A Writer's Sampler

SCA presents its popular, literary arts program, The Writer's Sampler. This four-week series, the 20th since its inception, provides a lively sampling of some of the finest writers and teachers in our county and beyond. It's also a great place to connect with other writers. The series begins Monday, March 23, 7-9pm. The fee is $15 per session at the door or $50 for all 4. Presenters for this series are Gerald Haslam, Rebecca Lawton, Geneen Roth, and Gwynn O'Gara. Bring a notebook and a pen. Ages 16 and above are welcome. For more information call the Center at 829-4797 or visit the website www.sebarts.org.

Sebastopol Center for the Arts is pleased to announce that the Writer's Sampler classes have been supported in part by Poets & Writers with a grant that it has received from the James Irvine Foundation. For more information about Poets & Writers visit their website at www.pw.org.

February 15: Susan Bono - The Crack in the Bell: The Role of Imperfection in Memoir & Personal Essay Ever wish life would imitate art? Dispel that desire forever, especially in personal narrative! Memoir is all about imperfection, from choice of subject matter to the way we portray ourselves as narrators. Spend an evening celebrating our flaws and putting them to good use in our writing. Susan Bono is a freelance editor and writing instructor who edits and publishes the hard copy edition of Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative and its online counterpart, www.tiny-lights.com.

February 22: Gwynn O'Gara - Opposites and Oxymorons: Writing with Tension and Surprise Opposites attract for a reason. Switching perspective brings depth to poems and prose. Learn how using incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory sounds and images can tighten our writing. By exploring and mapping the territory between extremes, we'll discover the bittersweet edge of the unforeseen. Sonoma County Poet Laureate Gwynn O'Gara is the author of three collections, Snake Woman Poems, Fixer-Upper, and Winter at Green Haven published by Word Temple Press.

March 1: Andrew Todhunter - Should it Stay or Should it Go Almost invariably, we overwrite - to make a point, to describe a scene, we instinctively think that communicating more is communicating better. This workshop, combines lecture, discussion and group exercises, in the close study and editing of published and unpublished texts to learn how and why compression editing works to radically improve writing in any genre. Andrew Todhunter has been teaching writing for more than fifteen years, including workshops in Paris, SF and the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. He has contributed articles and essays to the Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, Smithsonian and Men's Journal, and other national publications. His latest book, A Meal Observed, won the PEN USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2005. (www.andrewtodhunter.com)

March 8: Jonah Raskin - Writing Dangerously Writing ought to take the writer to places he or she has not been before. There doesn't seem to be much point to write down things that one already knows. Do it differently, I tell myself. Don't write exactly the same way that you wrote before, and pay special attention to the rhythm of the sentences. There has to be a distinct rhythm or rhythms; the sentences can't all be the same. Jonah Raskin is a graduate of Columbia College, he has a Ph.D. in English literature and taught English, American and European literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and at Sonoma State University until becoming a professor of communication studies in 1989. He is the author of 14 books, and his most recent book is "Field Days: A Year of Farming, Eating and Drinking Wine in California."

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