The Writer’s Life Series

Presented by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education

in collaboration with the National Writers Union, Boston Chapter

Charles Coe
Series Moderator

Sue Katz
Series Advisor

Our popular series for writers and readers continues. Join us for four Wednesday evenings of informal discussions with local writers, focusing on gathering ideas and getting them into print, expressing social consciousness through writing, writing and publishing about sex, and compiling and editing collections.

FROM IDEA TO BOOKSHELF: Authors Share Their Publishing Stories

The authors discuss their book projects, and the journey from conception to publishing. Join them as they talk about what went right, what went wrong, and what was unexpected.

At the age of forty-four, Meredith Hall graduated from Bowdoin College. She wrote her first essay, “Killing Chickens,” in 2002. Two years later, she won the $50,000 Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation, which gave her the financial freedom to devote time to Without a Map, her first book. Her other honors include a Pushcart Prize and notable essay recognition in Best American Essays; she was also a finalist for the Rona Jaffe Award. Hall’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, The Southern Review, Five Points, Prairie Schooner, and several anthologies. She teaches writing at the University of New Hampshire and lives in Maine.

Julian Houston, author of New Boy, was born in Richmond, Virginia, and educated in the public schools of that city before attending the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut. He attended Boston University and was a community organizer in Harlem during the civil rights movement. He is now an associate justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts. Judge Houston has initiated a number of programs that build and strengthen relationships between communities, including Roxbury Youthworks, a development program for inner-city youth. He has written articles for The Boston Globe, The Boston Observer, and The Boston Bar Journal. Judge Houston lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his wife and family.

Heidi Pitlor is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin and is now the series editor of The Best American Short Stories. Her fiction has been published in Ploughshares, and she is the author of the novel The Birthdays, a BookSense pick and a Border's Original Voices pick. She lives with her husband and twin son and daughter outside Boston.

Wednesday, April 9
8:00 pm | $6
EVENT CODE: WA09

EXPRESSING SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH WRITING

Join us for an inspiring evening as three nonfiction authors whose works deal, directly or indirectly, with social issues discuss how to keep your political principles through the act of writing.

Louise Dunlap is an activist writing teacher who travels the country helping citizen groups and social justice-minded scholars make their voices heard in the challenging debates of our times. She got her start in the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s, then taught at UMass Boston in the 1980s and MIT in the 1990s. She lives in Cambridge and serves on the Cambridge Peace Commission. Her new book Undoing the Silence: Six Tools for Social Change Writing pulls together stories and lessons from her work with students and activists in the labor, women’s, peace, racial justice, and environmental movements both here and in South Africa. For more information, see www.undoingsilence.org <http://www.undoingsilence.org> .

Amy Hoffman is the author, most recently, of An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at The Gay Community News, a memoir about Boston’s lesbian and gay movement during the late 1970s. A writer and community activist, she is currently editor in chief of Women’s Review of Books. She is also the author of Hospital Time, a memoir about taking care of friends with AIDS in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Richard Hoffman is author of the poetry collections Without Paradise and Gold Star Road, winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize, as well as the award-winning Half the House: A Memoir. His work, both verse and prose, has appeared in Agni, Ascent, Harvard Review, Hudson Review, Poetry, Witness and other magazines. He has been awarded several fellowships and prizes, most recently a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in fiction, and The Literary Review’s Charles Angoff Prize. He is Writer-in-Residence at Emerson College and also teaches in the Stonecoast M.F.A. Program at the University of Southern Maine.

Wednesday, April 16
8:00 pm | $6
EVENT CODE: WA16

WRITING AND PUBLISHING SEX

Three writers who focus on writing about sex, in one form or another, talk about navigating the publishing field. In a social environment that is increasingly censorious and judgmental, it’s not always easy to be waving pages of orgasm in the direction of agents and editors. From profound research to the exploration of fetishes, our panelists take a sex-positive approach to the page. They often face unique obstacles, from determining the right tone when working with intimate material to gaining non-salacious publicity.

