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DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240717T190000
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SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Ramona Reeves
DESCRIPTION:Wednesday\, July 17th\, 2024 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\nUp Next: Ramona Reeves\, moderated Cassandra Lane\nRSVP\nAbout It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories\nWinner of the 2023 Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction\, Texas Institute of Letters\n\n\nHappiness and connection prove fickle in this debut collection of eleven linked stories introducing Babbie and Donnie. She is a thrice-divorced former call girl\, and he is a sobriety-challenged trucker turned yogi. Along with their community of exes\, in-laws\, and coworkers\, Babbie and Donnie share a longing to reforge their lives\, a task easier said than done in Mobile\, Alabama\, which bears its own share of tainted history. Despite overwhelming challenges and the ever-looming specters of status\, race\, and class\, the characters in It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories strive for versions of the American dream through modern and often unconventional means. Told with humor and honesty\, these stories remind us not only about the fallibility of being human and the resistance of some to change but also about finding redemption in unlikely places. \nIn linked short stories taking place across time\, Reeves offers up two characters finding their own form of redemption. . . . Both humorous and deeply emotional\, this collection shines for its beautifully written characters.\n–Booklist \nThese surprising\, wonderfully funny stories glow with comic energy. The eleven pieces in It Falls Gently All Around serve as chapters in a deeply satisfying portrayal of characters facing the expiration dates on their old beliefs and their newly acquired convictions. Ramona Reeves has fully brought to life a cast of flawed\, breaking people with bravery and resilience to spare. The book is a triumph of wise and compassionate storytelling.\n–Kevin McIlvoy\, author of One Kind Favor \nIt Falls Gently All Around when a character believes ‘He could make out ghosts swimming in the darkness\, like another life he might have lived. . . .’ It is one of several instances in the book when a story suddenly coalesces\, and the reader is both surprised and moved\, and this particular example speaks to a clear ambition of the author—to capture the elusive human moments that we all experience but for which we need an artist to genuinely see. This is a splendid book by an important new writer.\n–Robert Boswell\, author of Mystery Ride\, The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards\, and Tumbledown \n\n\nRamona Reeves won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and the Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2022 for her collection\,It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories. She was a recent fellow at the San Ysidro Writers Residency and a 2024 judge for the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her work has appeared in Post Road\, The Southampton Review\, Pembroke\, New South\, Bayou Magazine\, Texas Highways and others. She teaches a course for writers working on their first manuscripts and will be teaching at the Desert Nights\, Rising Stars Writers Conference later this year. She and her wife currently call Austin home. \n\n\n\n\nCassandra Lane is winner of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and author of We Are Bridges (Feminist Press)\, which NPR called “a stunning contribution to what must become our collective memory.” Lane received her MFA from Antioch University LA. She formerly worked as a newspaper reporter\, high school English and journalism teacher\, college admissions advisor\, senior writer\, and community relations manager for the Dodgers. Her stories have appeared in the New York Times’s “Conception” series\, the L.A. Times\, the Times-Picayune\, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and multiple anthologies. She is the Editor-in-Chief of L.A. Parent magazine.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-featuring-ramona-reeves/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2023-24-TBTAT.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240318T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240318T203000
DTSTAMP:20260413T044441
CREATED:20231120T203004Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240228T194808Z
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SUMMARY:Fiction Never Lies: Turning Personal Experience into Emotional Truth with Nan Cuba
DESCRIPTION:Mondays\, March 18\, 25 & April 1\, 8\, 15\, 22\, 2024\, 6:30-8:30pm CST\, Hybrid (available in-person and online via Zoom)\nInstructor: Nan Cuba\nNonmember: $155; Member: $135; Student/Educator/Military $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \n  \nCLASS FULL. To have your name added to the waitlist\, email joshua@geminiink.org. \nPeople we’ve known\, moments we’ve witnessed\, conversations we’ve overheard\, places we’ve been\, something we’ve read: these influence aspects of our fiction. Sometimes an experience is so profound\, we decide to use that memory as inspiration for a story. But how do writers free themselves from the restrictions of facts in order to create a story with emotional truth? This six-week class will introduce techniques for identifying real events\, people\, or places that can be adapted into fiction. Examples will be shared\, participants will be guided through a sample exercise\, and each person’s story will receive feedback from the instructor and fellow classmates. Workshop discussions will honor individual styles\, voices\, intended audiences\, and perceived intents. \nThis course is open to writers of all genres and skill level\, 18+.  \nBy the end of the class students will:  \n\nHave strategies for successfully adapting personal experience into fiction.\nLearn and practice skills for giving sensitive critical feedback on manuscripts.\nHave a completed story draft with ideas for revision.\n\nThe Writer’s Desk with Nan Cuba \n \n\nNan Cuba is the author of Body and Bread\, winner of the PEN Southwest Award in Fiction and the Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner Award; it was listed as one of “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now” in O\, Oprah’s Magazine and was a “Summer Books” choice from Huffington Post. Other work has appeared in Antioch Review\, Harvard Review\, Columbia\, Quarterly West\, and Chicago Tribune’s Printer’s Row. As an investigator of the causes of extraordinary violence\, she is a featured journalist in the Netflix documentary\, The Confession Killer\, and another by Hulu\, Wild Crimes: Murder in Yosemite. Cuba is included in Texas Monthly’s “Ten to Watch (and Read)” and has received a Dobie Paisano Fellowship and an artist residency at Fundación Valparaiso in Spain. She is co-founder and executive director emeritus of Gemini Ink\, a nonprofit writing arts center\, and was Writer in Residence at Our Lady of the Lake University. \n\nParking at Gemini Ink\nGemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/fiction-never-lies-with-nan-cuba/
