Online Intensive Creative Writing courses, running Sept to Dec, offered at 3 different times

Intensive Creative Writing

Offered at 3 different times:

Tuesday evenings 6:30 – 9:00
Sept 26 – Dec 12 (or to Dec 19 if the course fills up).  Still space in this one!

Friday mornings 10:00 – 12:30
Sept 15 – Dec 15. No class Oct 20. Waiting list only for this one.

Wednesday afternoons, 12:30 – 3:00
Sept 20 – Dec 13. No class Oct 18. Waiting list only for this one.

Intensive Creative Writing isn't for beginners; it's for people who have been writing for a while or who have done a course or two before and are working on their own projects. You’ll be asked to bring in several pieces of your writing for detailed feedback, including three long pieces. All your pieces may be from the same work, such as a novel in progress, or they may be stand-alone pieces. You bring whatever you want to work on. 

Besides critiquing pieces, the instructor will give short lectures addressing the needs of the group, and in addition to learning how to critique your own work and receiving constructive suggestions about your writing, you’ll discover that the greatest benefits come from seeing how your classmates approach and critique a piece of writing and how they write and re-write. This is a challenging course, but extremely rewarding.

Instructor Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada's most popular blog for writers, taught creative writing at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Saint John. Brian is the author of a children's version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Tribute Publishing). But his proudest boast is that he has helped many of his students get published.  

Read reviews of Brian's various courses and workshops here (and scroll down).

Fee: $264.60 + hst = $299

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See all of Brian’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here. 

In-person course: Extreme Creative Writing, Sept 21 – Dec 14 in Burlington

Extreme Creative Writing

 ~ For experienced writers 

In-person: Thursday afternoons, 12:30 – 3:00 p.m
September 21 – December 14, 2023. No class October 19
Burlington Anglican Lutheran Church, 3455 Lakeshore Road, Burlington, Ontario {West of Walkers Line. Map here} 

Extreme Creative Writing is for experienced writers who have been writing for a while or who have done a course or two before and are working on their own projects. You’ll be asked to bring in six pieces of your writing for detailed feedback, including three longish pieces. All your pieces may be from the same work, such as a novel in progress, or they may be stand alone pieces. You bring whatever you want to work on. 

Besides critiquing pieces, we’ll have discussions on topics of interest to the class. In addition to learning how to critique your own work and receiving constructive suggestions about your writing, you’ll discover that the greatest benefits come from seeing how your classmates approach and critique a piece of writing and how they write and re-write. This is a challenging course, but extremely rewarding.

Fee: $264.60 + hst = $299

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Instructor Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada's most popular blog for writers, teaches creative writing at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Saint John. But his proudest boast is that he’s has helped many of his students get published.  

Read reviews of Brian's various courses and workshops here (and scroll down).

See all of Brian’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.

 

Writing Personal Stories & Other Nonfiction offered Wednesdays online and Thursdays in person in Burlington, September – October

Writing Personal Stories & Other Nonfiction

Offered at two times:

Online: Wednesday evenings 6:30 – 8:30
September 27 – November 29, 2023 {or to Dec 6 if it fills up} No class Oct 18

And

In-person: Thursday evenings 7:00 – 9:00
Sept 28 – Nov 23 {or to Nov 30 if it fills up} No class Oct 19.
Burlington Anglican Lutheran Church, 3455 Lakeshore Rd, Burlington, Ontario (Map here)

If you want to write any kind of true story, this course is for you. Personal stories will be front and centre – we’ll look at memoirs, travel writing, personal essays, family history – but we’ll also look at writing feature articles, creative nonficti0n and other more informational writing. Plus, of course, we’ll work on creativity and writing technique and have fun doing it. 

Whether you want to write a book or just get your thoughts down on paper, this weekly course will get you going. We'll reveal the tricks and conventions of telling true stories, and we’ll show you how to use the techniques of the novel to recount actual events. Weekly writing exercises and friendly feedback from the instructor will help you move forward on this writing adventure. Whether you want to write for your family and friends or for a wider public, don't miss this course.

