Need a little inspiration?: A Writing Workshop with Amelia Beamer

Where do you find inspiration? Legendary SF novelist Larry Niven once said that everything he did was tax deductible because it was all related to his work. Every experience he had was something he might write about. Even going to the dentist was grist for his writing mill.

Everybody knows something that most people don’t. Perhaps you went skydiving once, or competed as an ice skater when you were a kid. Perhaps you’re learning how to make cheese, or lived in Japan for a year. The trick is in identifying that knowledge, and turning it into a story.

Join award-winning novelist Amelia Beamer for a three-hour workshop designed to write, talk about writing, and get inspiration from the things you already know. Amelia will take you through the process of turning your knowledge into characters and storylines that highlight your unique, individual storytelling voice.

Amelia is the award-winning author of the novel The Loving Dead (2010) as well as fiction and poetry in Interfictions 2, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Red Cedar Review, and The Living Dead 2 amongst others. A former program assistant for the highly-respected international Clarion East writing workshop, Amelia has also as an editor, reviewer, and photographer for Locus: The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field. As an independent scholar she has published papers in Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction and the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, on topics including John W. Campbell’s Astounding, the TV series Lost, and the works of Peter Straub (written with Gary K. Wolfe). She has spoken at many conferences and conventions on various aspects of publishing. Born in Michigan, USA, Amelia now lives in Australia after stints in California and the UK.

WHEN: 1-4pm, Saturday 11 August, Gary Holland Community Centre, cnr Kent St & Flinders Lane, Rockingham

COST: Free.

Bookings are essential. To book a place, contact Lee Battersby, Coordinator Cultural Development & the Arts, City of Rockingham on 9528 0386 or  lee.battersby@rockingham.wa.gov.au.

Scheduling

Even high atop the Coode Street Motel 6 we’re aware of the pressures of time passing. Deadlines pile up, rather less attractively than fresh falls of snow early in the Winter, and July looks set to be a month when things Must Be Done: stories edited, books delivered and so on.

And time is limited. So, with some reluctant, we’re amending our usual regular schedule of a new Coode Street Podcast every darned week. Instead, and for the month of July only, we will be recording every second week. This means the new schedule for the Waldorf Room is:

7-8 July:    No podcast
14-15 July: Gary goes to Readercon. Podcast!
21-22 July: No podcast
28-29 July:    Podcast!

We’ll then return to our schedule of a new podcast every darned week in August. We’re yet to decide what we’re doing through August, though I do know we have some interesting guests lined up and that we hope to record a whole batch of podcasts during Chicon 7 at the end of the month. We’ve not planned those yet, but we need a sufficient backlog to see us through the World Fantasy Convention Hiatus, when we will all be travelling and things will be discombobulated.

We do appreciate your understanding and patience during July and will see you back in the Waldorf Room, or wherever your listen to the podcast, in two weeks.

…unavoidable stuff from jonathan strahan…