SXB Write a Story Competition & Workshop

On 15 December at 19:00 in the Carl-Schurz-Haus conference room, please join author Chris Bradley as he leads a creative writing workshop in support of the 2016 Strasbourg Write a Story Competition. The session will begin with a short writing exercise for everyone. We will be discussing how and why writers write (using the authors’ own words as a base). Then we will read and analyze a short piece of fiction together. Along the way, participants will be encouraged to ask questions about the subject matter, with the goal of learning a bit more about the process of writing. By the end, hopefully a few will feel enthusiastic enough to enter the SXB Write A Story 2016 Competition, but this is not obligatory.

Admission is free, but seats are limited! Please register by Friday, 11 December at either: http://bit.ly/1N7IDT4.

 

The Strasbourg Write a Story competition is open for entries from 1^st December 2015 and the deadline is midnight on 1^st February 2016. The entry fee is 7€, with one entry allowed per person. Entries will be judged by a panel of published writers and academics, with the winning and short-listed entries will be published in a special book. An award ceremony will be held in April to announce the winners and to present them with a copy of the published book containing their stories.

Further details including how to enter and all the competition rules are available at: www.sxb-write-a-story.org or: www.facebook.com/sxb.write.a.story

Christmas/Winter Reading Deets

** You don’t need to read your writing to come to this event. You can come, support local writers and enjoy the festive atmosphere. **

Our Winter Reading is 8 December, which is  2.5 weeks away! Whaaaaa??!! Time flies …

There will be cider and mulled wine. Rebecca and Tracy are also baking something. If you would like to bring anything, let us know.

Other things to know:

Meeting Tuesday — New Short Story to Read

We’ll be meeting Tuesday, 17 November to write together, workshop a new piece by one of our members (if you didn’t get this and plan on coming Tuesday, please email) and talk about a short story, Wild Thing, by Larry Brown. You can download it here.

We’ll also talk about our holiday reading (who will bring beer, glühwein, cookies?) which all are welcome to join. If you need inspiration, please see our past posts with prompts.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Meeting Tomorrow & More Holiday Writing Prompts

We’ll meet tomorrow to workshop a piece of writing, talk about Neverhome, choose a new book to read and more. If you need the pieces we’re workshopping, email us here.

Winter Reading

We’re also about a month away from our December reading. How are your writings coming along? You can look to our previous posts here and here for inspiration. Also …

Library Day Tomorrow!

If you’re a lover of libraries (or books and media in general), check out the Carl Schurz Haus Library Day tomorrow! We’ll be there, writing 140 Character Short Stories. We’d love some help manning the table!

Recap of meeting on 20 October 2015

Many thanks again to those of you who showed up last night; I had a great time. We missed those of you who didn’t (or weren’t able to) come!

We began the evening by talking again about the workshop model and how it will work. At our next meeting on 03 November, we will discuss two pieces of writing (if you don’t have them and would like to participate, please be in touch). Here’s how it will work: The writer will read a passage from her/his work, allowing the group to hear a little of how the writer thinks the work could be read. After that, the writer will not speak for the duration of the discussion; she will not offer any words of explanation or correction; she will say nothing. The rest of the group will discuss the work and focus on the following: description. We will attempt to describe the work and how we read it: what we think the work is attempting to do; how the work affected us; what we think the work means; what the work made us think. We might also discuss things about the work which we liked. We may also ask the group (not the writer) questions about the work. We will not say what we didn’t like about the work. We will not offer any suggestions toward the work’s improvement.

IMPORTANT: Gary Shteyngart Reading!

If you’re planning on joining us for the Gary Shteyngart reading, you will need to reserve a ticket in advance. To do so, please contact Shawn at the Carl-Schurz-Haus.

Oct 6 Meeting at Alter Wiehrebahnhof

Instead of our regular meeting, we will be attending a reading at the Alter Wiehrebahnhof at 19.30. Gary Shteyngart will read from Little Failure (Kleiner Versager) — admission is free for writers group members.

You can find more information here. 

Our December Reading Approaches! Writing Prompt Inspiration

Our holiday reading is coming in just a few short months! Here are a few prompts to get you inspired for December.

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This writing comes to us by way of a prompt: Take the lyrics from a song and turn it into a short story, but don’t reveal the song’s name.

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By Waltraud

The last to disappear from my view was the golden rooster doing weather duty on the spire. I kept walking, though not as fast.