Kindness. Connection. Beloved Community
301-874-5147
3035 Buckeystown Pike
Adamstown, MD 21710
Adamstown, MD 21710
REGISTER | WORKSHOPS | INSTRUCTORS
Whether you’re hoping to write the next great American novel or you just want to improve your written communication skills, bring your notebook and pen for this session that focuses on the discipline of writing—including inspiration, ideas, exercises, tips, and resources for improving not only your writing but your writing habits.
The best short stories feel honest, immediate, and uncontrived. Of course, there's a lot of work in creating that feeling for the listener or reader. In this workshop we will discuss the way in which short stories are used and then review some of the strategies that the most successful and lasting ones share.
Explore the various avenues to publication and what’s required of each, including blogging, online journals/websites, freelancing, self-publishing, hybrid publishing, and traditionally publishing with small and large presses. Discover your ‘brand’ and how you can build your ‘platform’ to position yourself to be published. There are lots of ways to share your writing with the world—the only question is which is best for you?
A key scene is an essential building block in any work of fiction. In this session, you'll learn tips and strategies for making the scene you see in your head come alive on the page so that your reader is compelled to keep turning the pages. Writing exercises will give class members a hands-on feel for how to add texture, dynamism, and drama to a story. The session also provides practical, hands-on guidance about the rewriting process. An added benefit: giving and receiving critical feedback.
A practical 15-point plan that demystifies and deconstructs novel-writing -- from the mere germ of an idea all the way through the creative process, with an eye on getting a finished book into the hands of potential fans. We'll discuss how to tap into your subconscious and life experiences to transform them into a book-length project, populated with interesting characters, a twisty-turny plot, snappy dialogue, and an interesting setting. We'll also look at strategies for finding an agent, marketing the finished product, and facing your writing and marketing fears.
All of us have -- or will -- experience the loss of a loved one. In addition to the expected deaths of grandparents and parents, John DeDakis witnessed a car-train collision that killed three people, lost his sister to suicide, and endured the death of his youngest son because of an accidental heroin overdose. Even though death is a part of life, it need not be crippling or debilitating. In this session, DeDakis suggests strategies to help a person move forward -- through and beyond the pain and into a future that can once again be filled with hope -- and even joy.
His most recent novel, Bullet in the Chamber, is the winner of Reviewers Choice, Foreword INDIES, and Feathered Quill book awards in 2017.
He is currently at work on his fifth novel (working title: Fake – as in “fake news,” but with a twist).
DeDakis is a writing coach, manuscript editor, and writing workshop leader.
During his award-winning 45-year career in journalism (25 years at CNN), DeDakis has been a White House Correspondent and interviewed such luminaries as Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.
DeDakis, a cradle Episcopalian, lives in Baltimore, has taught journalism at the University of Maryland–College Park, and regularly teaches novel writing at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland and at the Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.
In his spare time, what little he has of it, he is a jazz drummer.
Visit his website at www.johndedakis.com
