at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco
Welcome! CW develops the art and craft of creative writing through instruction, collaboration, and respect. This blog showcases STUDENT WRITING and how to APPLY to Creative Writing.
Michelle Tea, a regular guest artist for the Creative Writing Department, will be a part of a literary event tonight, in Berkeley.
free admission, refreshments served
Tonight, at CIty LIghts Bookstore, you can hear
“Jarett Kobek musing on the existential psychedelia of Mohammed Atta…”
Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 7:00 P.M., City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, CA
OUR WINTER CONTEST is open to all fiction and nonfiction writers. We’re looking for short shorts, short stories, essays, memoirs, photo essays, graphic stories, all forms of literary nonfiction, and excerpts from longer works of both fiction and nonfiction. Entries must be previously unpublished, no longer than 15,000 words, and must not have been previously chosen as a winner, finalist, or honorable mention in another contest.
Prior winners and finalists in Narrative contests have gone on to win other contests and to be published in prize collections, including the Pushcart Prize, Best New Stories from the South, the Atlantic prize, and others. View some recent awards won by our writers.
As always, we are looking for works with a strong narrative drive, with characters we can respond to as human beings, and with effects of language, situation, and insight that are intense and total. We look for works that have the ambition of enlarging our view of ourselves and the world.
We welcome and look forward to reading your pages.
FRIDAY JANUARY 13- CINE/CLUB DOLBY Screening Room
100 Potrero at Division Refreshments 6:30 Film program 7pm
CARTOON
Short film: Peter Fischli & David Weiss’ THE WAY THINGS GO
Shane Meadow’s THIS IS ENGLAND (2006, UK)
We start the year with a powerhouse of a film—and something different from our usual fare. This film takes us into the world of England’s skinheads and neo-nazis to examine the way young people can be so easily influenced by their peers. This film has an authenticity about it that can’t be matched.
PARENTAL WARNING: Violence, some nudity and mild sex scenes.
(It’s about teenagers)
WHY WE CHOSE THIS FILM:
This film is blessed with powerful performances and an absolutely authentic atmosphere of the English Midlands, 1983. It can’t help but affect you. The hero, a teenage boy who is bullied at school and harassed at home, is befriended by a group of skin-heads who initiate him into their company. As some of the members are pulled in a darker direction, being a part of the group brings a lot more than he bargained for.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:
Shane Meadow’s is one of the finest directors in England. His films, Dead Man’s Shoes, Twenty-Four Seven, and Somers Town are all sturdy achievements, but he is practically unknown in America, and that’s a real shame. His films have great moral character and concentrate on the ways that young people are badly influenced and damaged by the worse elements in their society. Meadows knows the world of This Is England well, having himself been involved in petty crime in his youth. He works with young actors especially well. No one else could have made this film.
ART SATURDAY, JANUARY 14
Meet at Metreon on the park side facing the waterfall. We’ll be sitting on the wall waiting for you! Please RSVP so we can plan the picnic.
11: We’ll visit the new gallery shows along Geary St.
12:30 Picnic Yerba Buena Gardens
Film: METREON – 2:25 MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
The time for our annual January Poetry Cafe has come once again! As usual, the seniors are running the show, from venue to auditions and all the in-between. There are two evenings, each with its own arsenal of poems: Friday, January 27 (at 7:30) is being held on the Mainstage at School of the Arts. Saturday, January 28 (at 7:30) is being held at the Greenhouse Cafe
on West Portal. Please come and bring friends! Who won’t want to spend their weekend with cultured and opinionated teenagers, right?
-Reba
From Heather:
Students, do not forget that we are going to Word for Word’s Food Stories this Thursday evening. Details below.
ALSO, I need to know if you are able to view the CW google calendar. I am updating it frequently and you all should be able to access it and be receiving notification reminders.
THURSDAY JANUARY 12–WORD FOR WORD Z space -Theater Artaud
Florida between Mariposa and 17th.
T.C. Boyle’s comic story Sorry Figu, and Alice McDermott’s Enough.
Meet in lobby at 6:30 for the performance at 7pm. Latecomers cannot be guaranteed seats.
Welcome back to school, where a new year and fresh semester awaits! Kicking off our Creative Writing poetry unit is the annual Poetry Out Loud— a poetry recitation contest that will take a district-wide winner to compete state-wide, then to Washington DC for a chance to win a hefty scholarship. Creative Writers are offered a chance to participate by picking two poems listed on the Poetry Out Loud website and practicing for four to six weeks with coach Joan Gelfand. Last year’s winner was our very own Abigail Schott-Rosenfield (class of 2014), who got to go to Sacramento for the state-wide competition. Please check out the website and see if you’re interested in participating!
From Molly Bond, Class of 2015, fondly known as Smolly within our Cdub circle.
If you’re like me, you’re so nervous about this audition that you’re spending all your time sobbing in bed with a cup of coffee and a tear-soaked cat. To make things easier for you, we’re trying to demystify the audition process as much as possible because a lot of us enter room 202 with absolutely no clue on what to expect. Let’s start with common misconceptions:
1. “I should act as artsy-fartsy as possible because this is an ARTS school I’m applying to and they want ARTSY kids!”
Please, please please please please please, do not put on an artsy “act”. Heather will be able to tell, and in Creative Writing, we want people who are honest.2. “Heather will judge me and my family and everything I stand for! I should act as normal as possible so as not to appear odd!”
I can’t think of one person in creative writing who isn’t unusual in some way. It’s great. Normal people are boring, so just be yourself. At the same time, don’t go out of your way to seem “edgy” or “eccentric” just to interest Heather. I mean, we’re all unique little snowflakes and stuff, but enough is enough.3. “I want to make an IMPACT! When we’re asked to write during the audition, I’ll write about LOVE and LIFE and the AMERICAN DREAM and THE UNIVERSE because those are the only things worth writing about!”
Try to think small here. Just because the topic isn’t huge doesn’t mean it’s not a meaningful story. (Midori: As a matter of fact, I frequently find that it’s the little stories that interest me. I’d take a haiku about the pains of finals week over a poetic rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner any day.)And for some things that are true:
1. Creative writing is fun. Of course, most of our time is spent writing, reading, and discussing literature, but we are also quite good at laughing and eating cake.
2. Creative writing is difficult. There is homework, and you are expected to put a fair amount of effort into it. The books we read are advanced and the our discussions are college-level. (Midori: But don’t let this intimidate you. Refer to Truth #1.)
3. We are like a family. We all get along swimmingly (for the most part) and I personally feel very close to every single person in the department, even though I’ve only been here for half a year. Our department is small, too, maximizing the family feel. (Expect enormous, if not excessive amounts of snuggling.)
TIPS:
1. Bring a list of books you like to read so that you don’t freak out when Heather asks.
2. Have a sense of humor. If things go wrong, don’t slip into a coma.
3. If you don’t get in, try again! A great way to revise is by going to 826 Valencia writing programs. If you still don’t get in, it’s because the program isn’t right for you. You may be disappointed, but it’s not as bad as entering the department just to find out you’re not in the right place.
4. Read Umlaut to get an idea of what kind of work we produce in CW. Not only is it an entertaining read, but also you support our department with your purchase. sotacw.org/umlaut has more information.
Good luck, soldier.-Smolly
For anybody who liked our previous Creative Writing short video, please turn your attention to the second in our series:
http://sotacdubs.tumblr.com/post/13888192353/workshopping
The video covers workshopping, a major part of our department, where we bring in pieces and get into groups to give and get critique. Enjoy!
-Reba
CREATIVE WRITING 