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10 Minutes in Heaven: Cook Up A 10 Minute Play |
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Write the Road Less Traveled: Writing Pad Nature Walk |
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Writing Pad Book Club: Read to Feed Your Craft—1 Day |
Multi Week Classes:
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So You Want To Be A Writer I/II/III/IV/V |
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Finishing School |
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Blog Writing Tasting Menu (2 Week) |
Blog Writing Tasting Menu (2 Week)
Have you ever watched some hipster typing furiously on his laptop in a café and thought, ‘One day, I’d like to start my own blog’? Or do you already have a blog but you want to give it more pizzaz? This three-week intensive will help you find (or refine) your blogging niche and give you the basic technical know-how to get it working. We’ll stock your writing pantry with the staples for a flavorful blog: including hooks, specificity, and passion and examine how blog writing differs from the printed word. Through fun in-class writing exercises, homework assignments, and optional balanced workshopping, you’ll enjoy sampling till you discover the online genre that’s most scrumptious to you. Not to mention, our tasty snacks will make sure your hard-drive doesn’t crash. New and experienced bloggers welcome! Weekly topics will include:
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Hooking Them With Your Blog
Specificity can be sexy! We’ll use high concept and themed blogs to inspire you to organize your stacks of ideas into an engaging blog that’ll leave your readers hungry for more. -
Spice It Up: Blogs With A Passion
Fascinate your readers with your satirical ramblings on the election or your poetic descriptions of Shanghai soup dumplings! Using opinion/commentary blogs as inspiration, we’ll help you blend obsessions and enthusiasm with intelligent commentary to create a blog with delicious complexity and sophistication.
Instructor: Tim Grierson
June 28, July 19, 2008 (2 Saturdays)
10:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. (June 28, July 19)
Cost: $140 ($120 for continuing students)
Includes gourmet tasting plates and desserts
Note: There is no prerequisite for this class.
About Tim Grierson:
Tim is a film and music critic whose writing has appeared in LA Weekly,
Blender, Wired, Screen International, The Village Voice, and VH1.com.
He is also an editor of The Simon, a daily online publication of culture,
politics, and humor and is a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics
Association.. His documentary, "Mama Laura's Boys," about
the longest-running blues club in Los Angeles, played at the Tribeca Film
Festival and on PBS. Tim has a BFA in Cinema and a minor in Journalism
from USC.
10 Minutes in Heaven: Cook Up A 10 Minute Play
Do you have a recurring dream where a penguin and Ionesco try to buy you an umbrella? Ever had a guy at Target show you his toenails? In this class, we’ll help you use the materials of your dreams and life experiences to whip up a 10-minute play that will be all the rage on the festival circuit. Our fun, in-class writing exercises will help get the fire burning under ideas already percolating in your head and help you discover other characters hiding in your mental pantry! We’ll focus on the essential ingredients of the three act structure, dialogue, conflict, and stage direction. We’ll also show you how to incorporate the absurd into your writing, ground it in believability, and heighten it to your advantage. Beginning and experienced playwrights are welcome. Class includes post-theater going fare so delicious it’ll unleash the New York playwright inside of you. By the end of this class, you will have written a 10 minute play!
Instructor: Aaron Henne
Sunday, July 27, 2008
5 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Cost: $90 ($80 for continuing students), includes gourmet dinner, beer tasting and dessert
About Aaron Henne:
Aaron is resident playwright for the Ovation Award winning Son of Semele Ensemble. His play, “Sliding into Hades” won the 2008 LA Weekly Theatre Award In Playwriting, and Aaron was honored as a finalist for The Jerome and The Juilliard Fellowships in Playwriting, as well as the Center Theatre Group's Sherwood Award. Aaron has served as dramaturg for Culture Clash, The Mark Taper Forum, and The Colony Theatre, and his work has been featured at The Road Theatre Company, Unknown Theatre and Theatre of Note. He’s taught theatre and playwriting at the University of Alabama and currently teaches at the Robey Theatre Company and throughout LA. His newest work, “Record Storm Spreads Ruin!” will premiere at The Autry Museum in July. Aaron holds a BA in Theatre from Occidental College and has studied with theatre artists Toby Jones, Len Jenkin and Leon Martell.
Write the Road Less Traveled: Writing Pad Nature Walk
Do you enjoy the outdoors or are you passionate about the environment or nature? Come to the Writing Pad Nature Walk and channel your inner Walt Whitman. We’ll help you get your creative juices moving and use beautiful natural surroundings to encourage the ideas floating around the clouds of your brain to set onto the page! We'll get your blood flowing with a short, 30 minute walk above the ocean on the cliffs of Malibu. We’ll also sample a few, fresh, nature-inspired readings and do two to three fun, nature-inspired writing exercises. Experienced and beginning writers welcome. Class includes a decadent, eco-friendly picnic lunch of local and organic goodies that will tantalize your inner Robert Frost. Climb a mountain with us and tell your inner critic to take a hike! You’ll head for home at the end of the day with a sheaf of work, a belly full of yummy goodies, and a recipe for bringing out your unique wild child at home.
