Show and Tell

I hereby declare May SHOW AND TELL month for LWC. Get ready! More to come.

It's Poetry Time!

Poetry night with Ramon Presson is this Thursday, February 27, at 7:00 p.m. in the Excel building at Rippavilla. No matter what you write, you can benefit from the focus on the rhythm and precision of words that poetry offers. Step out of your comfort zone, and come out Thursday to learn how you can be the best wordsmith you can be.  

If you're worried that LWC has entered Thunderstorm Thursday season, don't be. Ramon explains it best in his poem below:

WHY THE WEATHER IS PERFECT ON POETRY NITES

Doesn't it make you wonder?
It's hard to argue, I suppose
that the lightning, rain, and thunder
only occur on nights of prose.

Could it be that the heavens love meter,
in rhyme or unrhymed rows
more than the average reader,
and more than stacked blocks of prose?

--rLp--

Learn more about poet Ramon Presson: Calling All Poets

 

From Memory...to Fiction

Wilmoth Marshall Foreman

FROM MEMORY…not necessarily fact…TO FICTION

April 17 at 7:00 p.m.

Excel building at Rippavilla Plantation

We’ll look at the topic of memories as a basis for fictional writings. We will compare what may have really happened— that tiny seed of memory — to the fiction it spawned, and Foreman will use her writings to illustrate points.

If time allows, we’ll list some "memory kernels," then write a factual memory of one of those kernels.

Wilmoth Marshall Foreman is a Columbia native. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College; is a teacher consultant of the West Tennessee Writing Project (affiliate of the National Writing Project); and is on the Tennessee Arts Commission’s roster of Artists in Education as a teacher of writing.

Her first novel, Summer of the Skunks, is on the 2005-06 Volunteer State Book Award Master Reading List; was selected as a 2004 Book of Note by the Tri State [Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey] Young Adult Review Committee; and was a 2006-07 Sunshine State Young Reader's Award Master List Nominee.

Currently and for about 15 years, Wilmoth has written a weekly newspaper column for The Daily Herald in Columbia. A collection of several of those columns has been published recently. Like the column, that book is titled Somewhere Along the Way.

2014 Meeting Dates

Below is a list of our 2014 meeting dates. Check our website regularly for updates to our schedule.

We meet in the Excel building (white building with red roof behind the main house) at Rippavilla Plantation - click here for directions, and all of our meetings are scheduled at 7:00 p.m. Our Critique Sessions are the first Thursday of every month. Our Creative Writing Sessions are the third Thursday of every month. And our POETRY NIGHTS are the fifth Thursday in months when there is one.

Jan. 2 - Critique Session
Jan. 16 - Creative Writing Session
Feb. 6 - Critique Session
Feb. 20 - Creative Writing Session
Feb. 27 - POETRY NIGHT
Mar. 6 - Critique Session
Mar. 20 - Creative Writing Session
Apr. 3 - Critique Session
Apr. 17 - Creative Writing Session
May 1 - Critique Session
May 15 - Creative Writing Session
May 29 - POETRY NIGHT
June 5 - Critique Session
June 19 - Creative Writing Session
July 3 - Critique Session
July 17 - Creative Writing Session

July 31 - POETRY NIGHT
Aug. 7 - Critique Session
Aug. 21 - Creative Writing Session
Sept. 4 - Critique Session
Sept. 18 - Creative Writing Session
Oct. 2 - Critique Session
Oct. 16 - Creative Writing Session
Oct. 30 - POETRY NIGHT

Nov. 6 - Critique Session

Nov. 8 - Fall Feast (tentative)
Nov. 20 - Creative Writing Session
Dec. 4 - Critique Session
Dec. 18 - Creative Writing Session

NOTES:

1. All creative writing sessions are tentative, depending on whether or not we have a creative writing coordinator or a volunteer facilitator for each month's session.

2. During severe weather events, meetings will be canceled. Severe weather events include icy conditions and tornado warnings. LWC is known for its THUNDERSTORM THURSDAYS, and meetings are not canceled during thunderstorms. When severe weather cancels a meeting, a group e-mail will be sent, a message will be posted to our LWC Facebook group page, and a notice will be posted on our website by 6:00 p.m.

