2020 Fall Workshops
Join us for a variety of workshops this season from accomplished writers from all across Northwestern Ontario. Our workshops are always open to the public, but some do require registration so make sure to check back often for updates!
Opening Hooks and Paragraphs
with Dr. John B. Rosenman
One Hour Zoom Workshop
Saturday, November 21, 2020
3 pm - 4 pm (EST)
Saturday, November 21, 2020
3 pm - 4 pm (EST)
Dr. Rosenman will begin the meeting with a five to ten-minute video presentation on the importance of writing effective hooks and paragraphs in fiction. The video will focus on both dramatic and subtle methods of engaging readers at the beginning of short stories, novels, and other fictional forms.
He will then read and present three or more short examples of opening hooks and paragraphs previously submitted by participants to claytoncbye@gmail.com.
These examples will be chosen for variety from the first ten submissions to be received. They may consist of one or more paragraphs as long as they do not exceed seventy-five words in length (not including the title).
Discussion of their strengths and weaknesses will follow each one as well as a Q & A period.
Dr. Rosenman will summarize what this previous segment shows concerning effective hooks and paragraphs. The session will close with a Q & A period in which Dr. Rosenman answers writers’ questions and thanks them all for participating.
No registration required - Open to All.
(Zoom link will provided closer to the date of the event)
(Zoom link will provided closer to the date of the event)
Bio: Dr. John B. Rosenman
When John was a kid, a family friend gave him a subscription to Amazing Stories and fired up his imagination. Later he was infected by EC comics, Ray Bradbury, and terrifying SF movies like The War of the Worlds, Them!, and The Thing. As the imaginative twig is bent, so grows the literary tree.
In time, John received his Ph.D. in English from Kent State University. As an English professor at Norfolk State University, he designed and taught a course in how to write Science fiction and Fantasy. He is a former Chairman of the Board of the Horror Writers Association and the previous editor of The Rhetorician and Horror Magazine. Altogether, he has published 300 stories in places such as Weird Tales, Whitley Strieber's Aliens, Fangoria, Galaxy, The Age of Wonders, and the Hot Blood anthology series.
His two dozen books include SF action-adventure novels such as his Inspector of the Cross series (MuseItUp Publishing); Beyond Those Distant Stars, winner of AllBooks Review Editor’s Choice Award, and Speaker of the Shakk (Mundania Press); and A Senseless Act of Beauty and Alien Dreams (Crossroad Press). The Merry-Go-Round Man, a young adult, coming-of-age novel is also available from Crossroad Press. One of his stories, "The Blue of Her Hair, the Gold of Her Eyes," won Preditors and Editors Annual Reader Poll for short SF/F.
Two of John’s major themes are the endless, mind-stretching wonders of the universe and the limitless possibilities of transformation—sexual, cosmic, and otherwise. His hobbies include reading, tennis, and collecting science-fiction and horror movies.
"Storytelling"
with Ma-Nee Chacaby
Tuesday November 24, 2020
7 pm to 9pm
(Via Zoom)
with Ma-Nee Chacaby
Tuesday November 24, 2020
7 pm to 9pm
(Via Zoom)
Storytelling has a long history in Indigenous culture, mostly using oral transmission. In this workshop, the importance of story telling will be explored as a way not only to preserve culture, but to explain history and the present in terms of people's individual and collective experiences. A number of Indigenous authors continue this tradition in their novels, plays and short stories.
Ms. Ma-Nee Chacaby will share with participants the processes she has used in describing her journey and telling her story, using her own unique personal perspective and insights. Her objective is to both teach and encourage participants to honour and share their own stories
No Registration Required - Open to All
(Zoom link will provided closer to the date of the event)
(Zoom link will provided closer to the date of the event)
Ma-Nee Chacaby is an Ojibwe-Cree writer and activist from Canada.She is most noted for her memoir, A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder, which was co-authored by Mary Louisa Plummer and published by the University of Manitoba Press in 2016. The biography was awarded the U.S. Oral History Association's 2017 Book Award, as well as the Ontario Historical Society's 2018 Alison Prentice Award for Best Book on Women's History in Ontario. In addition, A Two-Spirit Journey was a shortlisted Lambda Literary Award finalist for Lesbian Memoir/Biography at the 29th Lambda Literary Awards in 2017, and was shortlisted for the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher at the 2017 Manitoba Book Awards.