2008/2009: qarrtsiluni:  the Transformation issue Guest Editor, with Allan Peterson. We received marvelous submissions, and were able to craft an impressive issue; many thanks to all the contributors and the Managing Editors Dave Bonta and Beth Adams for their excellence. It was a pleasure and an honor to work with this material in this medium. Check it out here. Exploring the Boundaries Between Forms: A Master Class in Cross-Genre Writing Throughout history, some of the most startling and transformative writing has blurred the edges between prose and poetry, creative non-fiction and magic realism, fable and fact, script and novel. In this workshop-style course, students will use techniques from a variety of forms to create new cross-genre work, practice revision and reading performance, and identify potential journals for publication of their work. The course will culminate in a formal reading open to the public. Readings will include Basho, Carson, Singer, Malamud, Joyce, Busson, Eugenides, Marquez, Orwell, Timpanelli, Calvino, and others, as well as a sampling of writers working in online venues. This expanded version of Jessamyn Smyth's popular master workshop will be offered at Middlebury College in the winter term of 2009. Fall 2007: Exploring the Boundaries Between Forms: A Master Workshop in Cross-Genre Writing Saturday September 22, 2007 9:00 - 5:00 ~ $95 Greenfield Community College Downtown Center CSW 187-2 Spring 2007: Exploring the Boundaries Between Forms: A Master Workshop in Cross-Genre Writing-NEW! Saturday April 21, 2007 9:00 - 5:00 ~ $95.00 Greenfield Community College Downtown Center CSW 187 Hedda Gabler Has Left The Building. Three new acts of play by Jessamyn Smyth June 8 &9 and 15 & 16, 2007 Produced by Arena Civic Theater at The Shea Turner's Falls, Massachusetts Other recent performances: Jenny Haniver A new play by Jessamyn Smyth The Shea Theater 2nd Annual Playwright's Festival of New Work March 18, 2006 ~ 8:00pm Avenue A, Turner’s Falls, Massachusetts With one-acts from Boston's Playwright’s Platform Real Basilisks at The Church May 4, 2006 ~ 8:00pm May 5, 2006 ~ 8:00pm May 7, 2006 ~ 1:00pm Main and Grove Streets, Brattleboro, Vermont Also featuring original music improvised by Erik Lawrence for the poetry of Leo Hwang, Jessamyn Smyth, and Cassandra Cleghorn The Importance of Being Wild A dinner party by Jessamyn Smyth Crazy in Love: PG-14 Produced by The Country Players November 5,6,12, & 13, 2004 Also showing: "First Love," by Murray Schisgal and "Date With A Stranger" by Cherie Vogelstein The Shea Theater Playwright's Festival of New Work April 2, 2005 ~ 8:00pm Avenue A, Turner’s Falls, Massachusetts With one-acts from Boston's Playwright’s Platform Other recent community workshops: The Care and Feeding of your Creative Voice: A Class in Abundance Offered at the University of Pennsylvania's Writer’s Conference, Greenfield Continuing Education, and The Bang's Community Center of Amherst Generate creative energy and develop techniques for allowing all aspects of your life to feed your writing—especially when you are blocked, struggling for time to write, or uninspired. Through in-class excursions into the realms of etymology, voice, exorcism, sensuality, critical engagement, soul mining, and finding our plain old fashioned glee on the page, we will practice the writing tools that can build our ideal creative life—and learn some quick and dirty tricks to get us moving towards it even when we think we'll never write anything good again. This class is for writers at all levels and in all genres: published, unpublished, mid-novel and stuck, just beginning to write, used to write but haven’t had time and it’s driving you crazy— join us and jump start your stalled creative life. Making It Happen: From Block to Book Offered at the University of Pennsylvania's Writer’s Conference and through Greenfield Community Education by way of a Fostering Arts and Culture grant You’ve got the writing rolling – what happens now? Few programs or classes teach the basic skills every writer needs to get a book into the world: useful revision strategies, how to get and give truly useful critical feedback, how to choose between traditional and non-traditional publishing options, how to market your work (and when you have to), and how to use all available resources and technologies to give yourself the best chance of getting your work to your potential readers. Treat this as part two of my prior workshop The Care and Feeding of Your Creative Voice: A Class in Abundance and bring your now-unblocked project to fruition – or join us at this stage and see the writing project you already have underway through to publication. look at rough drafts, develop tools for revision and supporting each other’s work with skilled critical feedback, and getting the draft into its best possible form. We’ll also examine the options – and how-to’s – for publishing: traditional, agented submissions, publish-on-demand technologies (and how these are different from ‘vanity presses’), using print and electronic journals to market your work for you, blogging, et cetera.