* because Christmas and What day is it anyway?
Remington Roundup: Stay Connected
#Reading, #Writing, & #Listening
With winter days and shorter days and the holidays, it’s easy to fall away from our usual reader/writer patterns and find ourselves feeling detached. Here’s your December roundup of links to#reading, #writing, & listening so you can stay connected despite the busy weeks ahead.
#Reading
Looking for your next great book? Kim Suhr debuts her collection of short stories, Nothing to Lose, out from Cornerstone Press this month!
Drawing on the rich complexity of the American Midwest, Kim Suhr peoples her debut book of fiction with characters that we know, carved out of the Wisconsin landscape and caught between expectation and desire. An Iraq war veteran stalks the streets of Madison. Four drunk friends hunt deer outside Antigo. A mother tries to save her son. A transplanted New Yorker plots revenge against her husband. A man sobers up and opens a paintball range for Jesus. A woman with nothing to lose waits for her first kiss. Personal and powerful, Kim Suhr’s Nothing to Lose shows us a region filled with real people: less than perfect, plagued with doubts, always reaching.
As Director of Red Oak Writing, Kim has championed many a writer across the state of Wisconsin and beyond. I cannot wait to celebrate her own wonderful work during her next reading at Boswell Books on Tuesday, December 11th, 7pm! Read more about her book and watch the trailer.
#Writing
Even if the cold, short days may keep you close to home and out of the writing circles, there are plenty of ways to keep your pen moving and your ties with other storytellers strong. Once a month, I meet online with a group of writers for Study Hall: #AmWriting, where we talk craft, read essays and excerpts from stories, and tackle at least 5 prompts. All in an hour and a half. It’s fast moving and fun. The next meeting is Sunday, January 6th, 3:30pm CST. Register HERE. I’d love to see you!
If you’re looking for a longer structured class experience, Flash Nonfiction I: an introduction opens for registration today. This 4-week course runs from Feb. 3rd-Mar. 2nd, 2019 and is packed with flash nonfiction examples, tips and techniques, and (because I love them so) prompts. Seats are limited in this course, so sign up early! Registration closes Feb 1st.
#Listening
As always, story podcasts are my favorite thing to listen to when I need to decompress or am in search of a little inspiration. If you like short fiction, try these:
- Levar Burton Reads, “The Best Short Fiction Handpicked by the World’s Greatest Storyteller.” All of the stories are read by Levar Burton himself–a bonus!
- The New Yorker podcast, The Writer’s Voice, where you can listen to authors like Zadie Smith and Tommy Orange read their own short stories published in the New Yorker. As you’re running around gathering presents for family and friends, let these two podcasts be the gift to yourself.
Whether you’re reading, writing, or listening, I’m wishing you the best of the season!
Back to School: Opportunities for #Writing & #Community
It’s my favorite time of year, when every store–drug store, grocery store, and (cue the angels singing) the office supply store–is stocked with back to school supplies. I go in with the long list of necessities sent out from the district, I complain about the 72 sharpened pencils and 36 pens (though I buy them, to be sure), but let’s be honest: I go in with a list of my own.
I can’t help it. There’s nothing like a feel of a crisp new spiral notebook and the draw of good pencil. Even when my kids are through their high school years, I will quietly slip away into the seasonal aisle of Walgreens and run my hand along the row of Mead and PaperMate and Pentel.
I know I’m not alone. Something about the school season fires up a writer. And why not? We’ve just spent the last three months soaking up sunshine on family vacations and quiet bike rides alone and gathering story.
So let’s take advantage of that energy. Use it to get back to the page, to fine-tune a collection of stories or to craft a whole new essay. There are plenty of opportunities, online and in person, to put pen to paper and find a community of writing souls who will carry you through the winter months.
#Writing in Study Hall
Once a month, I lead Study Hall: #AmWriting, where a few of us come together and talk craft, read samples of great works, and write write write.
Sunday Study Hall exceeded my expectations. Christi facilitates and provides the structure. The visual and audio elements enhance the experience. Readings, prompts, and the company of kindred spirits spiral out across time zones. I always leave the session enriched by the conversation. ~ Kathy Collins
We spend a lot of time with writing prompts, which push writers in new and unexpected ways. And sometimes the conversations alone are enough to inspire a new structure in a piece that’s had you stumped for a while.
Try one session. All you need is a laptop, high-speed internet, and a desire to hang out with a bunch of other writers. Our next meet-up is Sunday, September 9th, 3:30-5pm (CST). REGISTER HERE or contact me with questions.
#Learning in the Classroom
If you’re partial to face-to-face interactions and are local to the Milwaukee area, Red Oak Writing offers several Saturday morning craft workshops this fall for writers.
(Extra)Ordinary Content on October 20th with Patricia Ann McNair. “For writers of all genres, this workshop will guide participants to identify and use their most compelling material to create new work and reinvigorate ongoing projects. Drawing from memory, imagination, and observation, writers will discover their own extraordinary content.”- Diving into the Details on November 10th with me. “Details play a significant role in our writing, whether we write poems, essays or novels. Details build story, deepen story, and provide more ways for readers to connect with story. In this workshop, we will look at all three functions of details as they apply to setting, place, and person….”
- Story, Truth, and Beauty, Baby! on December 8th with Barry Wightman. “Ready to take your writing to the next level? Looking for ways to amp up your prose, streamline it, make it jump from the page? Like great music, great fiction is built from magic moments that produce shivers—riffs, choruses and solos that enchant the reader.”
*Photo above from Red Oak Writing’s website
Building #Community
If you’re new to writing or have been on hiatus for a while, Principles & Prompts is an online course that offers community and a fun, low-stakes space for exploring creativity, story structure, and writing prompts.
“Christi Craig’s on-line class, Principles & Prompts, is an ideal environment to open your mind up to not only learn, but also do and the six-week course provides a perfect escape during an otherwise busy time of year. Christi has the uncanny ability of incorporating works, both written and film, that nudge the muse to tackle the writing prompt that follows. Although there is no pressure for perfection or finished pages, I have to say, the synergy of the group compelled me to do more than slap my thoughts together.” ~ Elin Stebbins Waldal
Principles & Prompts opens for registration in September. I love teaching this course and witnessing the stories that evolve from letting go and diving into the work.
Whichever way you lean–Pentel or PaperMate, online or in person, grab your pencil. Stake claim on your notebook. Find your tribe and put your stories to paper. Your voice matters, and your muse is calling.