Join the Writer’s Studio community for instructor Cecilia Pinto's FREE craft mini-lesson on The End in Sight, looking at the connection between story beginnings and endings. After that, at 5:30pm, it's time for our always-inspiring, often-instructive creative writing open mic! 

REGISTER HERE

This signature event is an opportunity to foster your writing, hear the ideas and work of others, and, if you’re so inclined, add your voice and stories to the mix.

To read at the open mic, please prepare up to two double-spaced pages in twelve-point, Times New Roman font. You can hold an open mic spot in two ways: online through the event registration link or in person. When you register for the event, this question will allow you to sign up to read as well: Will you be reading/performing at the open mic? If you answer yes to that question, you will receive a personalized email confirming your open mic spot. If you do not see that question, the online reader signup has closed, so you will need to sign up in person. Three or more spots will be held for in-person signup at the event. Please arrive early to be added to that list.

About the Instructor: Cecilia Pinto has had her poetry and prose published in a variety of journals including Quarter After Eight, Fence, The Seneca Review, Triquarterly, and RHINO. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an Illinois Arts Council award and won the Esquire short fiction contest. She is also a CAAP grant recipient. In 2015, she was voted a writer to watch by The Guild Literary Society.

Sometimes writers just need the tiniest of nudges to get them off and running on a story. In this workshop, led by author Thomas Burke (Eastbound into the Cosmos), we’ll discuss the generative process, as well as writing practices, but more than anything, we will power through many different writing prompts. Participants will leave this workshop with a number of scenes, characters, and scenarios which can serve as building blocks to new work. Due to the limited size of the workshop, free registration is required; register here.

Photo: Hamilton Poe

About the Instructor: Thomas Burke received a BA from Union College and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Eastbound into the Cosmos is his first novel. He has contributed work to Tin House, The Rumpus, Playboy, Hobart Pulp and St. Petersburg Review, among other places. He has taught at UMass Amherst, the Newberry Library, and Northwestern University, where he is currently assistant director of the Kaplan Humanities Institute. Formerly Burke helped direct the Summer Literary Seminar in Russia and co-founded its sister program in Kenya. He is the recipient of the Eugene Yudis Prize for fiction, a fellowship from the UMass Amherst MFA Program, and a residency at Art Omi’s Ledig House, among other honors. He lives in Evanston, IL with his wife and two children.

This workshop, brought to you by CHI PRC's Wasted Pages Workshop, will challenge you to create written work by eliminating rather than adding words to the page. Materials provided. All skill levels are welcome! Led by Alison Thumel, whose chapbook of erasure poems won Salt Hill's Dead Lake Chapbook Contest. This event is free, but preregistration is required; go to https://writingbyerasing.eventbrite.com/ to preregister. 

Everyone has a story to tell—learn how to tell it well in a workshop conducted by the former Ernest Hemingway Writer-in-Residence, award-winning author and memoirist, and WBBM Radio Reporter—David W. Berner.

Whether it’s a short personal essay, a mini-memoir, or a book length manuscript, writing the stories of our lives is a dream for many. This workshop is your chance to find that story and discover how best to tell it no matter where you are in the process. Whether you’re only thinking about the writing, just beginning the storytelling, or you’ve already put down words, this workshop will help you find your narrative.

The workshop will focus on styles of personal story, on the craft of storytelling, issues of privacy, and will offer exercises to help guide you toward your best writing.

The event is free but advance registration is required at this link.

Join us for Evanston's first-ever Type-In, a get together for people interested in typewriters. Write a letter, bang out some instant poetry, try some speed typing, and admire different kinds of beautifully made typers. Have your own typewriter? Bring it! If not, we'll have several for you to try out.