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WELCOME TO OUR
COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD!
Connect with the workshop
director, enrollees, and alumni.
This bulletin board is a vehicle for your group and individual communication. It provides vital workshop updates and documents, as well as year-round discussion on writerly topics. All visitors may read our public posts, but only workshop participants may access members’ posts.
Too busy to participate in discussion? Stay in touch by subscribing to member “digests” sent to your email inbox.
To enjoy all of our forums, enroll in our workshop and register on the board for these perks:
- Discuss writing topics, such as character and plot issues; revision tips; definition of voice; fave books.
- Brainstorm about our past and future workshops—e.g., format, schedule, faculty. Vote in polls that affect all participants.
- View our workshop anthologies and manuals.
- Review in advance the novel chapters to be faculty-critiqued at our workshop’s open clinics.
- Email workshop enrollees and alumni (no searching for e-addresses).
- Connect with enrollees who seek roommates and/or carpools to the workshop.
- See and/or post member photos—get acquainted before you meet in person!
- Swap good used books at the workshop.
- After the workshop, share revisions and critiques.
- Continue year-round camaraderie!
SAMPLE PUBLIC POST
Forum: Critique Comments
Subforum: Value of Critiquing
Topic: “Teach a Man to Fish”
Some writers think that critiques on their own manuscripts are the most valuable part of a workshop. IMHO, that could not be farther from the truth. It’s difficult to get far enough away from our own work for critiques of that work to do anything besides help us make that individual piece better (which is great!). But by reading others’ manuscripts and formulating our own opinions and reactions, then comparing those reactions to others’, both peer and professional, we can gradually educate ourselves in the syntax and structure of great storytelling.
A Chinese proverb says, “Give a man a fish and you will feed him once. Teach him to fish, and he will be fed forever.” Similarly, at PCCWW, writers aren’t just spoon-fed a literary analysis by faculty, but learn to analyze until the traits of great storytelling become second nature. Over time, the latter has far more potential to make us—and our subconscious storytellers—better writers.
Submitted by PCCWW alum Joni Sensel, author of three novels for young readers (Holt, Bloomsbury) with another forthcoming in 2010, and national speaker with a full-time job. Joni critiqued nearly all 30 PCCWW manuscripts because “That’s the best way to get maximum value from this workshop.”
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For instructions to register on our Writers Workshop Community Bulletin Board, click here.
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20 years of Master Class to Masterpiece