JMM WORKSHOP

PAR-TAY!

2006-12-02T11:21:00.000-05:00

Hello Friends,
I am looking forwards to Tuesday's farewell, Shin-dig. It will be great fun. The location is my house: 606 21st Street. This is between F&G. There is parking all along the street. (There is no parking before 6:30) We will discuss Margarita's story in a serious fashion and then enjoy ourselves!

I am providing champagne and cups. If any one wants to bring something-- snacks, paper plates, etc.. please do! I imagine that we are a low-maintenance group of people, but it would probably be a good idea to have something to eat to go toe to toe with the bubbly.

Please post in comments what you can bring! And all are welcome, no matter what your pot-luck status is!

Cheers!!!

GOBBLE GOBBLE!

2006-11-18T11:13:00.000-05:00

Remember, we won't be meeting this week because of Thanksgiving. Go hang out with your family. Play attention to conflict. Holidays are wonderful laboratories for this type of thing!

Tuesday's Agenda

2006-11-13T17:04:00.000-05:00

We have a little bit of a backlog of stories. This Tuesday, let's do Jack Stapleton, Malcolm O'Hagan, and Alison Bloom Feshback.

Maria's story will hold over until next week and that should put us back on track.

Character Chart

2006-10-13T21:23:00.000-04:00

Michelle recommmends this character chart to help flesh out your characters. Personally, I use character charts AFTER I have written to story to sort of make sure I have covered all my bases, but some people find it useful as they are writing. http://www.eclectics.com/articles/character.html

Great Author Readings On Line!

2006-10-12T08:21:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite websites is the NPR station, KQED, from San Francisco. Each week, they post a new author reading. Check it out. If you go to my other blog, I've picked some new favorites. And here are some oldies but goodies.

Writer's Digest Contest

2006-10-10T11:50:00.000-04:00

Jack brought this is our attention:

http://www.writersdigest.com/contests/popfiction/

WD Popular Fiction AwardsA Short Story Competition from Writer's Digest
Compete and Win in all 5 Categories!
The Grand Prize-Winner will receive $2,500 cash, $100 worth of Writer’s Digest Books, plus a manuscript critique and marketing advice from a Writers’ Digest editor or advisory board member.
Entry Deadline: Wednesday, November 01, 2006.

A Thought on Last Week's In-Class Work

2006-10-09T18:40:00.000-04:00

First off, thanks to all of you for such a wonderful class. I felt like we accomplished quite a bit with our work with descriptions. Since the end of that class, I have been thinking quite a lot about Vesper's list. (I think it was Vesper.) I hope that you will remember it. The idea that it was the dresser drawer contents for a socially/sexually precocious 14 year old girl. In class we were wrestling with what the fourth item in the drawer should be. The first three were all things that we would think would be in the possession of an older girl and we were thinking the fourth thing should be the item that would pin down her age.

What do you all think of this: Maybe the first three items should be age appropriate and the fourth be a sort of jolting item that let's us know that this young girl is engaging in some unexpected activities. What do you think? Any suggestions?

The Story for Thursday

2006-10-03T13:44:00.000-04:00

Here is the link for those who are having trouble locating it: http://jmmworkshop.blogspot.com/2006/09/labors-of-heart-by-clair-davies.html

Reminder

2006-10-03T07:24:00.000-04:00

Hello, All--
I hope you writing is going well. Don't forget that we meet on Thursday and that we will be discussing the story, "Labors of the Heart" and will be doing some writing in class. Bring paper & pencil.

Meanwhile, here is some interesting reading: Click here for an interesting article by Stephen King on writing.

And here is a piece by a literary agent about rejection-- from the point of view of the person doing the rejecting. Read it here.

SUBMISSION SCHEDULE

2006-09-26T11:26:00.000-04:00

Last week in class, everyone signed up for a submission date. There are so remaining dates. If you were not in class, please choose one of those available dates.

