Looking to rev up your writing skills and test drive some new techniques this summer? The Sierra Arts Literary Community is excited to announce Hot August Writes, a series of four intensive writing workshops on Tuesday nights from August 8 to 29 at the Depot Galley on Victorian Square in Sparks.
This is a terrific opportunity to learn from four published authors with extensive experience as writing teachers and coaches, right in your home community and at a very affordable cost.
To keep the sessions intimate and allow for questions and answers, enrollment is limited to 16 participants per class.
August 8th • Terri Farley, Your Story Starts with Character
Discover what you already know about your character! Just show up with a major character—protagonist, antagonist, hero, anti-hero, whoever—in mind. Then, through directed creative thinking, slip inside their heart and head. Chart what makes them do the things they do and leave the workshop with a take-it-with-you guide to humanizing your book people and intensifying your themes.
About the instructor: Terri Farley has always loved horses, especially wild ones. She left Los Angeles for the cowgirl state of Nevada after earning degrees in English and Journalism. Now she rides the range researching books and magazine articles about the contemporary and historic West. Her award-winning books include Seven Tears into the Sea (Celtic fantasy) and Wild At Heart: Mustangs and the Young People Fighting to Save Them (nonfiction) and the best-selling Phantom Stallion series, which have taken over 2 million readers from around the world on adventures in today’s American West. Terri taught English in downtown Los Angeles before she moved to Nevada and taught English and journalism at Traner Middle School and Wooster High School. To answer her longing for the classroom, she does school visits across the U.S.
How do you write by the seat of your pants and still have a plot? It’s all about the goals, motivation, and conflict of your main character. Goals are the What of a story. Motivation is the Why, and conflict is the Why Not. Participants will have time to practice these skills during the seminar.
About the instructor: Jacci Turner is the author of 13 novels for middle grade and young adult readers. She also has a couple of books for adults, including her first nonfiction book, Tumbled People: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Your Faith. Jacci loves helping writers grow in their storytelling abilities and enjoys collaborative teaching. She is on the teaching roster for the Nevada Arts Council and the Sierra Arts Foundation.
Cue the Jaws theme song. Everyone loves a page-turner, and this workshop is all about suspense. You’ll come away with simple tips for stepping up a story’s pace, squeezing space and time to ratchet up the tension, and adding ominous elements to any kind of story—all keys to building a more suspenseful tale in any genre.
About the instructor: Jenny MacKay has written 35 nonfiction books for kids and teens and is a copyeditor for multiple academic and trade publishers. She has taught many workshops and writing courses and is the assistant regional advisor for the Nevada chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), as well as a mentor in its renowned mentorship program.
Every writer will revise work—but how to revise to make your story better, not just different? Revision is like a journey. Planning helps. Suzanne Morgan Williams shares concrete useful tools for analyzing your work, then deciding where to go with it and how to get there. This is a hands-on workshop. Participants will get the most out of it if they have writing to revise, whether it’s a short story, longer fiction, or nonfiction manuscript. Bring three printed copies of at least 10 pages (or all of a shorter piece) of work you want to revise.
About the instructor: Suzanne Morgan Williams is the author of 12 fiction and nonfiction books. Her novel Bull Rider won a Western Heritage Award from the National Western Heritage and Cowboy Museum. She’s a frequent presenter at writers’, librarians’, and teachers’ conferences and gives writers’ workshops for adults and children. She is a Nevada Arts Council Roster Artist and a Regional Advisor Emerita of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
In 1987 Sierra Arts Foundation began awarding grants to artists of all disciplines living within a 100-mile radius.
10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Tuesday through Friday
Saturday: 12:00 – 4:00
Sierra Arts Foundation
17 S. Virginia Street
Reno, NV 89501
(775) 329-2787
Info@sierra-arts.org
For Accessibility Assistance contact Valerie Moore at val@sierraarts.org or call
(775) 329-2787
Sierra Arts Foundation 17 S. Virginia Street Reno, NV 89501
(775) 329-278710:00 am to 2:00 pm
Wednesday through Friday
Saturday: 12:00 – 4:00
