Writer’s Roundtable Plus Two Writing Classes this Month

JoEllen Moldoff, poetry facilitator, announces important events for writers, beginning this month.

The monthly Writer’s Roundtable will consider “Flowers For Your Salad: Writing in the New Year” on Saturday, January 14 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Library. JoEllen says, “Jumpstart your writing in the company of writing friends. Newcomers are always welcome to join us for these monthly get-togethers. For the beginning of 2012, let us share writing strategies, resources and practices. We will have the opportunity to write—short, short stories, poems, memoir pieces, essays—in response to prompts.

“Just bring paper, pen and your enthusiasm for the written word!”

The Writer’s Roundtable is open to all and is free.

A weekly poetry class will be held on Tuesday afternoons from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Public Library for six sessions, from Jan. 17  through Feb . 21. The class is titled “On the Threshold: Adventures in Poetry.”

Moldoff also facilitates this class and quotes Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney:

Poetry is more a threshold than a path, one constantly approached and constantly departed from, at which the reader and writer undergo in their different ways the experience of being at the same time summoned and released.

In this six-week class participants will read, discuss and write poetry. A variety of poems will be offered to stimulate the conversation about how poems work and to develop our craft. There will be a variety writing exercises and assignments to help generate new poems.

The fee for the class is $15, for copying costs and donation to library– payable to the instructor on the first day of class. Sign up at the library at 376-4985.

Jill Johnson will teach “Humor in Contemporary Literature on Thursday afternoons, from 1 to 3 p.m. beginning January 26. The class will conclude on March 1.

Johnson says, “Brighten your winter with a sampling of humor in contemporary literature. We’ll look at poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that tickles the funny-bone, and explore the hows and whys of humor in writing.

“Optional writing exercises will be assigned, for the creative writers in the group to try between classes. Please read Bill Bryson’s nonfiction travelogue, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. 

“All other texts, including a couple of surprises, will be provided.”

Students should bring the $25 course fee the first day of class. Checks should be made to the instructor, Jill Johnson.