There is no one on schedule to submit today, so we will discuss published stories which I will hand out tonight. *It would be great if one person could add themselves to the schedule by submitting via email a story for our next meeting., on 10/5*

SUBMIT: 10/5 (Tuesday) -- Workshop 10/9
Cheryl Miner
(available space)

SUBMIT: 10/9 -- Workshop 10/24
Jacqueline Miller Byrd
Tamu Wright
(available space)

SUBMIT: 10/24 -- Workshop 10/31
Theresa Dowell Blackinton
Stacie Marinelli

SUBMIT: 10/31 -- Workshop 11/7
Carolyn Alsup
Helena Hartsfield
Jack Stapleton

SUBMIT: 11/7 -- Workshop 11/14
Alison Bloom Feshback
Malcolm O'Hagan

SUBMIT: 11/14 -- Workshop 11/28
Karen Paul-Stern
Vesper Osborne

SUBMIT: 11/28 -- Workshop 12/5
Michelle Chubirka
Danielle Hatchett
Margarita Dilone

ARRIVE AT 6:30

2006-09-25T08:17:00.000-04:00

The feedback I am getting says that a 7-9 class would be too late for a lot of people to travel. This is perfectly reasonable. So, show up at 6:30, and I will have worked something out, room-wise. So sorry about the hassle.

CLASSROOM UPDATE

2006-09-24T08:12:00.000-04:00

There has been an administrative misunderstanding regarding our classroom. It seems that the seventh floor conference room is ours between 7-9 pm. Is there anyone who cannot make this change in her schedule?

Guest Blogger, Honor Moore

2006-09-18T08:04:00.000-04:00

When I was granted the privilege of being the JMM Writer in Residence, I had no idea who Jenny McKean Moore was. I was told that some members of the search committee had known Jenny Moore, and this made me a little nervous during the interview process. I knew that, for them, this was more that just a little Q&A designed to pick a job candidate.

Since then, I've been asking around about Jenny Moore and I discovered that the poet, Honor Moore, is her daughter. I planned to ask Honor to write a remembrance of her mother, but she happened to email me before I had a chance to ask. I mentioned this blog and she kindly contributed the post you will find below. I will share with Honor the link to this page, so any comments you leave on her essay, will serve as messages to her and to her family.

A Daughter Remebers Jenny Moore

2006-09-18T07:55:00.000-04:00

Jenny McKean Moore died in 1973. The night we celebrated her fiftieth birthday -- March 12, 1973 -- she wasn't feeling well -- in 1970, she had survived a near-fatal automobile accident. By April, 1973, she was diagnosed with liver cancer, and by autumn she was dead. What was particularly tragic was that, as she said to me during her final illness, "Everything was just starting."

After having nine children, she published a book, The People on Second Street, in 1968. It was an unsentimental memoir of her life with small children and an Episcopal priest husband in an urban parish in downtown Jersey City during the 1950's, and it was very successful. Also in 1968, she served as the advance woman for Abigail McCarthy in the McCarthy campaign. She had always been a political activist -- especially in the Jersey City days as a partner in my father's ministry -- but 1968 was the year she came into her own as an individual. By the time she became ill, she had published several feature articles in the Washington Post, was working on a play, and taking writing classes at George Washington University (our inspiration for the Jenny Moore program). She had also joined a feminist consciousness raising group in Cleveland Park, the Washington DC neighborhood where she lived, and was about to enter the MFA program in creative writing at Johns Hopkins. While she was sick, she began another memoir. When she was no longer able to write, she dictated to a secretary -- childhood memories intertwined with the experience of dying, the sadness of leaving behind nine children between the ages of eleven and twenty-seven.

Now ten years older than she was when she died, I think of my mother as a woman who made the most of the historical advantages which were beginning to emerge for women as a result of the new feminist movement, but also as a woman who lived at the harsh effect of what Betty Friedan christened "the Feminine Mystique". It impresses me now that she read both Friedan and deBeauvoir. She told me The Feminist Mystique had changed her life.

I often wonder what she would be like now: a tall woman, black hair gone nearly white and worn that way as a badge of survival and triumph, dark blue eyes steady out from under her brow, politically active, mad for email (she was always a prodigious correspondent),thinking and talking about women, men, children, grandchildren, cities, books and the scandals of the Bush White House with her particular blend of intelligence, clarity and irony. You should know, too, that she was always a beautiful woman -- 5' 9" with a striking smile.

I remember her saying her forties had been her best years, their chief revelation the importance of friendship. I have no doubt she would by now have formulated a conclusion about her seventies and that I'd get her typical early phone calls dense with impressions of her friends, amazement at the twists lives take, canny speculation about the history and experience of women and men in her generation, and a full head of steam for the decade ahead.

-Honor Moore

CLASS REARRANGEMENT

2006-09-17T12:33:00.000-04:00

On the following days, I will not be able to meet our class on Tuesday:

October 3, October 17. I propose that we just skip class on October 17th. (I will be giving a reading at GWU that day.) But let's meet on October Thursday October 5, 2006.