For each session, we’ll also have two published authors as a guest speakers:

For both the Wednesday and Thursday sessions of this course, one of our guest speakers will be  Jennifer M. Smith, author of Green Ghost, Blue Ocean. This story of Jennifer’s 40,000-mile nautical adventure won the 2019 Pottersfield Prize for nonfiction and was published by Pottersfield Press in 2020.  

Jennifer has also written five articles for Canadian Yachting magazine and has been published numerous times on Quick Brown Fox. For more on Green Ghost, Blue Ocean visit the distributor, Nimbus Publishing, here, to read one of Jennifer’s articles, see here, and visit her website  here.

For the online, Wednesday evening session, we’ll also have Wendy Kitts, who lives near Moncton, New Brunswick. Wendy has been a freelance writer since 2000, and has written over 200 articles for local, national, and international publications such as Reader’s Digest, the Los Angeles Times, and the Globe & Mail. 

She was a regular contributor of children’s book reviews to the Globe & Mail, Canadian Children's Book News, Atlantic Books Today and the New Brunswick Reader (Telegraph Journal) where she wrote a weekly column for five years.

Wendy is also the author of ten nonfiction books. She wrote nine for the US Library & Education market for grades two through twelve, and one trade book, Sable Island: The Wandering Sandbar (Nimbus, 2011 – see here) for 7-12 year-olds. Sable Island was nominated for several readers’ choice awards including the Silver Birch and made two annual lists: Top Five New Brunswick Books by CBC-Radio and Top 100 Gift Books by the Globe & Mail. At the workshop, Wendy will talk about how she broke into writing at the age of 42 with no prior background in writing and how she built a career as a fulltime writer including writing (and pitching) personal essays, feature stories, and nonfiction books.

For the in-person session on Thursday evenings in Burlington, we’ll have Kira Vermond, an award-winning writer with over 2,000 articles to her name. She has been a frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, CBC and Today's Parent. 

Kira is the author of seven nonfiction books for young readers, including: Trending: How and Why Stuff Gets Popular, a book that digs into the psychology and fallout of fads and that makes kids think. At the class, Kira will talk about the art of writing and pitching feature stories and nonfiction books. {Yes, nonfiction for kids and grownups goes through much the same process.} 

Visit Kira’s website for her kids’ books here, her website for her journalism and copywriting here, and see links to many of her articles {for grown-ups} here.

Fee: $220.35 plus 13% hst = $259

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See all of Brian’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.

You're invited to the launch of Dead Serious by Wendy Truscott

Dear Brian,

 I’m excited to announce that Winged Publications has released my new novel, Dead Serious, a psychological thriller/romance set in the world of amateur theatre. On Tuesday, July 25th at 4:30 p.m. there will be an official book launch at the Baysville Library. {Note: Baysville is northeast of Bracebridge / southeast of Huntsville. Map here.}

Dana Williams never suspected starting a new life might end with her death.

Fleeing a devastating breakup, the aspiring playwright moves to a new neighbourhood. There, her future brightens, as she finds a new job, a cozy apartment, and most exciting of all, an offer to produce her first play.

While the world of theatre is mostly make-believe, the people in it are all too human. When disturbing events begin to occur around her, she realizes she is the target of a demented mind. When these events lead to murder, she is forced to question whom among her new friends she can trust.

It soon becomes clear almost everyone has something to hide, and Dana acknowledges how little she truly knows many of the people in her life, including the one who broke her heart. With her own life in danger, she must consider everyone a potential killer, even her new best friend, her landlady, and the woman’s intriguing nephew. Tensions build to a terrifying confrontation with a clever killer who has outsmarted everyone.

The story is set in The Beach neighbourhood of Toronto, where I grew up, and many will recognize the location on the cover. Like my first two novels, Haunted Journey and MacGregor’s Curse, it also has a strong Muskoka connection.

Dead Serious is available on amazon.ca and .com or through me at www.wendytruscott.com or on Facebook: Wendytruscottnovels.

Haunted Journey and MacGregor’s Curse, both YA historicals set in Muskoka, are available on Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, Barnes & Noble. They also appeal to adults who enjoy stories of families and communities pulling together during difficult times.

Thank you, Brian. I hope to join another of your valuable courses before long.