For decades, Sue Katz has published journalism and some short fiction in a range of marginal, alternative and edgy publications, which, while raising her street cred, has done little for her credit rating. Her varied journalistic topics have included Middle East peace movements, sexual and gender politics and dance reviews. She used to be most proud of having lived on three continents, of her martial arts career and of her extensive world travel, but now she is focused on Mature Heat, the book she is writing about people over 45 and their involvement in kinky and alternative sex scenes. To get to know Sue more intimately, check out her blog at www.suekatz.com.

Gina Ogden, Ph.D. is a sex therapist and researcher, a practitioner of ceremonial shamanism, and author of the only nationwide survey on sexuality and spirituality. Her books include Women Who Love Sex, The Heart and Soul of Sex, and The Return of Desire, which is coming out this summer. She lives and works in Cambridge.
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Ron Suresha is a progressive activist, editor, anthologist, journalist, and blogger focused on emerging American queer masculinities, namely the Bear gay/bi men's subculture, and the bisexual male experience. His nonfiction works include the groundbreaking collection of interviews and discussions, Bears on Bears (Alyson, 2002), and Bi Men: Coming Out (Haworth Journal of Bisexuality, 2006), a Lambda Literary Award finalist. He edited the fiction collections Bearotica (Alyson, 2002, also translated into German), Bear Lust (Alyson, 2004), and the Lammy finalist Bi Guys: Firsthand Fiction (Southern Tier Editions, 2006). He maintains with great ardor a website and an award-winning blog, SpunkDaddy's Beard.

Wednesday, April 23
8:00 pm | $6
EVENT CODE: WA23

BRINGING TOGETHER ALL THE PIECES: WRITING AND COMPILING COLLECTIONS

Join three authors – a poet, a fiction writer, and an editor – as they talk about the process of writing and compiling literary collections and give you advice as to how you might start to envision yours.

Jane Katims is the author of the poetry collection Dancing on a Slippery Floor (2007). She teaches contemporary literature and creative writing at Tufts University and The Cambridge Center for Adult Education, as well as leading private workshops. Jane earned her BA at the University of Wisconsin and her M.Ed at Lesley University. She has received a Peabody Award and a John Woods Scholarship in Fiction Writing. Her short story, “Until Now,” will appear in the Fall 2008 all-fiction issue of Pearl Magazine. She lives with her family near Boston.

Elizabeth Searle is the author of three books of fiction: Celebrities in Disgrace, a novella and stories which the New York Times Book Review called “a miniature masterpiece”; A Four-Sided Bed, a novel nominated for an American Library Association Book Award and My Body to You, a story collection that won the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. Her essay "The Scream, With Lipgloss" appeared in the anthology Don’t You Forget About Me (Simon & Schuster, 2007). Her most recent work is the libretto for Tonya & Nancy: The Opera, an original opera based on the Harding/Kerrigan skating scandal. The show drew national media attention when it premiered at the A.R.T.'s Zero Arrow Theater in 2006; a new expanded Rock Opera production is premiering in 2008. Elizabeth teaches at UMass Boston and at Stonecoast MFA program.

Jean Trounstine recently co-edited the Boston bestseller, Why I’m Still Married: Women Write Their Hearts Out On Love, Loss, Sex, and Who Does the Dishes with Karen Propp, featuring 24 essays by what Ms. Magazine called, “our favorite writers” such as Julia Alvarez, Bharati Mukherjee, Susan Cheever, Erica Jong, Marge Piercy, and ZZ Packer. Trounstine, who also has an essay in the book, has published four others, including the highly-praised Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women’s Prison. She has been featured on NPR's The Connection, and in numerous print publications here and abroad. In addition, as an activist, she helped to begin the women’s branch of Changing Lives Through Literature, an award-winning alternative sentencing program featured in The New York Times and on The Today Show, and is a professor at Middlesex Community College.

Wednesday, April 30
8:00 pm | $6
EVENT CODE: WA30