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Mining Your Life for Laughs, Humor-Writing Workshop with Bob Balmer

April 16, 2018 By Jan

Funny DogOregon-based humorist Bob Balmer will lead a humor-writing workshop titled Mining Your Life for Laughs at Colonyhouse Wednesday June 20, 2018.

Students will explore humorous writings in class and then discuss what about them makes us laugh: from exaggeration to characterization, from one-liners to irony and many other techniques. Special attention will focus on how the authors used events from their lives for humorous material.

Bob Balmer’s first humorous essay was published in The Oregonian in 1992. His work has appeared in The Smithsonian, The Oregonian, The Seattle Times, The Seattle Weekly, Golf Illustrated, and many other publications. It has aired on the radio shows The Savvy Traveler and MarketPlace as well as on Oregon Public Radio and Television. Balmer has an MFA in creative writing from Portland State University and attended the Iowa Summer Writing Workshop and the Tin House Summer Writing Workshop at Reed College.

The one-day workshop with Bob Balmer costs $60. Add $50 for a one-night double-occupancy stay at Colonyhouse.

Bob’s workshop is part of the Colonyhouse Mix-It-Up event, with three workshops for one bargain price.

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Photo by Alan King on Unsplash

Filed Under: OWC News Tagged With: Bob Balmer, Workshops

Colonyhouse to Host Obituary-Writing Workshop

April 16, 2018 By Jan

Cemetery Angel

A workshop in obituary writing will provide participants to take a close look at their life so far.

Award-winning writer Sharon Wood Wortman will lead the workshop Monday and Tuesday, June 18-19, 2018, at Colonyhouse in Rockaway.

The two-day workshop is limited to the first five registrants. It includes snacks, handouts, and a free copy of On Writing Well, by William Zinsser, and A Heaven in the Eye, by Clyde Rice, the latter the winner of the Western States Book Award and published the year Rice turned 81.

The cost of the workshop is $120 for the workshop, $100 additional for bed and breakfast (double occupancy) at the Colonyhouse.

On Day One participants will learn about the history of obituary writing, including costs (and the ways to save money and still say all that you want). They will study examples of all types and lengths of obituaries, paying particular attention to unusual forms, first sentences and lead paragraphs, and to those known to have been written by their subjects. They will also see the 2016 film Obit, the first documentary to look into the world of newspaper obituaries, via the obituary desk at The New York Times.

On Day One and Day Two, they will write using prompts and writing exercises provided by the leader. They will then sit by the fireplace reading their life stories aloud to each other. At the end of the weekend, they will have a 600- to 900-word epitaph, which can be published as an obituary at some time or used to evaluate the writer’s life direction and future.

Sharon says, “At the very least, save others from this emotional task and reflect on your journey thus far, whether or not what you write ever gets published! In other words, you don’t have to be a writer to participate.”

Participants are encouraged to bring a timeline of the milestones in their lives — not just a listing of accomplishments (we are not applying for a job or writing a resume), but one with the people, places, and things that altered our trajectory during our ride.

Sharon is a poet, memoirist, journalist, and obituary writer whose work has been published by Calyx, The Oregonian, and Windfall—A Journal of Poetry of Place, among many other publications. The recipient of three Regional Arts & Culture Council grants and a former Oregon Chautauqua scholar, she served as founding editor of The Colonygram Newsletter in 1984 and has been a lifetime member of OWC for almost as long. She is best known as the author of The Portland Bridge Book and for the bridge walks she led for Portland Parks & Outdoor Recreation for almost 20 years.

Questions? Email Sharon (phone number on registration form available for download).

Download the form to pay by check.

Register online for the workshop

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Filed Under: OWC News

Best-Selling Author Robert Dugoni to Lead One-Day Workshop

April 2, 2018 By Jan

Robert DugoniBest-selling and award-winning mystery writer Robert Dugoni will lead a one-day workshop Saturday, May 5, 2018, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The workshop happens at the Hayden Island Club House at Jantzen Beach.

The cost of $125 includes beverages and snacks.

Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, #1 Wall Street Journal, and #1 Amazon Best Selling Author of The Tracy Crosswhite series, My Sister’s Grave, Her Final Breath, In the Clearing, and The Trapped Girl.

Close to Home was released Sept. 5, 2017, as a #1 Amazon bestseller. The Crosswhite Series has sold more than 2 million books worldwide and My Sister’s Grave has been optioned for television series development. He is also the author of the best-selling David Sloane series—The Jury Master, Wrongful Death, Bodily Harm, Murder One, and The Conviction, as well as the stand-alone novels The 7th Canon and The Cyanide Canary, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and several short stories.

He received the Nancy Pearl Award for Fiction and the Friends of Mystery Spotted Owl Award for best novel written by an author living in the Pacific Northwest. He is a two-time finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award for best novel and a finalist for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for best novel. His David Sloane novels have twice been nominated for the Harper Lee Award for legal fiction. His books are sold in more than 25 countries and have been translated into more than two dozen languages, including French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Follow him on Twitter, @robertdugoni, and on Facebook.

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Filed Under: OWC News Tagged With: Robert Dugoni

Scholarship Available for 31st Annual Conference at Sylvia Beach Hotel

February 12, 2018 By Jan

UPDATE: The deadline is past for the 2018 scholarship.

OWC is pleased to announce two scholarships for the 31st Annual Conference at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon, April 13-15, 2018. These scholarships are made available by the M. K. Wren Estate fund and by anonymous donors.

  • 2018 M.K. Wren Scholarship
  • 2018 Demarginalizing Voices Scholarship

These scholarships will cover the registration fee for the 2018 OWC Annual Conference at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon. This includes all workshop sessions along with room and board at the Hotel; accommodations may be in a shared room. We will celebrate the winners online via our website, Facebook and Twitter, with photos and a bio of the winners.

Please apply byMarch 10, 2018.

Applicants do not need to be current OWC members, but scholarship winners, if not currently members, will need to join OWC for a $30 annual fee. Depending on where winners are coming from, we may be able to help facilitate carpool transportation, but this is not guaranteed at this time. We expect to announce winners mid-March.

Questions? Please send them to Conference Programming Chair Haley Isleib at owcwriterswrite@gmail.com.

Apply today!

Filed Under: OWC News Tagged With: Annual conference

Marlene Howard to Lead Letter-Writing Workshop

January 5, 2018 By Jan

Letter writing

Marlene Howard will lead a weekend workshop at the Colonyhouse the weekend of Feb. 24-25, 2018.

We live in an era of abundant communications, but the personal letter is more powerful than ever in making and building relationships.

Workshop participants will discuss the art of sending and receiving personal letters, and Marlene will lead a study and discussion of epistolary novels.

Two attendance plans are offered:

1. $100 per person. Double occupancy at the Colonyhouse. Price includes Saturday and Sunday breakfasts and lunches and a shared potluck dinner on Saturday night.

2. $60 per person. Saturday only. Price includes all-day workshop and Saturday lunch. Arrive at 9 a.m. for coffee and conversation. The workshop will begin at 10 a.m. and end about 4 p.m.

Any questions contact Marlene.

Sign up for the Letter Writing Workshop

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Filed Under: OWC News Tagged With: Marlene Howard, workshop

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