LOCATION:Gemini Ink\, 1111 Navarro St\, San Antonio\, TX\, 78205\, United States
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230603T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230603T120000
DTSTAMP:20260413T044441
CREATED:20230412T201239Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230414T161006Z
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SUMMARY:'Tell All the Truth\, but Tell It Slant:' Writing About Trauma with Thomas McNeely
DESCRIPTION:Saturdays\, June 3\, 10\, 17 & 24\, 10am-12pm CST via Zoom\nInstructor: Thomas McNeely\nNonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \n \n  \nHow do we tell the story of a traumatic event or its aftermath?  What if\, after the event\, we were silenced by others or just by our own inability to put the experience into words? \n  \nIn this generative course\, we will experiment with different approaches to narrating real or fictional trauma while keeping in mind that each traumatic experience suggests a variety of different stories and may be narrated in a variety of different ways. We will explore writing different versions of the same story and decide which form–poem\, short story\, novel\, memoir\, or a hybrid of any of these narrative approaches–will best capture the traumatic experience and its after effects.  \nOur approaches will be based on short excerpts from work by Sylvia Plath\, Brian Teare\, Ocean Vuong\, Mary Karr\, Eimear McBride\, and other creative writers\, and will incorporate ideas from trauma narrative theorists and researchers\, including Cathy Caruth and Bessel van der Kolk. \nThis class is open to writers of all skill levels. \nWorkshop participants will leave with the following: \n\nAn understanding of how to write about trauma and its impact\nIdeas on which narrative form can best capture the traumatic experience \nA starting place for their own piece of writing \n\n\n\nAn East Side Houston native\, THOMAS H. McNEELY has received National Endowment for the Arts\, Wallace Stegner\, MacDowell Colony\, and Dobie Paisano fellowships for his fiction. Pictures of the Shark: Stories (Texas Review Press) is his second book.  His first book\, Ghost Horse\, won the Gival Press Novel Award and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize in Writing. He has published short stories and non-fiction in The Atlantic\, Texas Monthly\, Ploughshares\, and many other magazines and anthologies\, including The Best American Mystery Stories and Algonquin Books’ Best of the South. His stories have been short-listed for the Pushcart Prize\, Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Award anthologies. He currently teaches in the Stanford Online Writing Studio and at Emerson College\, Boston\, and has led writing workshops at the Grub Street Writers Workshops\, the Lighthouse Writers Workshops\, the Writers’ League of Texas\, Writespace Houston\, and Inprint Houston.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/tell-all-the-truth-but-tell-it-slant/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Thomas-McNeely-Header.jpeg
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230215T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230215T203000
DTSTAMP:20260413T044441
CREATED:20221215T173958Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230123T182948Z
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SUMMARY:Creating Fictional Characters with Personality and Presence with Johnnie Bernhard
DESCRIPTION:Wednesdays\, February 15 & 22\, 6:30-8:30pm\, CST\, via Zoom\nInstructor: Johnnie Bernhard\nNonmember: $115; Member: $100; Student/Vet/Mil $75\n \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \n\n \nWhat separates memorable characters from forgettable ones? What about a character that will make you invest in their journey or root for their downfall? \nIn this workshop\, we will discuss what grabs a reader’s attention and draws them to a character. Writers will develop authentic fictional characters with the building blocks of character development: physical description\, dialogue\, and action. But we won’t stop there! We will explore the history\, psychology\, weaknesses\, and motives that keep the reader hooked.   \nThe importance of the sensitive reader will be discussed as a means of reassuring appropriate cultural representation in character development. \nWriters will leave the workshop with the following: \n\nAn understanding of the building blocks of character development\nTechniques for fleshing out a memorable character\nSuggestions on practicing cultural sensitivity when crafting characters different from yourself\n\n\nAward-winning author Johnnie Bernhard has written four novels: A Good Girl (2017)\, How We Came to Be (2018)\, Sisters of the Undertow (2020)\, and Hannah and Ariela (2022). Early reviews are calling Hannah and Ariela her “best and bravest.” Johnnie’s novels focus on the family\, social issues\, and the human condition. She served as a 2020 TEDx speaker for the Fearless Women Series. A Good Girl (2017) was a finalist in literary fiction\, Kindle Book Awards. Her second novel\, How We Came to Be (2018)\, received the Summerlee Book Prize\, HM.  Her third novel\, Sisters of the Undertow (2020)\, was selected for discussion at the AWP  Conference\, the Pat Conroy Literary Center\, and the Southern Book Festival/Humanities Tennessee. Named “Best of the University Presses\, 100 Books” by the Association of University Presses\, it also received First Place in the Press Women of Texas Communications Contest. All her novels are in the permanent collection of the Texas Center for the Book.  Johnnie was a 2020 TEDx speaker for the Fearless Women Series. Read an interview with Johnnie Bernhard on Texas settings and universal themes. Follow Johnnie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JABernhard\nwww.johnniebernhardauthor.com \n 
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/creating-fictional-characters-with-personality/
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/johnnie-bernhard2.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
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