Just wanted to let everyone know that I’ll be teaching my “Writing the Smart Page-Turner” class at Grub Street this fall, beginning on September 16th at Grub Street Headquarters in downtown Boston. Classes will meet for 10 Thursday nights from 7 PM to 10 PM. Click here for the official Grub Street listing.
So… what’s a “Smart Page-Turner?” It’s a work of popular fiction that has literary value and punch, and it’s a literary novel with popular appeal. Think about it. We’re living an era when Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union can be nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award and win science fiction’s Nebula and Hugo awards, and it’s also an era when Junot Diaz and Cormac McCarthy can both win Pulitzers for their respective genre-themed novels The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and The Road. The borders between genre and literary fiction are blurrier than ever, and this class is designed to help you take advantage of that. Whether you’re writing romance, mystery, thrillers, science fiction, erotica, satire, supernatural or suspense, the principles of writing popular fiction – clear prose, characters we can empathize with, and a story that really moves – are key. In this course, I’ll teach you ways to help you get a grip on those principles while helping you develop your owm distinct literary voice. We’ll also be covering practical, “hands-on” considerations–like coming up with strategies to market your fiction, and ways to work with editors and agents.
And what makes me qualified to teach this class? Well, I’m a well-respected author who’s spent his career writing literary genre with two major literary awards to his credit. I’m Fiction Editor at the award-winning magazine Chiaroscuro, where I’ve worked closely with authors honing and streamlining their stories, and it’s this editor’s eye that I’ll bring to the critiquing of your manuscripts. And I’m a nationally syndicated critic for venues like the Syfy Channel’s site Blastr.com and the Public Radio Satellite System show Movie Magazine International. It’s my job to take apart stories and plots and figure out how they do and don’t work.
I’ll be posting more about the class soon, with detailed breakdowns of what I’ll be covering each week and what readings I’ll be assigning.
In the meantime, for more information or for enrollment, you can call Grub Street at 617-695-0075 or *click here to register online *. Registration deadline is Thursday, September 09, 2010. Tuition is $430 for Grub members and $455 for non-members, but scholarships are available for substantially reduced tuition for the next two weeks or so.
To learn more about Grub Street: http://www.grubstreet.org
And if you have specific questions, you can contact me directly at profmike AT mindspring DOT com
Inside the mind of author Michael Marano 