People Need Stories

PEOPLE NEED STORIES:

Writers, Bookstores, and Libraries Feed Our Need

REGISTRATION CLOSES END-OF-DAY TUESDAY, APRIL 9TH

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2019

Location: Pierce Hall Community Center, 38 S. Main Street, Rochester, VT 05767

Time: 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM

Rate: $54 for members, $74 for non-members

SCHEDULE

8:30 - 9:30 - Registration & Morning Refreshments

9:30 - 10:30 - Paula Diaco - How To Recognize A Story When You See One

10:30 - 10:45 - Amy Braun - Generative Writing Exercise

10:45 - 11:00 - Break

11:00 - 12:00 - Melanie Brooks - Writing What Hurts: From Dark Memories to Powerful Stories

12:00 - 1:00 - Lunch and chance to tour the library next door

1:00 - 2:00 - Jenna R. London - Story: What Is It, Where Has It Been, and Where Is It Going?

2:00 - 2:15 - Break

2:15 - 3:15 - Sandy Lincoln - Owner - Sandy's Books and Bakery - Q&A Session

3:15 - 3:30 - Wrap Up

SPEAKERS

  Paula Diaco - How to Recognize a Story When You See One

What is it about stories that move humans like they do? It’s often said that we are wired for story, and we know how attracted we are to one that's well written. We know that storytelling shapes language, and that humans shared stories long before the invention of writing.

What else do we know and love about stories? They help us make sense out of chaos, while they add meaning to our lives. Our days are filled with stories we tell, create, repeat, listen to, write about, and record. We always want more good stories.

What does all of this mean to present-day writers? Paula Diaco, writing coach and mentor, will talk about the universal structure to story, even though every story is unique. She will ask, what is the difference between story and anecdote? Or between slice-of-life and story? Does this apply to nonfiction as well as fiction? And do we need to care?

Paula will also show us how to test our story ideas using the universal structure invented by Aristotle, which provides a template for infinite creative storytelling.

Come prepared to write and share the elements of your story.

  Melanie Brooks - Writing What Hurts: From Dark Memories to Powerful Stories

Ernest Hemingway famously said, “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” His words support the notion that writing about the painful material that life gives us—illness, death, trauma, or family dysfunction— can help us understand it in a more profound way.

The process of re-entering those memories, taking them apart, and then putting them back together on our own terms can transform them into something meaningful, perhaps even healing and beautiful, for both writer and reader.

In this workshop, we'll look at ways to gently peel back the layers of memory to uncover the stories at their core. We'll talk about examining our motives for digging into these stories and how to take care of ourselves in the process. We'll discuss how giving narrative shape to our hard stories—whether in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry—can invite others to lean into our experiences and offer them permission to reveal some of their own.

Melanie Brooks is a freelance writer, college professor, and mother living in Nashua, New Hampshire with her husband, two children, and a yellow lab. She is the author of Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma. She teaches at Northeastern University and Merrimack College in Massachusetts, and Nashua Community College in New Hampshire.

Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including the Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, the Huffington Post, Modern Loss, Hippocampus, Bustle, and Solstice Literary Magazine. She is completing a memoir called, All the Things I Couldn’t Say, about the lasting impact of living with the 10-year secret of her father’s HIV disease before his death in 1995.

 Jenna R. London - Story: What Is It, Where Has It Been, and Where Is It Going?

In this interactive discussion, Jenna R. London provides the basic history of story to help understand humans’ desire to express and read the written word. Emphasis will be given to story’s role in our social-media and self-promotion-driven society.

Jenna uses fresh ideas that will give individuals the opportunity to expand personal understanding of story, to reevaluate the purpose in participating in a writing life, and to generate fresh ideas and approaches to enhancing individual stories. Come prepared to participate in conversation and write!

Jenna R. London’s writing is most influenced by nature and the outdoors. She works as editor-in-chief at Steel Toe Books, and as an assistant editor at both C&R Press and Typehouse Literary Magazine. She also works as a freelancer, tutor and writing coach. Her work has been published in the anthology Triumph: Stories of Victories Great and Small, at Assay, Berkshire Living, AMC Outdoors and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2017. For more about Jenna, visit her page at http://jennarlondon.com.

  Sandy Lincoln - Owner - Sandy's Books and Bakery - Q&A Session

Open dialogue with Sandy Lincoln. This is an opportunity to ask questions and pick the brain of an owner of a successful bookstore and local community hub.

Sandy Lincoln, an armchair traveler and lover of books, rock and roll, and the Beat poets, is an alumni of the Northshire Bookstore where she worked for 18 years.

She loves libraries and has volunteered in them from childhood through her college years. She worked as the Rochester Town librarian for 6 years and established her bookstore and bakery 15 years ago.

The expansion of The Bookery, which houses two “Literary Kitties,” George and Pip (next door to the original bookstore and Bakery), occurred over a year ago. She is currently pursuing an interest in handmade books, book binding and repair, and is a member of the Antiquarian Book Club of Vermont.

Click here to read more about Sandy's Books and Bakery

  Open Mike for Writers 

Date: Friday, April 12, 2019

Time: 7:00 PM

Location: Sandy's Books and Bakery, 30 N. Main Street, Rochester, VT  05767