The Only Animal Awake in the House was runner-up in Moonstone Press's chapbook contest.
Ruth Lehrer's got a wonderful poem up at Rogue Agent Journal and a brand new amazing “different but not so different” at Wordpeace.
Whitney Hudak's beautiful tribute to our dear Michael Biegner is up at Westchester Review, as well as new work up at Yellow Arrow Journal and One Art.
Jessica Smucker's new single Phoenix can be heard on this new video.
Anna Baker Smith’s Croissant essay is here at Essay Daily.
Casey Walsh Mulligan's beautiful flash piece "Joy Waits for No One" was featured in the New York Times' Tiny Modern Love Stories.
Tzivia Gover's new book How to Sleep Tight Through the Night is available now on Storey Press.
If I missed anyone’s recent pubs, I apologize, and please send me links so I can brag about you!
I hope you all are surviving this heat wave and are well, COVID-free, and enjoying some seasonal tomatoes, peaches, corn, etc and that no one is sneaking giant zucchinis into your cars.
Love, Nerissa
Much love to all of you, and here's to your new work.
Nerissa
Me and my fellow grads at VCFA. Below, the many faces of Summer Camp 2022.
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