It’s crucial that writers keep on top of what’s happening in the publishing world. Especially in these days of dizzying changes and wide-open opportunities. With this in mind, every January, the Making It in Changing Times Mini-Conference brings together writers and some of the Northwest’s most accomplished authors and teachers. Our purpose is to outline […]

   Bitter truth # 6: Whereby I espouse cautionary tales about the writing life. Balance might not be possible all the time. For years now I’ve heard much talk about balance, as in work-life balance. For years I also pursued it and actually still do. Each person has his or her own definition of this […]

©Jessica Page Morrell       Sometimes you just have to trust the thing you claim to trust – and for me that is the shaping spirit of creativity. ~ Jeanette Winterson      In long-ago times, as seems fitting, March was the beginning of the year and interestingly marked the resumption of war. In about 700 BC […]

Line by Line: How to Rewrite, Rework & Reword taught by Jessica Morrell November 10, 9-5 Tabor Space, 5441 S.E. Belmont, Portland, OR Cost: $75 Every good writer is also an editor. The tough thing about self-editing is learning what to keep, what to lose, and what to leave well enough alone. This workshop will […]

If you’re going to make it as a writer, you probably won’t be able to read mediocre or lousy writing. Now, reading is a subjective experience. Thus, what one reader finds mediocre another finds dazzling. If you’re serious about writing and publishing, you’re aware that a lot of mediocre gets published, and a lot of […]

October 20, 9-5 Manzanita, Oregon, The Center for Contemplative Arts Cost: $80 The task of a novelist or memoirist is to tell a story so riveting that it will hold a reader’s attention for hundreds of pages. This requires intimate knowledge of characters, their inner lives, and central dilemma. It also requires an understanding of […]

©Jessica P. Morrell A poem is a way of life. Eloise Klein Healey         Writers are given myriads of advice: how to plunge into the deep water of writing; how to craft beautiful sentences; how fiction or film structure holds a story together; how voice must be distinctive; how in all writing every word counts. […]

Bitter truth # 5: Don’t pop that champagne cork too soon. Just because you finished writing a book doesn’t mean it’s done. In fact, the real work of writing might just begin. Writing is rewriting, my friends. Fixing the pacing, tweaking the character arcs, scrutinizing the manuscript scene by scene, line by line, making sure […]

Jessica P. Morrell© “A strongly motivated need or desire sets in motion actions and revelations that return to dramatically affect a character, resulting in the final cry from Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove: “We will never again be as we were!” The plot has worked from disorder to order, from an unstable situation […]