Nancy Gerber will be presenting a workshop, “Writing to Heal: The Powers of Narrative Writing in Transforming Trauma to Resilience,” at a conference sponsored by the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis (ACAP), to be held at Caldwell College, July 29-July 31, 2012. Attendees can choose from more than 20 workshops, including sessions on humor as a mode of healing (Eva Silver), Stress Management Techniques (Mary Massaro), The Step Back Method (Dr. Patricia Bratt), and Helping Veterans to Heal (Annette Vaccaro).

The keynote speaker is former First Lady of New Jersey Mary Jo Codey, who will discuss “Journeys to Resilience.” For more information, visit www.trauma-studies.org or call 973-251-9312.

The next Sackett Street Creative Writing Workshop will begin the week of May 28th! This Fiction & Creative Non-Fiction Workshop, taught by Montclair writer and resident, Jill Rosenberg (http://www.sackettworkshop.com/faculty.html#rosenberg), will meet one weekday evening per week for 8 weeks, from 7:30 to 9:30 (or during school hours, if requested) at the instructor’s home on Walnut Street.

For additional information, visit www.sackettworkshop.com or email julia@sackettworkshop.com.

The $475 fee includes a private conference with the instructor.
Visit www.sackettworkshop.com or email julia@sackettworkshop.com to register.

The Writing Matters event on publishing is tomorrow (Thursday) evening!

By many accounts, publishing has changed more in the last year than it did in the past 100. But the wisdom and talent accumulated during those years cannot be underestimated. Come learn why the major houses are more relevant today than ever.

Perhaps you’re a fan of great fiction, eager to discover one of the bestselling or debut novelists who will be on our panel. Or maybe you’re an emerging writer, looking to hear what a senior editor at a major house is looking for in a submission. Or a published author who would like to take your work to the next level of audience-building. Or perhaps just a student of this incredible age in publishing.

Whatever your interest, please join us at Watchung booksellers for a night of food, drink, great books, and conversation.

Panelists:

Greer Hendricks, senior editor at Simon & Schuster
Sarah Pekkanen, internationally bestselling author of THESE GIRLS
Randy Susan Meyers, bestselling author of THE MURDERER’S DAUGHTERS
Peter Golden, debut author of COMEBACK LOVE
Julie Schoerke, founder JKS Communications

Thursday May 10th at 7 o’clock pm
Watchung booksellers

For further information: (973) 744 7177

http://www.watchungbooksellers.com/writing-matters

For writers who want to work on specific areas of creative nonfiction skills, don’t have the time to commit to a long class but still want plenty of private feedback, MEWsie Lisa Romeo is offering One-Week Workshops in May, June, and July.

You select a topic from the list of 17 different craft topics, which are usually only available in 4- or 8-week classes. Simply choose the individual subject(s) that will most help you enhance your writing craft, and then select the week(s). Each week includes a full lesson, reading materials, examples, (optional) assignments, in-depth private feedback on your work, unlimited email exchanges, and (optional) phone call.

You can see a list of all 17 craft-centric choices at Lisa’s blog (www.LisaRomeo.blogspot.com) or here: http://bit.ly/Hdb4TA. Multi-week discounts are available. Please reserve your spot one week in advance by contacting Lisa: LisaRomeoWrites@gmail.com or calling 973-857-4383.

Lisa teaches creative nonfiction in the Rutgers University Writing Program Extension, and works as a freelance writer, editor, ghostwriter, and writing coach. She holds an MFA from Stonecoast and a B.S. in journalism from Syracuse. Her work has appeared across print and online media, including the New York Times, O The Oprah Magazine, and many essay collections, literary journals, and anthologies, including the recent Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching, and Publishing.

May 14, 7pm – Watchung Booksellers, Montclair NJ

They’ve done Pitchapaloozas from Miami to Hollywood, Cape Cod to Santa Cruz. They’ve done workshops from Stanford University to the Texas Book Festival. And now they’re doing them together in a 2.5 hour, information-packed session. The workshop gives you the nuts & bolts to launch your book successfully, from platform, to pitch, to publication. Pitchapalooza is American Idol for books. Writers get one minute—and only one minute, to pitch their books! In the last month, three writers have gotten publishing deals as a result of participating in Pitchapalooza. The workshop lasts an hour. Pitchapalooza ninety minutes. Sign up soon, these fill up fast!

Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry are co-founders of The Book Doctors, a company dedicated to helping authors get their books published. They are also co-authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How To Write It, Sell It, and Market It… Successfully (Workman, 2010). Arielle Eckstut has been a literary agent for 20 years at The Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. She is also the author of seven books and the co-founder of the iconic brand, LittleMissMatched. David Henry Sterry is the best-selling author of 12 books, on a wide variety of subject including memoir, sports, YA fiction and reference.They have taught their workshop on how to get published everywhere from Stanford University to Smith College. They have appeared everywhere from The New York Times to NPR’s Morning Edition to USA Today.

