How to Promote Your Book Promoting a book is not often an author’s favorite past time, but it can reap huge dividends in exposure and book sales. Molly Woolbright, the publicist at Sasquatch Books, visited my summer Seattle writing …
Category: Writing Techniques
Book Review of Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Review by Kate Jackson for The Writer’s Workshop “Do you believe in the human heart?…….Do you think there is such a thing? Something that makes each of us special and individual?” These profound …
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Oak Flat Book Review by Kate Jackson
Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West By Lauren Redniss Reviewed by Kate Jackson This is a stunning visual nonfiction book written by an award-winning author with the eye of an artist and the voice of …
Build Your Author Platform
Building an Author Marketing Plan That Attracts Readers, Sells Books, and Won’t Make You Miserable It’s no one’s favorite part of publishing, but establishing some kind of public-facing presence (marketing) is essential for writers today. So let’s talk about how …
The Queen’s Gambit Book Review for The Writer’s Workshop
Reviewed by Kate Jackson The Queen’s Gambit is an opening move in chess used by the player of the white pieces. The objective of the move is to temporarily sacrifice a pawn to gain control of the center of …
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A View from Two Sides: Review of Apeirogon by Colum McCann
By Kate Jackson Two fathers, two daughters, Israeli and Palestinian, woven together by two tragedies: this is the substance of Colum McCann’s latest novel. Published in February 2020, the characters and events are based on actual people and events. …
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Review of Lawrence Wright’s Novel The End of October
By Nicholas O’Connell Talk about prescient. Lawrence Wright’s new novel, The End of October, appeared in April, 2020, right as COVID-19 exploded across the U.S. and world. A medical thriller, the novel tells the story of a fictional pandemic …
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Make a Scene: How to Write a Dramatic Scene
SUMMARY SCENE OPENINGS – WRITING PROCEDURE COPYRIGHT THE WRITER’S WORKSHOP Scenic writing is the basis for some of the most moving, satisfying, sophisticated works of literature, something I teach in all my writing classes. It is especially effective in bringing …
The Perfect Pitch: Story Ideas in Writing Classes
THE PERFECT PITCH: STORY IDEAS IN WRITING CLASSES Narrative writers organize their books and shorter pieces in terms of a story or chronology, probably the oldest and most compelling way of relating information. In Aspects of the Novel, E.M. …
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The Writing Life: Seattle Writing Classes
In her essay collection, Mystery and Manners, Flannery O’Connor talks about writing as a habit of art. I discuss this approach in The Writer’s Workshop talk on The Writing Life, on Wednesday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. in room 221 at …
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And as imagination bodies forth
William Shakespeare (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a nam -
First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!
Ray Bradbury
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Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.
Barbara Kingsolver -
Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years.
Willa Cather
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“One false word, one extra word, and somebody's thinking about how they have to buy paper towels at the store.”
Patricia Marx
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The Writer's Workshop, an on-campus and online program offering writing
classes in Seattle, online and travel writing classes.