May 2022
May 21, 2022 TPS workshop: The Lost Art of Copiousness: Using Words Well To Give Your Writing An Edge (ZOOM)
How much do you have to say? Plenty? A great deal? Copious amounts? Loads? Heaps? Oodles? A boatload? Having much to say is a good start, but having facility with saying it is another matter. In this workshop, we will investigate the lost art of superfluity, not only with plot material but also with words themselves. Workshop activities may include synonym battles, thesaurus spelunking, and discussions about reading habits, commonplace books, memory-building techniques.
Find out more »June 2022
June 18, 2022 – TPS Workshop, presented by Alma Katsu
Do you suffer from research paralysis? Are you intimidated by huge research projects in unfamiliar time periods, or one where there is an impossible amount of material to choose from? In this session, the author of widely acclaimed Donner Party retelling The Hunger (and recently published WWII novel The Fervor) explains how she applies research methods from her 30-year career as an analyst for CIA and RAND to historical fiction. Topics will include properly scoping research projects so you don’t…
Find out more »July 2022
July 23, 2022 TPS workshop: How to Perform Surgery on Your Manuscript to Create Dynamic Prose That Will Keep Your Readers Engaged
In this interactive seminar, we will examine real-world excerpts, including some from well-known published authors, in exercises focused on streamlining the writing. Participants will bring examples of their own work for similar exercises. Topics include: Active vs passive voice; Showing vs Telling; adverb and adjective abuses; abuse of filler words, overwriting/redundancy; and more.
Find out more »August 2022
October 2022
OCT 15, 2022 TPS–Draw Your Readers In – Understanding (and Controlling) Psychic Distance in Your Writing, presented by Valerie Wilkinson
Most writers think of point of view (POV) in terms of 1st, 2nd, and all the variations of 3rd, but POV is much more powerful and complex than this. Another critical element of POV is how close the reader feels to the characters and the action of the story. This workshop will investigate psychic, or narrative, distance by explaining the mechanics and uses of this element of craft, reading and discussing examples, spending time on short, illustrative writing exercises, and…
Find out more »November 2022
NOV 19, 2022 TPS workshop–SHORT STORIES: Crafting a Cohesive Collection, presented by Bill Glose
This session will explain the benefits to having a theme for your collection and detail the various ways a book of short fiction can be structured. How to derive a theme from stories already written will also be discussed.
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