PRICE OF ADMISSION: $75, plus the purchase of The Essential Guide To Getting Your Book Published.

New York Times article: http://tinyurl.com/3tkp4gl.

Pitchapalooza mini movie:http://tinyurl.com/3jr8zte.

Pitchapalooza on NBC: http://www.thebookdoctors.com/the-book-doctors-pitchapalooza-on-nbc-television

News:
Fiction and creative non-fiction class to run six weeks May-June

Writing Our Stories
Six Mondays, May 7-June 11, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

MEWsie Laura Zinn Fromm is offering a new class. Both fiction and creative nonfiction involve strong story lines, memorable characters, and lively dialogue. We will migrate between the two genres. Students can submit short stories, portions of novels, essays and/or sections of memoirs. Instructor’s approval required prior to registering. Please e-mail a 3–5 page writing sample to zinnfromm@gmail.com. This class meets in the instructor’s home in Millburn-Short Hills and is limited to eight people.

Laura Zinn Fromm is the author of the forthcoming My Inner Fruitcake: Tales of Cooking and Coping. She holds an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University and teaches fiction and creative non-fiction through the New York Writers Workshop at the JCC Manhattan. She has also taught at Columbia and Montclair State. A former editor at Business Week magazine, she is the winner of the Clarion Award and the Newspaper Guild’s Page One Award for Labor Reporting. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Ducts.org, Writing Raw, Patch, New Jersey Life & Leisure and Wellesley. For more of her work, please visithttp://www.flawedmom.blogspot.com and http://www.myinnerfruitcake.com.

Barbara Hurley of Verona, founding president of the Association for Women in Communications–New Jersey Chapter (AWCNJ), will be honored at its fourth annual Recognition & Networking Breakfast. The chapter will also present the “Women Who Will” award to Kristina Lee Grandstaff of Roxbury, founder of a volunteer organization helping women to recover from domestic abuse, at the event on Friday, June 8, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Olde Mill Inn, 225 Route 202, Basking Ridge, NJ.

In honor of its 15th anniversary, AWCNJ will present its Founder’s Award to Hurley, director of marketing and communications at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where she has served nearly 25 years in a variety of roles. Hurley helped establish AWCNJ in 1997 and served as its first president.

Take advantage of AWCNJ’s special anniversary pricing by registering for this event by June 3: $35 for members, $45 for non-members. After June 3 and at the door: $55 for all. Register online at http://awcnj.org. To register by mail, please send a check, made out to AWCNJ, to Leslie Cifelli, 11 Villa Pl., Nutley, NJ 07110.

The Association for Women in Communications-New Jersey Chapter, established in 1997, is an active, member-focused organization dedicated to professional development and the advancement of women across communications discipline

How do you get romantic with a Neanderthal woman?

            Is it cannibalism if you eat yourself?

            Does it matter if the souvenir you bring home from Africa is another human being?

            Find the answers in “My Date with Neanderthal Woman,” which won Dzanc Books’ first short-story collection prize. Reading at Montclair Public Library, 7:00, Wednesday, May 9.

            The author, David Galef, has published over a dozen books and is the director of the creative writing program at Montclair State University, as well as The Fiction Workshop columnist for The Writer and a humor columnist for Inside Higher Ed.

Book Launch and Reception for Carole De Santis, editor at Viking Penguin and author of the newly released book by Houghton Mifflin, The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R.

Love and war converge in this lush, epic story of a young woman’s coming of age during and after France’s Second Empire (1860–1871), an era that was absinthe-soaked, fueled by railway money and prostitution, and transformed by cataclysmic social upheaval.

Saturday, April 21st, 5pm
Watchung Booksellers
54 Fairfield St.
Montclair NJ 07042
973-744-7177

Watchung Booksellers, 54 Fairfield St., Watchung Plaza, will host a “meet and greet” reception Saturday, May 19, noon to 2 p.m., featuring Clifton author Michael C. Gabriele. Gabriele will present his book “The Golden Age of Bicycle Racing in New Jersey.”

The reception at Watchung Booksellers will coincide with the 10th annual Tour de Montclair bike festival, which runs Sunday, May 20, in Brookdale Park.

Gabriele’s book, published by The History Press, Charleston, SC (Web site: www.historypress.net), is a comprehensive, 30,000-word narrative, with 70 vintage photographs, on the Garden State’s colorful, 130-year cycling heritage. The book documents New Jersey’s lost history as a hub for bicycle racing, re-establishing its claim as the “cradle of cycling” for the United States.