Wendy Truscott

See Brian Henry’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.                 

More markets for your short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry and for your sci-fi stories, novellas and novels

Note: You can hang out and chat with quick brown foxes and vixens on my Facebook page (here). Just send a friend request to Brian Henry.

Also, if you’re not yet on my newsletter, send me an email, including your locale, to: brianhenry@sympatico.ca ~ Brian

 

The New Quarterly publishes short fiction, poetry and nonfiction. The New Quarterly limits the number of submissions it reads for each of its reading periods. The reading periods run Sept 1 – Feb 28 and March 1 – Aug 31. So if the closer you submit to the start of either reading period, the better the chance of your piece being read. 

The New Quarterly pays $275 for fiction and nonfiction; $50 for poems and postscripts.

The New Quarterly also runs three annual writing contests: The Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest (deadline end of February), The Edna StaeblerPersonal Essay Contest (deadline end of March), and The Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award (deadline end of May). 

Full submission guidelines here.

 

Yolk is a Montreal-based literary journal with a print edition (open to residents of Canada only) and a digital publication (open to international submissions) for digital publication. Yolk publishes fiction, art, and poetry. 

Theme for the 3.2 print publication: Solastalgia: Tightening at the smell of smoke. Recoiling at the sight of receding glaciers. Close the news app. Shudder in a foreign home. I’m sorry for the heat. I’m sorry for the mercury. This is a new kind of grief, with a nascent voice. Speak to it. 

Pays: $100CAD honorarium for digital publication. For print, $30 per page, regardless of genre, up to a maximum of $200. $200 for print cover art. 

Deadline: August 14, 2023 for print publication. In the subject line include: “3.2 Print Publication Submission.” International contributors should include “Digital Publication Submission” in the subject line. Guidelines here.

 

Carte Blanche is a Quebec-based online literary magazine publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, translations. comics, and photography, with a focus on Quebec-based artists. 

Pays but "modestly." 

Deadline: August 21, 2023. Guidelines here.

 

Pseudopod is a horror magazine in audio format. If you have a horror story you’d like to hear narrated, send it to them. They looking for flash fiction under 1,500 words, preferably 500–1,000 words, and short stories 1,500–6,000 words, preferably about 4,500 words. Pseudopod wants everything from grim realism or crime drama, to magic-realism, to blatantly supernatural dark fantasy.

“We publish highly literary stories reminiscent of Poe or Lovecraft as well as vulgar shock-value pulp fiction. We don’t split hairs about genre definitions, and we do not observe any taboos about what kind of content can appear in our stories. Originality demands that you’re better off avoiding vampires, zombies, and other recognizable horror tropes unless you have put a very unique spin on them. What matters most is that the stories are dark and compelling.”

Pays $0.08 US per word for original fiction. $100 US per story for reprint fiction and $20 US for reprints of flash fiction (under 1,500 words). 

Deadline: August 21, 2023. Guidelines here.  

 

Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine is a long-established market for science fiction stories and serialized novellas and novels, nonfiction pieces, and poetry, with both print and digital editions.

Pays 8–10 cents US per word for short fiction (up to 20,000 words), 6 cents US per word for serials (40,000–80,000 words) 9 cents US per word for fact articles, and $1 US per line for poetry.

Pays $1,200 US for color cove art and $125 US for black and whiter interiors.

Fact articles should be about 4,000 words and should deal with topics at the present frontiers of research whose likely future developments have implications of wide interest.

{Unlike almost all literary journals} Analog considers material submitted by any writer solely on the basis of merit.

Submission guidelines here.

 

Quick Brown Fox welcomes your short stories, poems, and essays about reading, writing, favourite books, and libraries. Read a few essays on the blog to get a taste of what other writers have done (see here and scroll down).

Quick Brown Fox also welcomes reviews of any kind and of anything, anywhere or anybody. If you want to review your favourite coffee shops or libraries, babysitters or lovers (no real names please), go for it. See examples of book reviews here (and scroll down); other reviews here (and scroll down).

Submit to: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Include a short bio at the end of your piece and attach a photo of yourself.

 See Brian Henry’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.