First Post of the New Year!

It is freezing in my turret, but I must continue onward, wearing my winter jacket.

<--Here is my latest commissioned NBA portrait, this time the enigmatic Ben Wallace. The whole time I painted him I'd thought he had retired last year, but now that I'm done, I see that he's back playing with the Pistons as if he never left!

Almost weekly, I recommend this book to people, The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond Of Matches, an absolute masterpiece by French-Canadian author Gaetan Soucy. I don't think I've ever read a book with a more interesting narrator. Emily Pettit has it stocked at Amherst Books, if you are in the area. If not, you will likely have to buy it online-- it has been very hard to find in person.

It's been amazing to be watching basketball again. I'm pleased the Bulls and the Thunder are at the top of their conferences so early. Last night, JT and I watched Tony Allen and Rudy Gay play great games as the Grizz killed the Knicks who played with little grace or heart. The night before I caught the end of the awesome/weird overtime Heat/Clippers game, in which LeBron missed the most freethrows I've ever seen him miss.

Lastly, I want to remind Western Massachusetts that sign-ups are filling up for Emily Pettit's and my Spring Writing Workshops at Flying Object.

Creative Writing with Rachel B. Glaser
Thursday evenings from 5:30-7:30pm
February 23rd (8 Weeks)
$175

Although writing of all styles will be welcomed, the class will be encouraged to explore nontraditional approaches. The class will complete both in-class and out-of-class writing and reading assignments. The workshop will run in typical workshop style, with writers sharing their work each class. In addition to their workshop pieces, writers will write short pieces in response to weekly exercises. Besides poetry and fiction, pieces in this class can be also written as playwriting, nonfiction, or even songs and found objects. Exciting writing is not necessarily experimental, but it benefits every writer to read and experiment with writing that breaks with convention. A good writing workshop is the ideal environment, a forum for ideas in general, and the best kind of collaboration. The last class will take the form of a reading (along with the poets in Emily Pettit’s workshop) at Flying Object among friends, family, and the public.

If you are interested, please send an email explaining why you would like to take the class, along with a little information about yourself and a writing sample of 3-8 pages (the writing sample can be an excerpt from a larger work, or a combination of any genre) to rachelbglaser@gmail.com.

If you want to participate in the class but are inexperienced in Creative Writing, you are strongly encouraged to use the writing sample requirement as your first prompt. If you are stuck and would like a more specific assignment, please email Rachel and she will give you an assignment (which will give you a feel for the format of the class).

Rachel B. Glaser is a graduate of The University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s MFA Program in Fiction. Rachel has taught at Elms College and Flying Object. She was a Juniper Festival 2011 Writer-in-Residence. Her work has been published in McSweeney’s, New York Tyrant, and others. Minutes Books published her poetry chapbook, Heroes Are So Long. Her first collection of stories, Pee On Water, was released by Publishing Genius Press. The title story is a history of the world told through the evolution of human behavior.

$175.00
Sign-up for the workshop by credit card or paypal:

Poets & Poems with Emily Pettit
Monday evenings from 5:30-7:30pm
March 12th (8 weeks)
$175

In this workshop we will get curious. Writing, reading and discussing poems will be our means of propulsion. I hope for this workshop to be generative and reflective and offer many new perspectives to each in relation to your own work and the work of others. Engagement with your own work and outstanding contemporary work will help us to explore how an interest in poetry can be pursued in the larger context of one’s life. Poetry will get us curious.

I hope for this workshop to use the unique space that is Flying Object to help inform our ideas, our writing, our reading. It will be our laboratory.

If you are interested in reserving a place, please send an email explaining why you would like to take the class, along with a little information about yourself and a writing sample of 4-10 pages of poems to ecpettit@gmail.com.

Emily Pettit’s first full-length book, GOAT IN THE SNOW was published by Birds LLC. She is the author of two chapbooks, HOW (Octopus Books) and WHAT HAPPENED TO LIMBO (Pilot Books). She is an editor for notnostrums and Factory Hollow Press as well as the new publisher of jubilat. Emily received her MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa.

Classes will be held at 10 writers.

Flying Object will be awarding one scholarships to offset half the tuition cost to one writer. If you are interested in receiving this scholarship, please mention it in your email to the instructor. The scholarship is awarded based on a combination of need and merit. Additionally any previous student of Rachel’s may take her class for the discounted price of $125.

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Refund policy: Please note, tuition includes a $15.00 non-refundable deposit. This means that if you drop a class after signing up, we will refund your tuition minus $15.00. If there’s less than a week (7 days) before the start of the first class, we will refund 50% of your tuition. Once the class has begun tuition is non-refundable. So make sure that your month-long vacation to the Arctic won’t conflict before you sign up!