What to Know about Our Poetry Session 10.17.13

The outline and plan for Poetry Nite at Rippavilla

I look forward to our second meeting of poets this Thursday night, October 17, 2013.

* I'll do a brief teaching about where ideas for poetry come from. You are surrounded by poetic prompts daily. We'll talk about how to recognize them and develop them. Plenty of examples will be given.

* I'm inviting Danielle and Karen to share some of their impressions and practical takeaways from the poetry workshop they attended recently during the Middle Tennessee Writers Conference. Karen Aldridge was quite enthusiastic about the session and what she learned from esteemed poet Bill Brown.

* I invite you to bring a recent or not-so-recent original poem to share with the group. 

* As we close I'll explain and make some poetry writing assignments. It will be a few months before our next poets gathering so I want to give you some seed and fertilizer to take with you.

Thanks,

Ramon

What to Know About Poetry Night 9.5.13

It's finally here! The night you've been waiting all summer for--POETRY NIGHT! And now you're wondering, How do I prepare for Living Writers Collective's first fantastic night of poetry? Well, you've come to the right place. Here's a snapshot straight from Ramon Presson of what you need to know: 

• I'll do a short teaching about poetry technique with examples to stir your imaginations for writing. 
• I'll provide a prompt for a brief writing exercise. 
• I'm asking you to bring one of your favorite poems (by another poet). Do not bring Poe's The Raven or Milton's Paradise Lost---we're looking for something shorter because you're going to read and simply tell us something you like about it. (Don't mistake that for defending why the poem is good--it's just about you like about it.) 
• Lastly I'm inviting you to bring one of your own poems (shorter than Homer's The Iliad, please) and read it and tell us something you like about it.  Yes, it's more than acceptable to like something about your own poem. It's not bragging about your writing; it's just enjoying something that you created. I want to encourage your enjoyment of poetry (yours and others) more than your evaluation of it. Writing poetry is not required by federal law so if you don't enjoy it, why bother? 

In later sessions we'll offer feedback and some suggestions for improvement, but not yet.  Especially now but down the road as well I primarily want you to enjoy creating poems, not obsess over perfecting them.  If you enjoy the process of writing poetry then you'll improve. But at the end of the day if you like your poem, that's all that really matters.

Before we adjourn we'll have a drawing for a couple of surprises.  

See you Thursday,

Ramon Presson

Visit our post "Calling All Poets" to learn more about Ramon Presson and to read the official announcement for this session. Ramon will be leading all of our poetry sessions.

Calling All Poets

Living Writers Collective
Presents

POETRY NIGHT

 

With Ramon Presson 

September 5, 2013

Location: Rippavilla Plantation
Time: 7:00 p.m.

Ramon Presson is an award winning poet trained under twice-Pulitzer-nominated poet Stellasue Lee. As a senior Presson received Wake Forest University's and the Academy of American Poets' top prize for a collegiate collection of original poetry. He has been a guest at the Poet's Corner at Scarritt-Bennett in Nashville and is a familiar face of poetry in Spring Hill and Nashville through his multiple poetry readings. Ramon is a featured columnist for the Williamson Herald newspaper and has published a dozen nonfiction books. But his first love is and will always be poetry. 

Ramon holds a PhD in counseling psychology, is an ordained minister, and works full-time in private practice as an individual & marital therapist (www.LifeChangeCS.org).  Ramon and his wife, Dorrie, make their home in Thompson's Station along with their teenage sons, Trevor and Cameron.  

POETRY sessions will include readings and poetry education. Watch your e-mail and this website around the end of August for more information on POETRY. After September 5, Ramon Presson will be facilitating LWC poetry sessions on months with a 5th Thursday (about quarterly). See our meeting schedule for 2013 POETRY dates.

Visit our post "What to Know About Poetry Night 9.5.13" to find out how you need to prepare and what to expect from this first night of poetry.