Workshop with Guy Salvidge: Friday 26th June @ the Fremante Arts Centre

Guy Salvidge will conduct our Prose class on Friday,  26^th June at 1.00pm @ the Fremantle Arts Centre. Cost: $20 OOTA $25 Non-OOTA
Room 3, Upstairs North Wing

No booking required. Just come along!
‘Writing Your Novel: How to Stick It Out and Get It Done’ with Guy Salvidge
In this session, participants will be asked to consider:
- how to fit writing a novel around work/life time constraints
- getting into a routine that works for you
- editing tips and techniques
- common pitfalls and stumbling blocks
- being the tortoise and not the hare. 

Guy Salvidge was born in England in 1981 and moved to Western Australia in 1990. In 1996, he won the Roy Grace English Scholarship for short fiction, which motivated him to pursue a writing career. Guy studied English at Curtin University, majoring in Literature and Creative Writing, and graduated in 2002 with Honours. Completing a Graduate Diploma in Education in 2005, Guy embarked on a career as a high-school English teacher. He lives in the Avon Valley with his wife and children. Guy's first novel to see print, The Kingdom of Four Rivers, was published in 2009 by Equilibrium Books. His second, Yellowcake Springs, won the 2011 IP Picks Best Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the 2012 Norma K Hemming Award. The sequel, Yellowcake Summer was published in 2013. Guy is currently working on a crime novel Thirsty Work (which he started in 2013 while Writer-in-Residence at the KSP Writers' Centre) and he is the co-editor (with Andrez Bergen) of The Tobacco Stained Sky: An Anthology of Post Apocalyptic Noir. In 2013, his short stories were published in Alien Sky, The Tobacco-Stained Sky, Tincture Journal and The Great Unknown.

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Workshop with Laurie Steed: Friday 12th June @ the Fremantle Arts Centre

Laurie Steed will conduct our Prose class on Friday,  12^th June at 1.00pm @ the Fremantle Arts Centre. Cost: OOTA $20/ Non-OOTA $25. Room 3, Upstairs North Wing. No Booking required. Just come along!

His workshop: Uncharted Narratives: Exploring ‘The Third Option’ will inspire you to write using exercises and examples from great short story writers.
Workshop Outline: How does J.D. Salinger play with audience expectation in ‘Teddy’? What is the secret ingredient in Peter Goldsworthy's The List of All Answers? Which single decision in Patrick Cullen’s ‘Scar Tissue’ takes it from memorable to unforgettable?
Looking at short story masters such as Lorrie Moore, Miranda July, and Ryan O’Neill, workshop participants will explore ‘the third option’, a plot technique designed to open up otherwise predictable narratives. The best short story authors already use it often and well. For any writer, it’s a way towards writing memorable, original, and ultimately, more publishable fiction.
Laurie Steed is an author and Ph.D Candidate at the University of Western Australia. His work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in Best Australian Stories, The Age, the Review of Australian Fiction, Australian Book Review and elsewhere. He is a member of the Margaret River Press Editorial Board, the winner of the 2012 Patricia Hackett Prize, and a past recipient of fellowships from The University of Iowa, The Sozopol Fiction Seminars and Varuna The Writers House. He lives in Perth and is a member of Out of the Asylum Writers Group, Fremantle: Western Australia.

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The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss: Prose Class with Helen Hagemann

The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
Friday, 29^th  May @ 10.00am in the Flax Room of the Grove Library.
This class will combine “Writing for children” as well as finding rhythm for your prose.  We will be reading the whole book of The Cat in the Hat written by Theodor Seuss Geisel in order to discover the poetic meters of children's literature. Writers will have a choice in writing exercises to try their hand at short verse or prose exercises to engage in prose rhythm. 

PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE + TIME (the FAC is closed this week for roof renovations).
The Grove Library: 1 Leake Street, Peppermint Grove (It's actually, cnr Leake St and Stirling Highway, Cottesloe)

The Cat in the Hat was first published in 1957. Three years after its debut, the book had already sold over a million copies, and in 2001 Publishers Weekly listed the book at number nine on its list of best-selling children's books of all time. The book's success led to the creation of Beginner Books, a publishing house centred on producing similar books for young children learning to read. In 1983, Geisel said, "It is the book I'm proudest of because it had something to do with the death of the Dick and Jane primers." The book was adapted into a 1971 animated television special and a 2003 live-action film.

POETIC METERS: Geisel wrote most of his books in anapestic tetrameter, a poetic meter employed by many poets of the English literary canon. This is often suggested as one of the reasons that Geisel's writing was so well received.

Anapestic tetrameter consists of four rhythmic units, anapests, each composed of two weak syllables followed by one strong syllable (the beat); often, the first weak syllable is omitted, or an additional weak syllable is added at the end. An example of this meter can be found in Geisel's "Yertle the Turtle".

    "And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he

    Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see."

Theodor Seuss Geisel 1904 –1991) was an American writer and cartoonist. He was most widely known for his children's books, which he wrote and illustrated under the pseudonym Dr. Seuss. He had used other pen names such as Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone. Geisel published 46 children's books, often characterized by imaginative characters, rhyme, and frequent use of anapestic meter. His most-celebrated books include the bestselling Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, Fox in Socks, The King's Stilts, Hop on Pop, Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose, Horton Hatches the Egg, Horton Hears a Who!, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. His works have numerous adaptations, including 11 television specials, four feature films, a Broadway musical and four television series. He won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958 for Horton Hatches the Egg and again in 1961 for And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

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Grove Library Venue for 29th May Prose Class with Helen Hagemann

Prose Class with Helen Hagemann for Friday, 29th May to meet at the Grove Library in the Flax room.

