WS Chronicle

By Judie Holcomb-Pack

Winston-Salem Writers (WSW) is hosting their annual Three-In-A-Row Workshops in January to help both beginning and experienced writers to “kick off the New Year on the ‘write’ foot,” according to WSW President Bart Ganzart.

Past WSW workshops have featured such well-known writers as memoir writer Tracy Crow and New York Times award-winning author Charlie Lovett. This year’s workshops will be presented by three local writers and authors, Nathan Ross Freeman, Randell Jones, and Jacinta White. All three workshops will be held at Footnotes, the café/meeting space next to Bookmarks at 634 W. Fourth Street.

Bart Ganzart said, “Writing is often a lonely process and being among other writers and hearing from those who have achieved success in their craft is inspiring to both writers who are just starting out and those with more experience.”

Below are the three workshops:

Jan. 11, Writing a 10-Minute Play, presented by Nathan Ross Freeman

Think you can’t tell a story on stage in ten minutes? This workshop will show you how to craft a play from opening to the end in just ten minutes. Nathan Ross Freeman will explore 10-minute play structure, adaptation, character development, cast, set,  props, energy, flow, tension, rubicon, twists and turns, during this session. This workshop will be especially helpful to writers who are interested in submitting a play to WSW’s 10-Minute Play competition that opens on Jan. 15.

Jan. 18, “As I Recall”—writing memoir and personal stories for documentation, exploration, expression, and revenge, presented by Randell Jones

This workshop will dive into the motivations and processes of putting one’s personal recollections on paper for self and others. Participants will learn together from our collective writing experiences and will discover more reasons for writing personal stories. The differences among several types of personal writing will be explained as well as how to begin writing in these different types of styles.

Jan. 25, Poetry Workshop: “The Life of the Elegy,” by Jacinta White

This workshop will look at classic and contemporary elegies and discuss their roles in society, and have time for participants to practice writing and sharing their work.

All three presenters have impressive bios: Nathan Ross Freeman is an author and playwright and is known for his work with teens as co-founder and artistic director of Authoring Action. Nathan was an adjunct member of the Intensive Writing Faculty teaching screenwriting and playwriting at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for 14 years (1994-2008). He was appointed Salem College’s Visiting Writer (2009) where he taught Upper Level Screenwriting, Beginning and Intermediate Poetry, and Creative Writing. 

Randell Jones has written family stories for decades and since 2018, he has published the short personal writings of others and collected on specific themes through the Personal Story Publishing Project. (The third anthology comes out in April.) In 2019, he began sharing these stories through the weekly “6-minute Stories” podcast. He is a N.C. Roads Scholar and gives talks on historic times and people throughout N.C. and beyond.

Jacinta White is the author of “Resurrecting the Bones: Born from a Journey through African American Churches & Cemeteries.” She is a facilitator and corporate trainer as well as the publisher and editor-in-chief of Snapdragon Journal. 

All of the workshops are free for WSW members and $15 each for nonmembers, which include a continental breakfast before each session begins, and a time for networking with other writers after each session. The cost for all three sessions is $45 for nonmembers of WSW, but you can join WSW for the annual dues of $36 and attend all workshops for free. Registration and breakfast begins at 9:30 a.m. and the workshops run from 10 a.m. – noon.

Ganzart stresses that even people who are “just now dipping their toes into the writing process” will feel comfortable with the information each presenter gives and the inclusiveness of the workshops. Seating is limited and  registration is required by emailing programs@wswriters.org and indicating which workshop(s) you will attend. Payment will be made at the door. For more information on Winston-Salem Writers, visit www.wswriters.org.