WEALTH OF IDEAS

Our feature today is a reader, writer, instructor, and coach based in Sacramento, California. Valerie Fioravanti , born and raised in New York City, received a BA in Liberal Arts from the New School. She received her MFA in Fiction from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, where she worked with writers like Kevin McIlvoy, Robert Boswell, Toni Nelson, and Connie Voisine. Her linked story collection, Garbage Night at the Opera , contains stories that have received four Pushcart prize nominations and Special Mention in Pushcart Prize XXVIII. She is currently working on two novels, one of which is a Fulbright Fellowship project for a work set in Italy. Valerie runs the Stories on Stage reading series, which recently won a 2010 Best of Sacramento Award from Sacramento Magazine . This is a deserved award: not only is Valerie a reader (and writer), but she also brings reading to a stage which normally functions as a poetry venue, and as she says in the interview, the series is a great s...

The Sacramento Poetry Center is holding a Fundraising Benefit at The Millers featuring Gordon Preston, Kathleen McClung, Allegra Silberstein, Shadi Gex, and Ellaraine Locke. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, December 1 at 6:00pm to 8:00pm. 1224 40th St., Sacramento, California. $30 at the door, $20 for members. Former Sacramento mayor Burnett Miller (and major contributor to Ken Burns’s series entitled “The War”) and his wife, Mimi, graciously open their home to support the Poetry Center. Tim Kahl, SPC events coordinator and board vice president says, "Please come and support the organization while you enjoy a tempting spread of delicacies and converse with a panoply of Central Valley literati. This year’s winners of the Sacramento Poetry Center poetry contest will be featured at the event." And from Zimbabwe, here is an announcement from the interim committee of a new (proposed) umbrella body of writers: INVITATION TO WRITERS GENERAL MEETING The Interim Committee of the ...

I concluded my summer reading yesterday with Chris Mlalazi's Many Rivers , which I plan to review. Much of the reading I am going to do until December will be work-related, so my posts here will focus on the writing process, especially on craft. Today's post thus invites you to share your best practices on your use of scene in story development. There are many ways to think about scene, but I want to focus on the way it can be utilized to bring immediacy to the story. In most stories, there is a good mixture of summary and scene, terms which correspond to the concept of telling and showing. If a writer resorts to summary, we will read pages upon pages of summarized material of what the characters did; even the dialogue will be summarized as well, so the reader begins to feel that he or she is just being told what happened and how. Then there is scene. Maybe in one paragraph I tell you when Mukoma fought, and how he won, but nowhere in that story do I show you a scene of his fi...

I will be teaching the course "Tools for the Writer's Craft" at the UC Davis Extension . Here is the course catalogue description: "When writers move past the initial inspiration the act and the art of writing gives them, they often find themselves developing an interest in craft, and craft is the emphasis of this workshop. How do we develop character and reveal plot without resorting to dull exposition? Render autobiographical incidents into useful fictional material? Reveal character motivation while maintaining plot momentum? Subtly but effectively sound thematic concerns? With the help of published examples and a discussion of how these writers are effective, weekly assignments give you opportunities to put theory into practice. These assignments are discussed in a workshop forum, which further enhances your ability to discern what goes into a piece of effective writing." This course is part of the certificate program in Creative Writing, and it runs from Oc...