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Hours

Mon: 5 p.m. - 9 p .m.
Tues: 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Wed: 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Thurs: 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Fri: 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Sat: 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.



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Fiction

Advanced Fiction

JA9-F01
6 Wednesdays, 7 – 9 p.m.
July 1 through August 5
$115 W&B members / $120 general public
Instructor: Martin Naparsteck

This workshop is designed to help experienced writing students take their fiction to the next level. Character, plot, narration, dialogue, voice, theme, and everything else that goes into the best fiction will be discussed. Participants will have the opportunity to critique and be critiqued in a supportive atmosphere.  Participants are expected to have some workshop experience or some practice at writing fiction.

Register Online

“Shut up and drive,” she said: A Dialogue Workshop

JA9-F02
1 Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
July 11
$39 W&B members / $43 general public
Instructor: Martin Naparsteck

Good dialogue  makes characters in a story sound like real people talking, yet no on in real life talks like a character, even in the best novels. This seeming contradiction can be explained by examining the attributes of good dialogue. This workshop will offer a combination of lectures, readings, and exercises (mostly exercises) designed to help you write dialogue that both sounds good and moves your story forward.

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Brick by Brick: Writing the Perfect Scene

JA9-F03
1 Saturday, 10-2
August 8
$49 W&B members / $55 general public
Instructor: Len Messineo 

Whether you write novels, short stories, scripts, or even flash fiction, the scene is the building block, the story within the story, the argument that supports your theme. . .in short, the brickwork of the story. The purpose of this class is to study and practice how to construct the perfect scene. We will review all the elements that belong to a scene (action, conflict, motivation, dialogue, setting, arc, beginning hook, ending hook, point-of-view, shot, beats, etc.), the way scene is cobbled together with exposition, and how longer works can be plotted prior to the writing process to insure that you have established an effective throughline that sustains interest, stays on message, and engages your audience.

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Setting: Where to place your writing

JA9-F04
3 Thursdays 7-9 p.m.
Aug. 6 through 20
$61 W&B members / $65 general public
Instructor: Melissa Slocum

Are you humming along with a writing project, but feel something is missing? Do you get stuck when trying to create strong settings? Oftentimes, setting can become forgotten or lost amongst characters and plots. But it plays a vital role in most published fiction and nonfiction. Here, learn how to create settings that move stories and essays along without turning into “flowery” additions. Bring your fiction or nonfiction, and through exercises and workshop, let’s work on building better settings that will create and evoke mood and tone while revealing new and exciting visuals to your readers.

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Frankenstein’s Thunderbolt: Giving Life to Your Characters

JA9-F05
1 Saturday, 10 a.m.- noon
July 25
$39 W&B members / $43 general public
Instructor: Steve Huff

Often your characters are a saladecomposé of body parts: your uncle Max’s torso with your brother’s head. Or maybe a combination of your third grade teacher and your sister-in-law. But now you have to do the truly miraculous: give those characters life. In this workshop we’ll talk about the character-driven story, techniques for giving character and life to people acting out the primary roles in your story, including those really tough personalities who are a bit unlike anyone you’ve ever really known. We’ll look at some eminently alive characters in stories by Flannery O’Connor and Alice Munro, and do a brief in-class writing exercise.

Register Online

Beginning Story Writing

JA9-F06
4 nights, M-TR, 7-9 p.m.
July 20 through 23
$87 W&B members / $93 general public
Instructor: Steven Huff

You’ve always wanted to write fiction but have not known where to begin. This class will examine the basic principles and techniques of fiction that everyone new to fiction writing needs to know: Point-of-view, dialogue, plotting, and character development. Learn to dig into your own cache of memories and experiences for story material, train your ear for authentic dialogue, and learn the mechanics of creating a scene.

Register Online

 
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The Beautiful Necessity: The Regulating Lines of Claude Bragdon’s Transcendental Architecture

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 7 p.m.
$3 W&B members / $6 general public

“In nature, in number, in geometry, in music, also, there is but one law, a law infinitely simple, infinitely subtle, incommunicable, evanescent. It is what Emerson calls the Beautiful Necessity. Gentlemen, let us build altars to that Beautiful Necessity.”
-- Claude Bragdon, “Mysticism and Architecture.”
Join us for an exciting presentation by Eugenia Victoria Ellis, PhD, AIA, who with Andrea G. Reithmayr is editor of The Beautiful Necessity.

First Fridays / Wide Open Mic

Hosted by Norm Davis
Fri., August 6
Admission is free.

Along with other local galleries and performance spaces, W&B will be open on the first Friday evenings of each month hosting Wide Open Mic, and a series of other readings and performances in our Verb Café and Performance Space. Known for its eclectic mix, Wide Open Mic welcomes poets, performers, and writers of all kinds. It is Rochester’s longer-running open mic, hosted by Norm Davis, poet and editor of HazMat Review.

Genesee Reading Series

Hosted by Wanda Schubmehl
August 10: James Cook & Sally Bittner Bonn
$3 W&B members / $6 general public, 7:30 p.m

Now in its 26th year, the Genesee Reading Series presents writers from the greater Genesee Valley region reading in the W&B Performance Space.

Senior Reading Group

Hosted by Norm Davis
Tues. August 10
Free and open to the public. 2-4 p.m.

Share your writing with other seniors in a comfortable atmosphere at W&B.

Members Night Events

Wed., August 11th 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Adult
Free to W&B members

If you aren’t a member of W&B, here is your chance to join at the door and enjoy a special read-aloud with audience participation on August 11th.

The August Member Night will feature a poet and story teller, sharing the oral arts of reading aloud with a chance for audience participation.  Come listen and see how words come alive in the throat, and a chance to taste them yourself.

The Bertrand Russell Society

Hosted by David White
Thurs., August 12
Free to W&B members, $3 general public, 7 p.m., W&B

The Bertrand Russell Society was formed shortly after Russell’s death in 1970. Russell was born in 1872 and worked in fields such as mathematical logic; philosophy; social, religious, and educational reform; anti-war protests and politics. An accomplished writer, Russell received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. This ongoing lecture series promises to enlighten and entertain. Monthly meetings are open to everyone, not just to members of the society.

 

 

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Writers & Books, Rochester's community literary center, inspires and instructs over 25,000 people each year through a wide array of offerings in nearly every literary genre. Believing that the written and spoken word are central to our lives and culture, Writers & Books celebrates, promotes and works to make them available to all. Writers & Books is located at 740 University Avenue, near Atlantic Avenue in the Neighborhood of the Arts.