How To Be A Writer
I'm teaching an 8-week, online writing workshop Feb 3-Mar 26
I don’t care what those people who decide to become writers in their retirement say, being a writer is hard work! Like, it’s an actual job. A, for the most part, unpaid job. How do people do it? How do they work enough to pay the rent and eat and have enough time and energy to write? How do they find the will to keep going when faced with rejection and indifference?
I have definitely found solace and the will to go on as a writer from my community. Even if things aren’t going well for me, with my writing, I can take comfort in making space for and celebrating others. I pour a lot of energy into writing this Substack and my e-newsletter, Gurls to the Front!, and hosting a reading series in Victoria, BC, (Wild Prose) all of which are there to lift up other writers (and maybe sometimes, myself, a little).
So, when I was thinking of what sort of writing workshop to put on, it made a lot of sense to invite some other writers from my community to help me with it. I’m going to host an 8-week online writing workshop: How To Be A Writer, from February 3rd until March 26th. We’ll spend Monday evenings, 6-7:30 p.m. PST covering the writing life—topics like how to deal with rejection, submitting to literary magazines, applying for grants, writing queries for agents, submitting to small presses, building community—and we’ll spend Wednesday evenings workshopping your prose (short fiction, novel excerpts, creative nonfiction stories, or memoir excerpts of 20 pages or fewer, or 6000 words max.).
On four of these Mondays, authors Ali Bryan, Kerry Clare, Kathryn Mockler (of Send My Love to Anyone), and Deborah Willis will join us to talk about time management, building community, building a following with a newsletter, and publishing with a small press, respectively.
I’m very excited to put on this workshop and I hope you’ll join me! The cost for normal people is $750 CAD BUT I’m offering a special discount rate of $500 CAD to all subscribers of either this Substack or my e-newsletter, Gurls to the Front!
