Writer, Educator, and Storyteller
Creating Sensory Details: How often have you heard this famous refrain: Show, don’t tell. But how exactly? And why? Most writers interpret it to mean that one should write vividly with detailed images and sensory information (show) rather than dull summaries (tell). Working through a series of writing exercises, we’ll explore the scientific impact sensory details have to emotionally engage readers.
Honored to be a returning as a teaching artist this spring at Madison Junior School in New Jersey for their memoir unit.
Here’s a fun shot from my first day working with 200+ 7th graders! Started the wheels spinning to generate seed ideas for their personal narratives.
By the end of the unit, each student will draft, revise, and polish a personal story. This summer, I’ll edit and publish the finals into an anthology of their work. Such a thrill to help these young writers become published authors.
Crafting Mythic Quests: Myths represent the ways that ancient cultures sought to explain the origins of the world and of existence itself. Sounds like a killer creative writing prompt to me! Through a mixture of discussion and writing exercises, we will explore the mythic realm of quests, break down the hero’s journey, and write into a time before time began.
$10 suggested contribution. BYO pen & paper.
Wacky Revision Techniques! All writing is rewriting. Well, great, but how does a writer approach their first, third, twelfth revision from a fresh perspective? In this workshop, we’ll go through a series of fun, bizarre, and efficient methods to tackle those tough revisions. Feel free to bring in something you’ve been working on already and/or practice materials will also be provided.
$10 suggested contribution. BYO pen & paper.
Lovely NYC day crafting and sharing stories with the Public Affairs team at Success Academy Charter Schools. So happy to hear they enjoyed the session as much as I did!
Huge shoutout and thank you to Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons for her amazing storytelling workshop today. My team can’t stop talking about how great it was!!! ✍️ – Heather Kirtland Tsonopoulos, Chief of Staff, Success Academy Charter Schools
SENSORY BLITZ! How often have you heard this famous refrain: Show, don’t tell. But how exactly? Most writers interpret it to mean that one should write vividly with detailed images and sensory information (show) rather than dull summaries (tell). Working through the series of writing exercises designed to blitz your and, thus, the readers’ senses, we’ll explore the show, the tell, and what they both mean in writing.
$10 suggested contribution. BYO pen & paper.
Join us for this month’s drop-in creative writing workshop at The Astoria Bookshop: Holiday Cookies and Characters!
Back away from your manuscript, enjoy a holiday cookie (or 3), and spend the afternoon getting to know your characters outside of the world you’ve created. What would happen if you took your overachieving protagonist out for bottomless mimosas brunch or got stuck in an elevator with your ennui-filled villain? Through a mixture of discussion and out-of-the-box prompts, we’ll uncover surprising things about the people you’ve imagined and/or create new ones.
$10 suggested contribution. BYO pen & paper. Cookies provided!
Excited to be co-teaching this workshop at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence this fall:
Nothing informs your story like hearing someone else perform your story! Compose a creative nonfiction story using the collaborative process created by the producers of the nonfiction reading series, No, YOU Tell It!
Tuesday, September 25, 2018 until Tuesday, October 23, 2018 from 10-12 PM.
Click here for registration details.
Whether developing a true-life tale for a venue like The Moth or RISK! or working to sharpen it for publication, our “page to stage” process allows writers to gain a new perspective on the story they want to tell by hearing their words read out loud by someone else, while also improving their own stage presence.
This five-week session takes you from brainstorming, through drafting, to a finished piece of creative nonfiction.
By the end of this workshop, participants take an idea from a thematic suggestion all the way through to a polished draft, engage in useful feedback and revision techniques, and consider the importance of audience and delivery.
Click here for registration details! & Help us spread the news!!
No, YOU Tell It! is a “switched-up” storytelling series dedicated to performing true-life tales with a twist: Each participant develops their own story on the page and then flip scripts with a partner to present each other’s story on stage. We’ve found that this shared storytelling format creates a sense of trust and ownership, and blends the collaborative process of creative writing workshops with the intimacy and immediacy of theatrical performance.
Join us at The Astoria Bookshop on 6/17 at 5 pm for this month’s creative writing workshop:
Stepping into Scenework.
Whether you are writing a script, novel, or short story, writing’s basic building block is the “scene.” One piles on top of the next, each changing something that came before by creating and/or confronting conflict. Through a mixture of discussion and writing exercises, we’ll explore writing scenes designed to relentlessly move your story forward.
$10 suggested contribution. BYO Pen & Paper!