Please note:  Class to meet at 10.00am - midday. Coffee or tea afterwards at the Monogram Caffe inside The Grove Library.

Please do not go to the Fremantle Arts Centre this week as the venue will be closed for upgrades.



Grove Library Map:

https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/The+Grove+Library/@-31.997446,115.764038,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xdd86132f183d0240

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Ice Station by Matthew Reilly: Prose Class with Helen Hagemann

Prose with Helen Hagemann at the Fremantle Arts Centre

Ice Station by Matthew Reilly, 15^st May @ 1pm. We will be reading an extract from the novel. Writing exercises and discussion will revolve around pace and action. 

Cost:  $20  OOTA  $25  NON-OOTA

Room 3, Upstairs - Fremantle Arts Centre

Plot Summary
After a diving team at Wilkes Ice Station is killed, the station sends out a distress signal. A team of United States Recon Marines led by Shane Schofield, code named Scarecrow, arrives at the station. At the station he finds several French scientists have arrived, and several more come after the Marines' arrival. The French reveal themselves as soldiers and a fight ensues in the station, claiming the lives of Scarecrow's men Hollywood, Legs and Ratman, along with several scientists and most of the French soldiers, while Mother loses her leg, Samurai is badly injured, and two French scientists are captured.   Schofield decides to send a team down to find an object below the ice where the diving team was going. Later, Samurai is found strangled, leaving the only people he trusts to be one of the scientists, Sarah Hensleigh and another soldier named Montana as he was with them at the time of Samurai's death. Hensleigh, Montana and two other Marines, Gant and Santa Cruz, are sent down to where the diving team vanished. While alone, Schofield is shot and killed. He later wakes up, found to have been accidentally resurrected by his attacker, and is in the care of scientist James Renshaw, the believed killer of one of the other scientists at Wilkes. Watching a video of Schofield's death, they see the attacker and discover it to be one of Schofield's men, Snake. The two capture Snake before he is able to kill the wounded Mother.

Matthew John Reilly (2 July 1974) is an Australian action thriller writer. His novels are noted for their fast pace, twisting plots and intense action.

Early life:  Reilly was born on 2 July 1974 in Sydney, the second son of Ray and Denise. He grew up in Willoughby, an affluent suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Reilly graduated from Sydney's St Aloysius' College in Milsons Point, in 1992.[4] Reilly then studied Law at the University of New South Wales[5] between 1993 and 1997, graduating 31st out of 250 students.[6] While at university he was also a contributor to the student law society publication "Poetic Justice".

Career:  Reilly wrote his first book, Contest, at the age of 19 and self-published it in 1996. It was rejected by every major publisher in Australia, leading Reilly to self-publish 1000 copies using a bank loan. Reilly was discovered when Cate Paterson, a commissioning editor from Pan Macmillan found a self-published copy of Contest in a bookstore. Pan Macmillan signed Reilly to a two-book deal. Reilly wrote his second book, Ice Station, while studying at the University of NSW. It was quickly picked up by publishers in the U.S., U.K. and Germany. He has since sold over 7 million copies of his books worldwide, in over 20 languages.  Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves was the biggest-selling fiction title in Australia in 2011. Three more of Reilly's books have been the biggest-selling Australian titles of their years of release: Seven Ancient Wonders (2005), The Five Greatest Warriors (2009) and The Tournament (2013).

In 2007, Reilly wrote a half-hour television script titled Literary Superstars. The script was picked up by Darren Star (Sex and the City) and bought by Sony Pictures for the ABC Network. Jenna Elfman signed on to play the lead role. The pilot episode was at the casting stage when the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike began, paralyzing Hollywood. The pilot was placed on indefinite hiatus before ultimately being dropped by the ABC.

Personal life: In 2004 Reilly married his childhood sweetheart, Natalie Freer. Freer attended a nearby high school, Loreto Kirribilli, and also went to the University of New South Wales, where she studied Psychology. Reilly credits Freer with encouraging him to self-publish his first book. In early December 2011, while Reilly was in South Australia on a book tour promoting Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves, Natalie, who had suffered from anorexia and depression, committed suicide. Reilly subsequently cancelled his remaining book tours and announced his intention to take a break from online communications for a while.

Reilly owns several movie prop reproductions such as a life-size statue of Han Solo frozen in carbonite from Star Wars, a golden idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and a DeLorean DMC-12 from Back to the Future. A big fan of Hollywood blockbusters, Reilly hopes to one day direct a movie adapted from one of his own books.

Bibliography

Stand-alone novels

        Contest (1996; republished in 2000)

        Temple (1999)

        The Tournament (2013) set in the year 1546.

        Troll Mountain (2014)

        The Great Zoo of China (November 2014)

Shane Schofield

    Ice Station (1998)

    Area 7 (2001)

    Scarecrow (2003)

    Hell Island (2005)

    Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves (2012), re-titled as Scarecrow Returns in the United States.

Jack West Jr

    Seven Ancient Wonders (2005), retitled as 7 Deadly Wonders in the United States.

    The Six Sacred Stones (2007)

    The Five Greatest Warriors (2009)

Hover Car Racer

    Hover Car Racer (2004)

Published as three mini-books in the United States:

    Crash Course (2005)

    Full Throttle (2006)

    Photo Finish (2007)

References:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Station

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