Monday14Nov 2016

Wilkinson College Graduate Student Workshop

The Keys to Writing a Good First Novel Whatever the Genre

Monday, November 14, 2016 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. PST
2016-11-14 16:00 2016-11-14 19:00 America/Los_Angeles Wilkinson College Graduate Student Workshop Go to event listing for more details: https://events.chapman.edu/23854 Laura Scudder Conference Room, Roosevelt Hall Allison DeVries devries@chapman.edu

RSVP is required

Graduate Students can enroll in this workshop through my.chapman.edu. Course number is GUS 530.

Laura Scudder Conference Room, Roosevelt Hall

Students

are invited to attend.

Each semester Wilkinson College offers a variety of workshops for graduate students on topics related to academic, personal, and career development. Graduate Students may register for this 0 credit P/NP class through my.chapman.edu. Course number is GUS 530.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 4-6:50PM
The Keys to Writing a Good First Novel Whatever the Genre
Laura Scudder Conference Room, Roosevelt Hall
 
A lack of or thinness in a main character’s “inner life” is the most common problem in first novels; it dooms them, and yet agents and publishers pass with no more explanation than an “I don’t care enough about your characters."  Without an “inner life” that makes us believe and care about one or more major characters, a novelist doesn’t have a story we’re willing to go the distance with. What makes a character’s "inner life”?  This workshop will cover the finer techniques of point of view handling for both first-person and third-person narration; how to evoke a character’s personal past back to childhood (one that informs the present in “conflicted” ways); a consciousness and unconsciousness evoked through layers of thoughts and feelings; and how language can be used to serve all of this.
 
Bruce McAllister, Writing Coach, Writer, Consultant, Workshop Leader, and Agent Finder
Bruce McAllister is an award-winning West-Coast-based writing coach, writer in a wide range of genres, consultant in the fields of publishing and Hollywood, workshop leader and an "agent finder" for both new and established writers. As a writing coach, he specializes in all kinds of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and screenplays.
 
Bruce's literary and genre fiction has appeared in national magazines, literary quarterlies, college textbooks and 'year's best' anthologies. His second novel, Dream Baby, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship winner, and was called a "stunning tour de force" by Publishers Weekly. His most recent novel, the autobiographical The Village Sang to the Sea: A Memoir of Magic, was a Cibils and Locus nominee. His fiction has been translated widely and received national awards and notable mentions in the New York Times, other U.S. newspapers, U.S. and foreign magazines and journals, and reference works for major publishers and literary presses. His poetry and experimental work have appeared in literary quarterlies and anthologies; he has co-edited magazines and anthologies; and his articles on popular science, writing craft and sports have appeared in publications like Life, International Wildlife, The Writer and newspapers across the country.
 
Bruce has been a writing coach and consultant on a wide range of popular books for major and smaller publishers and scientific books published by scholarly presses, including Pulitzer and National Book Award nominees; and a facilitator of autobiography and memoir workshops. At a private university in southern California, where he taught writing for twenty-four years, he helped establish and direct the Creative Writing Program, directed both the Professional Writing Track of that program and its Communications Internship program, received various teaching and service awards, and was Distinguished Professor of Literature and Writing from l990 to l995
 
His interests include cultural anthropology, creativity theory, storytelling, popular culture and popular fiction, Early Man archeology, advertising and the media, science and multicultural education, theory and methodology in the social and natural sciences, the Vietnam War, U.S. foreign policy, oceanography. The son of a career Navy officer and an anthropologist mother, he grew up in Washington, D.C., Florida, California and Italy; attended middle school and art school in Italy; received degrees in English and writing from Claremont McKenna College and the University of California at Irvine; has three wonderful children (Annie, Ben and Liz); and is married to choreographer Amelie Hunter. He lives in Orange, California. 
 

You can contact the event organizer, Allison DeVries at devries@chapman.edu or (714) 997-6752.

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