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March 2007 Playwriting Workshop, lead by Rose Cirillo

SCHEDULE

The Utica Writers Club, as part of its mission to encourage and cultivate the creative arts in the Greater Utica Area, has started a Writing Workshop for area youth. This is a non-competitive time and place for young people to experiment with artistic expression through the written and spoken word. Volunteers from the Club and community will be available to help guide and encourage those who are interested in this FREE program.

The Writing Workshop meets the third Saturday of every month at the New Hartford Barnes & Noble, in the Children's section, from 1:00 - 2:30 PM. The program is appropriate for all ages, including elementary students, jr. high and high school students, as well as college students.

Finally, we at the Utica Writers Club would like to thank Dennis Webster for leading this project, as well as Barnes & Noble, for providing a safe and comfortable place to meet, as well as loaning us supplemental resources.
  1. January 2007: Poetry Workshop
      Master of Ceremonies: Kate Falcon
      Participants will read and write poems.
  2. February 2007: Manga Workshop
      Master of Ceremonies: Joe Elacqua
      Participants will draw a Manga character and write a story about him, her, or it. (NOTE: Manga is the Japanese form of comic books).
  3. March 2007: Playwriting
      Master of Ceremonies: Rose Cirillo
      Participants will read a scene from a play before writing their own scene. All participants are invited to wear costumes and work and perform in small groups.
  4. April 2007: Song Lyric Writing
      Master of Ceremonies: Marie Marchisotto
      Participants will compose the lyrics to an original song with the guidance of professional local musician, Cathie Russo.
  5. May 2007: Create Your Own Superhero!
      Master of Ceremonies: Thomas Flynn
      Participants will create their own superhero, including super powers, super villains, and the like, which will culminate in a brief short story.
  6. June 2007: Speculative Fiction
      Master of Ceremonies: Christina Heidi Beiderbecke
      Participants will develop their own short story based around the concept of talking animals.

WRITING EXERCISES & OTHER RESOURCES

  1. Exercise 1: Description
      A three-part exercise to help you focus on expressing important details in storytelling.
  2. Exercise 2: Dialogue
      A three-part exercise that focuses on the art of saying something without saying something.
  3. Exercise 3: Description
      A two-column series of examples that compares and contrasts conclusional (telling) language and descriptive (showing) language.
  4. Exercise 4: Style (adapted from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)
      It's not just what you say, but how you say it. This exercise retells the same story a few times, but under the influence of different styles.
  5. Explanation & Definition of: Points of View
      Introduces the importance of choosing the appropriate point of view, and defines them (1st Person Narrator, 3rd Person Limited Narrator, 3rd Person Objective Narrator, and Omniscient Narrator)
  6. Selected exercises from Barbara Drake
      Four brief, but very fun, creative writing exercises: two geared toward writing poetry, and two geared toward writing fiction.
  7. Creative License Exercise
      Another exercise in style, really. The two examples provided here are more "modern" retellings of the classic Jack & Jill folktale.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

  1. Albany Poets
      A wonderful community based in Albany, dedicated to the art of the spoken and written word.
  2. The College Crier
      A college newspaper that's distributed to all SUNY schools.
  3. The Coffee Pavilion
      A coffee shop in Syracuse that offers City Poetry Open Mike night on Mondays!
 

www.TheUticaWritersClub.com