From Idea to Bookshelf: Authors Share Their Publishing Stories

Wed April 6, 8-9:30 pm

Three authors will discuss their recently published books and their journey from conception to publishing. They will share what went right, what went wrong, and what was unexpected. Course Code: WA06-01 Cost: $6.00

Saloma Miller Furlong was born and raised in an Amish community in Ohio, which she left in her quest for freedom and a formal education. She graduated from Smith College in 2007 and currently works in the German Department and European Studies Program at Amherst College. Her memoir, Why I Left the Amish (Michigan State University Press), was published in January 2011.

January Gill O'Neil is the author of Underlife (CavanKerry Press). Underlife was a finalist for ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award, and the 2010 Paterson Poetry Prize. January was featured in Poets & Writers Jan/Feb 2010 "Inspiration" issue as one of its 12 debut poets. She is on the planning committee for the 2011 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. A Cave Canem fellow, January is a senior writer/editor at Babson College and runs a popular blog called "Poet Mom" (poetmom.blogspot.com).

Jerald Walker is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption (Bantam, 2010). His essays have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Creative Nonfiction, The Harvard Review, Mother Jones, The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, The Barcelona Review, The Best American Essays, and The Best African American Essays. He is an associate professor of creative writing at Emerson College.

Anthologies and Group Publishing

Wed April 13, 8:00-9:30 pm.

Learn about what's behind group publishing from three writers who have both edited and contributed to anthologies of poetry, comics, and crime stories. Course Code: WA13-01. Cost: $6.00

Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. He is the arts editor of The Somerville News, and the co-founder of the grassroots literary group the "Bagel Bards." Holder's poetry and prose have appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, Rattle, Endicott Review, and many others. He teaches writing at Bunker Hill Community College and Endicott College in Beverly, MA, and is the curator of the Newton Free Library Poetry Series. He holds an M.A. in literature from Harvard University.

Dan Mazur grew up and lives in Cambridge. He is a founding member of the Boston Comics Roundtable, and has co-edited 5 issues of the group's anthology Inbound: Comics From Boston. He has also contributed comics to Inbound as well as BCR's other anthologies, Outbound and Hellbound, in addition to appearing in non-BCR anthologies, including I Saw You... His comic strip, "Canyon Comix," ran for 5 years in the Topanga Canyon Messenger newspaper, and he created the webcomic, "Palindramas." Previously, he worked in Hollywood as a story analyst, development executive, and screenwriter.

In 2010, Barbara Ross became one of the new co-editor/co-publishers of Level Best Books, which has released an anthology of crime stories by New England writers every November for the last eight years. Barbara's mystery novel, The Death of an Ambitious Woman, was published by Five Star/Gale/Cengage in August 2010. In a previous life, Barbara was co-founder and chief operating officer at WebCT, Inc., an educational technology firm. Visit the Level Best website at levelbestbooks.com.

Writing About Your Family: Respecting Boundaries, Taking Risks

Wed April 20, 8:00-9:30 pm.

Join us for an intimate discussion of the choices, challenges, and rewards these authors faced when writing about their loved ones. Course Code: WA20–01 $6.00

Jan Freeman is co-editor of Sisters: An Anthology, and author of Simon Says (nominated for an NBCC in poetry), Hyena (winner of the CSU poetry center prize), and a chapbook, Autumn Sequence. She is director and founder of Paris Press, a not-for-profit that publishes groundbreaking literature by women that has been overlooked by mainstream publishers. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, The American Poetry Review, and The Mass Review. She is a MacDowell fellow, and recently completed a chapbook, Proximity, and a full-length collection, Blue Structure. She lives in Ashfield, MA.

Katrina Kenison is the author of The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir (2009), and is also known for her "viral" YouTube video of the same name. She spent many years working in publishing, first as a literary editor at Houghton Mifflin Company in New Haven, New York, and Boston, and then, from 1990-2006, as the series editor of The Best American Short Stories. She also co-edited, with John Updike, The Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the author of Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry (2000). She wrote Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga (2004) with her yoga teacher, Rolf Gates, and she co-edited an anthology of short stories about motherhood -- Mothers: Twenty Stories of Contemporary Motherhood -- with Kathleen Hirsch. Her writing has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine; Real Simple; Country Living; Family Circle; Redbook; and other publications. A former resident of Cambridge and Winchester, Katrina now lives in the New Hampshire countryside with her husband, two sons, and their border collie.

Marianne Leone is an actress, screenwriter, and essayist. Her essays and op-ed pieces on a variety of topics have appeared in The Boston Globe. After her son's death at age 17 in 2005, her essay on grief ("He Was Our Touchstone") was published in The Boston Globe. Her memoir, Knowing Jesse: A Mother's Story of Grief, Grace, and Everyday Bliss, grew out of that essay. A foundation has been set up in Jesse's name, which supports inclusion and adapted sports for disabled people through the Federation for Children with Special Needs and AccesSportAmerica. The foundation also supports disabled orphans in Rumania through the Rumanian Children's Relief Fund. Marianne lives on a tidal river in the South Shore of Massachusetts with her husband, the Academy-Award-winning actor Chris Cooper, and two rescue dogs. As an actor, she has appeared in HBO's The Sopranos as Joanne Moltisanti, Christopher's (Michael Imperioli's) mother, and in films by John Sayles, Nancy Savoca, and Martin Scorsese.

Narrative Journalism: Not Just the Facts, Story Too

Wed April 27, 8:00-9:30 pm.

Narrative journalism -- also known as immersion journalism or creative non-fiction -- transforms everyday reporting into a captivating novel. On April 27, discover the worlds inhabited and paths traveled by these writers. Course Code: WA27–01 $6.00

Ethan Gilsdorf is the Somerville-based author of the award-winning travel memoir/pop culture investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, now in paperback (Lyons Press). He also publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, and reviews regularly in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and other magazines and newspapers worldwide. His blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on the Psychology Today website. You can follow his adventures (and read more about the book) online at fantasyfreaksbook.com.

David Valdes Greenwood is the author of three nonfiction books: The Rhinestone Sisterhood, a narrative of a year in small-town festival-queen life, as well as memoirs Homo Domesticus and A Little Fruitcake (a Today Show pick). A former Boston Globe Magazine columnist and Boston Phoenix contributor, he teaches at Tufts University.

Paige Williams specializes in long-form narrative nonfiction and teaches at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Winner of the National Magazine Award for feature writing, she has written for a wide range of publications including The New York Times, the Financial Times magazine, New York magazine, GQ, Wired.com, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Her stories have been anthologized in The Best American Magazine Writing and twice in The Best American Crime Writing. She has taught news reporting, investigative journalism, literary journalism, criticism, and feature writing at universities including New York University, Emory, and the University of Mississippi, and was the Robert Laxalt Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Nevada Reno's Reynolds School of Journalism. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and was a 1996-97 Nieman Fellow at Harvard.

Charles Coe, Series Moderator

 Yleana Martinez, Series Advisor

Register at www.ccae.org (listed in "events" and "writing")