Saturday, Oct. 4th, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Location: Berkeley
$95 members/$110 non-members
Note: This is an especially good class for beginners, but it’s also for anyone who wants to make their writing more colorful, evocative and lively.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and the writer who learns to paint vivid images is more than halfway home. However, there comes a time in most essays, poems and stories when the underlying ideas need to be gently highlighted, a process akin to finding that long skinny vein on a shrimp and gently pulling it out. What is this story about? Where is this poem going? What is this essay trying to say? “In this workshop,” says instructor Alison Luterman, “we will write a lot and talk a little about the delicate, elusive process of making our meanings clear without overburdening our writing with too much explanation. No formulas will be offered, only some examples, and the good companionship of other writers who are struggling honestly to say what lies just beyond the tip of their tongues.”
Alison Luterman has been shamelessly telling tales from her own life ever since she could grip a sweaty pencil. She has published essays in The Sun, Radiance, Response, The East Bay Express, and The Boston Phoenix. Her book of poems, The Largest Possible Life, won The Cleveland State University Poetry Prize. She has taught poetry to thousands of school children through California Poets in the schools. The great love of her life is performing improvisational dance, singing, storytelling and poetry through the Wing It! performance ensemble. She has given workshops and readings around the country, and recently completed her first full-length play, “Saying Kaddish with my Sister.” In addition to teaching personal essay writing at the Writing Salon, she teaches playwriting through the Marin Theater Company.