The Smell of Fear: Building Suspense & Tension with Subtext

Join Straw Dog Writers Guild and presenters Elizabeth MacDuffie and Tamara Fricke for “The Smell of Fear: Building Suspense & Tension with Subtext” on Wednesday, May 22, 7-8:30pm, at the Northampton Center for the Arts,33 Hawley Street, Northampton, MA. In this craft workshop, writers will be guided in the art of creating suspense and tension

Dazzle an Agent: Pro Tips to Put the Polish on Your Manuscript

The publishing market is brutally competitive. It’s not easy to get a query past the gatekeepers at publishing houses and literary agencies. You’re going to need an achingly good (and short) intro letter and an irresistible manuscript sample. You could pay an editor to buff up your prose, but with a little bit of elbow

Writing Inside the Body

Susan Sensemann will lead a 2 hour writing workshop at A.P.E. Gallery, 126 Main Street, Northampton in conjunction with a five-person exhibition “Physiotasmagorical” which investigates corporeal secrets that reside at the juncture of the clinical and the imaginary in fantastic conjurings of our internal selves. We will begin with a discussion of the “felt sense”

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Writing a Query Letter

Join Straw Dog Writers Guild with literary agent Cherise Fisher for an informative workshop about the often daunting task of writing a query letter. When you are ready to search for an agent, learn how to write the best query letter possible. Experienced agents like Cherise have received thousands of query letters and she has

Chapbooks: Crafting a Collection

Join Straw Dog Writers Guild with presenter Adrie Rose on Sunday, February 11 via zoom from 3-5pm for this craft workshop. We will come together to work on pulling together poems into a chapbook collection. We’ll talk about what chapbooks are (and are not) and some strategies for arranging the poems in them. Participants are

Roundtable Discussion – Your Writing Practice: Pitfalls and Solutions

Join Straw Dog Writers Guild for a community-based roundtable discussion to share your best ideas and most stubborn blocks with fellow writers to gain insight into your writing process and community resources. This craft workshop with Michael Favala Goldman and Lindsay Rockwell will take place on Saturday, December 16, from 10:30am-12pm at Northampton Center for

Every 4th Reader is Listening: Getting Your Book into Their Ears

Narrator Scott Ellis shares, “As an audiobook narrator and retired teacher, I am always looking for ways to engage more people with audiobooks. I am looking forward to being with your group to walk through the entire process of audiobook production: from searching for the right narrator on the right platform, understanding the lingo used

Let’s Make a Scene

Scenes are the building blocks of screenplays. Like Legos, each one is strong and intact on its own — but its purpose is to be part of a larger structure. This is a seminar for anyone interested in the many ways screenwriting differs from prose. To get the most from our time together, read a

Uneven Characters: Filling in the Cracks

Writing characters can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be! In this workshop, we will go over what makes a character three-dimensional, using inspiration from ourselves and the people around us to create realistic characters (positive and negative traits, dynamic vs. static characters, etc.), and dialogue vs. action and how to utilize both to