Instructor: Amy Robinson
Saturday, August 2, 2008
9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Cost: $90 ($80 for continuing students)
Includes gourmet picnic lunch and dessert
Location: Will Rogers State Historic Park
Pacific Palisades, CA
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=626
About Amy Robinson:
Amy has been the COO and head class description writer at Writing Pad for
a year. She recently published a children's book, "Too Many Monkeys,”
and her poems have been published in Origami Condom. She's read her poetry
and short stories at Chi Chi's Word Parlor. She is also a massage
therapist with a specialty in the Swedish discipline. Amy attended
Southwestern University with a Theatre Major and Creative Writing Minor.
She is currently working on a book about her Grandmother’s experiences
living on a Colorado farm in the early 1900’s.
Writing Pad Book Club: Read to Feed Your Craft—1 Day
Do you enjoy spending weekends lounging on the couch devouring a book? Then come to the Writing Pad Book Club, where you can share your brilliant insights, meet some cool folk, and feast on decadent brunch tasting plates! In this class, we’ll take lively book club chit chat to a new level and help you read in targeted way, like a chef tastes food. We’ll analyze how authors skillfully blend essential ingredients (e.g., plot, character, conflict point of view, scene, universal themes, etc.) and sprinkle in secret spices of their own. Then we’ll use the flavorful stories we’ve sampled to enhance the flavor of our own writing. Class includes Dominican inspired brunch tasting plates so delicious they’ll satisfy the most discriminating palette. Experienced and beginning book lovers and writers welcome. This month, we'll dig into the delectable book, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.
Instructor: Amy Robinson
Saturday, August 9, 2008
10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Cost: $70 ($60 for continuing students)
Includes brunch tasting plates and dessert
Note: Book should be purchased and read prior to attending class
About Amy Robinson:
Amy has been the COO and head class description writer at Writing Pad for
a year. She recently published a children's book, "Too Many Monkeys,”
and her poems have been published in Origami Condom. She's read her poetry
and short stories at Chi Chi's Word Parlor. She is also a massage
therapist with a specialty in the Swedish discipline. Amy attended
Southwestern University with a Theatre Major and Creative Writing Minor.
She is currently working on a book about her Grandmother’s experiences
living on a Colorado farm in the early 1900’s.
So You Want To Be A Writer? (I/II/III/IV/V)
You’ve always dreamed of finding the time to write on a regular basis or to finish a screenplay, a novel, a collection of poems, or a story. You can do it, and this class will help you! Brand new, fun writing exercises and our balanced workshopping sessions will motivate you to keep going. We’ll also show you how to design (or redesign) your writing practice, plan your projects, and tackle revision without pain. This is boot camp Writing Pad style (no steel toe boots necessary). Experienced and beginning writers welcome. Each session includes tea and a tasting plate and dessert such as polenta with truffled onion relish and baked apples with caramel sauce.
Instructor: Marilyn Friedman
July 30* – August, 27, 2008 (5 classes, 4 Wednesdays, no class August 21
*1st Meeting is a one day class of choice (e,g, 1 Blog Writing Meeting or Play Writing) depending on availability, remaining classes with Marilyn Friedman
7:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Cost: $350 ($300 for continuing students) plus extra $20 if Play Writing is chosen (longer class with full meal and beer tasting)
Includes gourmet tasting plates and desserts
About Marilyn Friedman:
Marilyn has taught writing for the past four years, including classes at
Walt Disney Studios. She’s the Founder and Lead Instructor at Writing
Pad. Her poetry has been published in Squaw Valley Review, California
Quarterly, Rockhurst Review, Beginnings, and Tiger’s Eye. She has written
articles on love and dating for Match.com, and she’s currently working on
a memoir about her experiences as a swing dancer. She’s attended the
Squaw Valley Community of Writers and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival.
Marilyn holds a BA in English and Writing from University of Illinois at
Urbana Champaign and a Master’s Degree from Boston University.
Finishing School
Enroll your unruly writing project in Finishing School! We’ll take the poetry, short story, novel or screenplay project that you’ve dreamed about writing and help you build a realistic but fun plan to get it done. Targeted in-class and homework assignments will help you access your imagination in new ways, inspire you to generate new pages every week, refine and elevate the craft of your work, and nudge that project to the finish line. Before you know it, your stacks of ideas will flow into a manageable, page-turner that will sing like the Von Trapps at Christmastime. Each session includes tea and a tasting plate or dessert such as mini polenta cakes with mushroom ragout and lemon panna cotta with blackberries.
Instructor: Marilyn Friedman,
July 30* – August, 27, 2008 (5 classes, 4 Wednesdays, no class August 21
*1st Meeting is a one day class of choice (e,g, 1 Blog Writing Meeting or Play Writing) depending on availability, remaining classes with Marilyn Friedman
7:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Cost: $350 ($300 for continuing students) plus extra $20 if Play Writing are chosen (longer class with full meal and beer tasting)
Includes gourmet tasting plates and desserts
