March 25th Meeting
Join us for our March Meeting with Glen Hirshberg
Dinner starts at 5:30, talk starts 6:30 or so at Jalapeno's Barkley.
The Speculative Fiction Cookbook
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This talk focuses on techniques to hone—and traps to avoid—when incorporating the extra-real, imaginary, or spectral into reality-based fiction. I'll point out some practical challenges, such as getting the balance right between the ordinary and extraordinary, judging how precisely and with what tools to describe speculative elements, and deploying conventional storytelling in unconventional ways. Along the way, we'll look at the resurgence in interest in speculative fiction, as well as the literary mainstream’s ongoing ambivalence toward it. Though nominally about fiction with supernatural elements, the techniques discussed should prove useful for poets and more traditional fiction writers as well. And of course, I am happy to take questions and discuss my own work depending on interest.
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Glen Hirshberg’s novels include The Snowman’s Children, Infinity Dreams, The Book of Bunk, and the Motherless Children trilogy. He is also the author of five widely praised story collections, the most recent of which is Tell Me When I Disappear. His work has earned him the Shirley Jackson Award, three International Horror Guild Awards, and five World Fantasy Award finalist nominations, and he has been selected more than two dozen times for the major Year's Best fantasy and horror anthologies. Peter Straub has called his fiction "ripe with feeling, expansive in every way; Horror as it should be writ, and as only the best and most expressive can write it." Glen also has taught creative writing at the graduate, undergraduate, and secondary levels for more than thirty years. He lives in Bellingham with his family and cats.
We have a new location for meetings this year. Jalapeno's at Barkleys has graciously waived the room fee for their banquet room for us. We will need you to RSVP to ensure they have the correct number of staff.
New to WWP
Welcome, Pacific Northwest Writers!
We meet every fourth Wednesday from September to June in scenic Bellingham, WA. Supper starts at 5:30, and the speaker starts at 6:30-7.
Dues are 25 dollars a year or 40 for two years. We use the dues to pay for our speakers to come from around the region, and for an occasional table at local writer events. Our dues year runs from September to June, like our meetings, but will roll over if you pay late in the cycle. If you want to try us out first, feel free. Speakers in the past have included WA Poet Laureate Rena Priest, author Robert Dugoni, and agent Donald Maass, covering topics such as social media, self-publishing, memoirs, mixed media, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. It is our goal to offer something for everyone, no matter your place in the writing journey-- just starting or long-published. Old school or new. If you have an idea for a speaker or topic, let us know, but if it has been covered recently it might not be picked up.
Pay your dues
25 for 1 year
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40 for 2 years
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40 for couples
To pay online, please provide name and email address on the form so we can keep track of you.
We have a paypal account if you would prefer to pay on line. You can also pay by check; just drop it off with the treasurer at a meeting.
