Congrats to SSCer Tres MacDonald, who landed a wine column soon after completing the Freelance Magazine Class. Her column,"Asking for Advice on a Great Bottle of Grapes,” will run in The Pipeline, Bucktown’s e-newsletter.
Check out Tres’s recommendations at Chicago Pipeline.
We love sharing news like this!
Quickies! and Creative Writing I instructor Mary Hamilton has recently won the Rose Metal Press Fourth Annual Short Short Chapbook contest. The folks at Rose Metal wrote a nice blog about Mary and her submission. And of course, we’re supremely proud of her.
In addition to writing and teaching and working...Mary is also one of the founders of the Quickie! reading series. All the stories are four minutes or less. Amazing.
Congratulations to Mary!
Congratulations to Coaching and First Pages student Vicky Tesmer who has finished the first draft of her manuscript!
The semi-autobiographical piece, A Thousand Beautiful Things, addresses issues of science, faith, politics, world travel, and love. Vicky experimented with the prose, including poems alongside the stories. It was a fascinating process for this longtime visual artist, learning to turn her images into words.
Here’s what Vicky says: “When I walked into StoryStudio on January 12th last year I didn’t have a precise goal - I just knew I had a lot in me to say. It came out in a novel!
“I believe what I learned most about writing was that if you substitute paintbrushes, paints, a palette and a canvas for words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters you can ‘paint’ a novel. I feel my book is a painting - perhaps a ‘Pop Art’ painting - as if you stepped into an Andy Warhol canvas. It’s visual and surreal and current. Looking back on the past year, I don’t believe I could have stayed on track nor organized my thoughts and words without Paige [StoryStudio Chicago Instructor/Coach Alyson Paige Warren]. She helped me stay focused, giving meaningful insight and direction to the chapters, the characters and the overall ‘picture’ of the story.”
Congratulations and best wishes on your redrafting process, Vicky!
The accomplishments of our Storystudio writers and staff are coming in fast and furious. The latest kudos goes to Lisa Katzenberger who had a short story included in the recently released 2009 Genre Wars Anthology. The book comes from the minds of three writers who run The Literary Lab website and decided to put their money where their mouths are. (Actually, the money from books sales are being donated.)
Lisa’s piece is in the “Literary” section and is titled, In Amsterdam. I haven’t yet had the pleasure of seeing it but she better be bringing in a copy for us to hang on the wall! In case you’re wondering, Lisa’s been in the Advanced Writers Workshop on and off for a couple years (currently on) and has also taken the Freelance Magazine Writing class. She is the studio’s Events Coordinator where she puts together member events, pubnights, readings, and crazy write-a-thons.
Congratulations Lisa!
If you’re a StoryStudio writer and have some exciting news, . We love to brag.
We are so delighted to announce that StoryStudio student Will Fletcher had his short story “Dear Life” published in the Chicago Reader’s tenth annual Fiction Issue. Will workshopped this story in our very own Advanced Fiction Workshop just last fall. This is Will’s first publication, and he hit it pretty big time, which is no surprise from those of us who had the opportunity to work with him!
You can read Will’s story online: here.
Congratulations Will!
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