Mid-Valley November Meeting with Miriam Gershow

November 5, 2015

Whether you’re writing flash fiction or a novel, perhaps the most essential craft to fiction writing is knowing how to re-think and re-vision your ideas once the first draft is on the page. Learn strategies for looking freshly at your own work, as well as questions to ask about character, structure, and themes, in order to go back to the page and deepen your story in draft after draft.

Miriam GershowMiriam Gershow is a novelist, short story writer and teacher. Her debut novel, The Local News, has been called “unusually credible and precise” and “deftly heartbreaking” by The New York Times, as well as “an accomplished debut” (Publisher’s Weekly) with a “disarmingly unsentimental narrative voice,” (Kirkus Reviews).

Miriam is the recipient of a Fiction Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, as well as an Oregon Literary Fellowship. Her stories appear in The Georgia Review, Quarterly West, Black Warrior Review, Nimrod International Journal, The Journal, and Gulf Coast, among other journals. Miriam’s stories have been listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories of The Best American Short Stories 2007 and appeared in the 2008 Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories.

She received her MFA from the University of Oregon. She taught fiction writing at the University of Wisconsin as well as descriptive writing to gifted high school students through Johns Hopkins University. She currently lives in Eugene with her husband and son, where she is the Associate Director of the Composition Program at the University of Oregon. She is at work on her next novel.

Pre-Meeting Icebreaker: We’ll be featuring an ice-breaker activity each month during Social Time from 6:30-7:00. September. Come early, grab a snack, and chat with other members.

November: Surviving the 30-day writing challenge!

About Monthly Mid-Valley Chapter Meetings & Speaker Series

Meeting Date & Schedule
Typically the First Thursday of the month (unless it conflicts with a holiday, usually Sept. and/or Jan.) from September-May. No meetings in December, July, or August.

6:30-7:00 p.m. Social Time and Refreshments
7:00-7:15 p.m. News, Upcoming Events, and Member Announcements
7:15-8:30 p.m. Speaker
8:30 p.m. Drawing for Free Gift
8:30-9:00 p.m. Questions and Book Signing

Cost
Chapters meetings are free to members of Willamette Writers and full-time college students, suggested $10 donation for non-members.

Meeting Location
Unless noted otherwise, all meetings are held at Tsunami Books, 2585 Willamette St., Eugene, OR 97405