Labors of the Heart by Clair Davies

2006-09-17T09:00:00.000-04:00

This is one of my favorite stories of all time. Click here. It's remarkable for many reasons, but the details are pitch perfect and the hero's weight (400 pounds) is rendered without sentimentality nor is it played for laughs. This story is a glimpse into a life.

"The Smoker," by David Schickler

2006-09-17T08:47:00.000-04:00

Here's another contribution from Jack. I had to chuckle at his description and I am posting it here along with a link.

Attached is a curious story from The New Yorker. It is currently
beingmade into a film and apparently made the author instantly rich.

The Smoker
by David Schickler

And here is a question worth thinking (and commenting) about: It has been said that the short story lends itself better to film than the novel. What do you think?

COMMCOMM by George Saunders

2006-09-17T08:45:00.000-04:00

Jack has contributed a link to "COMMCOMM" by George Saunders which appears in the recent issue of the New Yorker. Click here to read or print.

The Decades List

2006-09-17T08:31:00.000-04:00

As the great bard Michael Jackson once said, "Do You Remember the Time?"

Here are the 1990's terms that we generated:
OJ
Central Park jogger case
Biggie/Tupac
Janet Jackson
Gulf war
Boyz II Men
Ace of Base
New Jack City
Nintendo
Oklahoma City Bombing
Clinton/Lewinsky
Slap bracelets
TGIF
Don’t ask, don’t tell
IM/AOL
Simpson
Roller blades
LA riots/Rodney King
Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding
Tammy Faye
Jennifer Flowers
Bosnia
Mandela freed
Michael Jordan (three-peat/Air Jordan/Nikes)

And the 1980's:
Trickle down theory
Duran Duran
AIDS
Herpes
Thriller
Oprah
Donahue
Border babies
Punk rock
MTV
Ronald Reagan/Reaganomics
Smurfs
Jane Fonda
FAME
Son of Sam
Hip hop
Jheri curls
We are the World
American Gigolo
Camaros
Everyone got shot in 81
Nickelodeon

ROSTER INFORMATION

2006-09-17T07:22:00.000-04:00

We are a robust group of twenty writers this term. It's a full, energetic, and diverse class. I think we'll have a terrific term. I was going to post everyone's email here, but I have such a fear of spam-bots. I am linking, instead to a .XLS file that you can print out. Click here for it. And you can email the whole class by sending an email to JMM06@myfullname.com (For the blog-unsavvy, you have to write my actual name in that space.) Also, if your name or email or anything is wrong on the list just let me know and I will fix it. My email is tayarij@theinitialsofmyschool.edu

WELCOME!

2006-09-05T11:41:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Fall 2006, Jenny McKean Moore Workshop at George Washington University! In one week, we will start our sessions and I am looking forward to it. The sessions will be held on the campus of George Washington University in Rome Hall, which is located on the corner of 22nd and I Streets. We will meet in the 7th Floor Conference Room on Tuesday evenings from 6:30-8:30. Classes begin on Tuesday, September 12. (If you are traveling by Metro, we are only two blocks from the Foggy Bottom station on the Orange/Blue line.)

FAQ:
What do I need to bring with me to class?
You should bring pen and paper on the first day. As the class progresses there will be other items you will bring, but you will be told ahead of time.

Are you sure this is a FREE class?
The class is free, as there are no fees for tuition, etc. You will have to make a small investment to make 21 copies of your story when it is your turn to be workshopped. I can't make copies for you, but you can get copies at Office Max or Kinkos for about six cents a page.

I don't have a lot of experience, will this be a problem?
Nope.

What if I can't make every single session?
I understand that life happens. You may miss a session or two, but you must make sure that you get the work that is distributed that day. Do not be a creative freeloader! By this I mean, it will give you bad karma if you miss the sessions when other people's work is being critiqued, but show up to have your own work discussed.

When can I meet with you one-on-one?
I have a class that meets from 3:30-5:00. By 5:30, I will be in my office (656 Rome Hall). This is the same building our class is in. I will be likely eating my box lunch, but I will be glad to meet with you if you don't mind the chewing.

I am very sensitive. What if I start crying during the workshop.
That's okay. There's tissue. But seriously, I run a very civil workshop. Constructive criticism is the name of the game.

What's the best way to reach you?
Email. tayarij@theinitialsofmyschool.edu Or you can call me at the office: 202-994-1965