Laurie Steed will conduct our Prose class on Friday, 12th
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.
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss Friday, 29thMay @ 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.
Prose with Helen Hagemann at the Fremantle Arts Centre
Ice Station by Matthew Reilly, 15st
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:
Prose with Helen Hagemann at the Fremantle Arts Centre
Catcher in the Rye by J. D Salinger, 1st
May @ 1pm. We will be reading an extract from the novel. Writing
exercises and discussion will revolve around the elements of YA. Cost: $20 OOTA $25 NON-OOTA Room 3, Upstairs - Fremantle Arts Centre The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. A controversial novel originally published for adults, it has since
become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage angst and alienation. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major languag.es. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year with total sales of more than 65 million books.The novel's protagonist Holden Caulfield has become an icon for teenage rebellion. The novel also deals with complex issues of identity, belonging, loss, connection, and alienation. The novel was included on Time 's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923 and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, it was listed at #15 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to public attention and scrutiny. Salinger became reclusive, publishing new work less frequently. He followed Catcher with a short story collection, Nine Stories (1953); a volume containing a novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey (1961); and a volume containing two novellas, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last published work, a novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", appeared in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965.
Salinger working on The Catcher in the Rye
Born
on January 1, 1919, in New York, J.D. Salinger was a literary giant
despite his slim body of work and reclusive lifestyle. His landmark
novel, The Catcher in the Rye, set a new course for literature
in post-WWII America and vaulted Salinger to the heights of literary
fame. In 1953, Salinger moved from New York City and led a secluded
life, only publishing limited work before his death in 2010.
Dear writers
Our Prose newsletter for May 2015 is now up! We have three classes this month, as well we are introducing your tutors for June 2015 while I'm away in England. They are Laurie Steed and Guy Salvidge. Laurie has been an OOTA member for a few years, and most probably this is the first time he has conducted a class for us at the Fremantle Arts Centre. The new committee at OOTA are introducing new classes, so hopefully there will be more opportunity for our members to run classes. Download our May newsletter by clicking on the Newsletter tab and the drop-down link.
Your stories are here
May 31, 2015
