Classes: Ink & Paper Group - Writing/Editing/Publishing

Ink & Paper Group, the publishing company started by PSU Ooligan grads, is holding several writing and industry-related classes at their office.

To register for the classes below:
Please call: 503.232.0103
or mail a check and contact information to:
Ink & Paper Group
1825 SE 7th Ave.
Portland, OR 97214


PROFESSIONAL EDITING
Saturday, August 18, 1 to 5 pm
Each time we offer this class, it sells out. So reserve your space now!
The demand for editors is quickly rising. Unfortunately, in the United States, there is no formal certification process for editors. Those wanting to be editors need to distinguish themselves from those who have simply hung out shingles because they feel they write well or they have a degree in English. This class breaks down the various professional editing roles and discusses how the editing process should work from simple one-on-one freelance gigs directly with an author, to complex interactions with large publishing houses. The class also includes information on project management including estimating time, staying within deadlines, dealing with fatigue, and working with challenging clients.
If you want to be a professional editor, or if you have to work regularly with freelance editors, this class is for you.
Instructor Ali McCart is the owner and senior editor of Indigo Editing. She is also the vice president of WiPP (Women in Portland Publishing). Ali is an experienced editor and business leader in both the traditional publishing company structure and the freelance editing industry.
*Course fee includes all class materials and light refreshments.
Class size limit of 14. The last class had a full roster.
Price $100

ESSAYS: The coolest form of all (or, essays of energy and swing)
Wednesday, August 22, 7 to 9 pm
I’d like to spend them two hours delving into essays of unreal pop and verve and zest and bone, by, among others, Robert Louis Stevenson, Annie Dillard, Helen Garner (of Australia), Ian Frazier, Mary Gordon, Sam Clemens, and Anne Fadiman; poking into reasons why the essay form is the widest and most generous and coolest of them all; discussing their shapes and speeds and the thousand ways to make essays of energy and swing; talking a bit about magazines and editing and markets for essays and what editors love and what editors detest and what writers maybe should know before deluging editors with essays; and other various & sundry on writerly and storytellerly matters. At the least I’d expect that participants come away with new energy for their own work, and a reading list as long as yer arm; at the most I’d hope that they maybe see new ways to get their own voices and stories before readers, which is really the whole point of writing, and a holy act, in the end.
Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland – “the finest spiritual magazine in America,” says Annie Dillard, clearly a woman of surpassing discernment – and the author of eight books of essays, nonfiction, and “proems.” His essays have appeared in Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and newspapers and magazines around the world; they have also been reprinted in the Best American Essays collections of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2007.
Price $45

FROM WRITE TO READ: A Book Marketing and Promotion Guide for Authors
Saturday, September 8, 10 am to 4 pm
(light lunch provided)
Book marketing for writers, especially first-time authors, is filled with mysterious language and tricks-of-the trade that every successful author needs to know. And the sooner you learn the language and understand the process, the stronger your book sales will be. Lake Boggan believes in the basics. She also believes, like a great recipe for your favorite dish, when fresh, new ingredients are available, you should use them. So by learning what’s tried and true in the book marketing business and also adding pointers on things like blogging and getting linked on the internet, Lake will share a bundle of information that will serve you well before your book is published―called your marketing platform―during the season of your book―called new release―and after your window of time has closed―called back-list.
Lake Boggan has sixteen years of book selling and book marketing experience. She is currently the Publicity Manager in the marketing department for Timber Press. For the last five years Lake taught Book Marketing and Promotion at Portland State University's Center for Excellence in Writing, in the Ooligan Press Graduate Publishing Program.
Her love for the written word and books reaches back to a childhood filled with poetry, music, and the oral storytelling of her father and grandparents. She always knew it was her role and responsibility to be the one who wrote the family fables down so the heritage would continue long into the future. Lake is a published poet and has had many short stories and essays published in her lifetime.
Price $300

WRITING ABOUT PLACE
Monday, September 10, 1 to 4 pm
In this afternoon seminar, we'll discuss the use of place in nonfiction and the importance of recognizing that place is often critical to creating tension in a piece of writing. When describing a setting as ominous or beautiful or bucolic, the writer must recognize how this description adds to the meaning of the story and to the reader's experience of the story. We'll look at examples of specificity in place—best to be specific, of course—and we'll look at how writers have used a sense of place to add tremendous tension to narrative.
Debra Gwartney is a member of the nonfiction faculty at Portland State University. She is co-editor, with Barry Lopez, of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. She has published nonfiction in such journals/magazines as Schooner, Fourth Genre, Salon.com, Tampa Review, Crab Orchard Review and others. Debra and her daughters were featured on This American Life. Her memoir is forthcoming (in 2008) from Houghton-Mifflin.
Price $75

SELLING FOREIGN RIGHTS FOR YOUR BOOK
Wednesday, September 12, 6:30 to 9 pm
Learn the inside scoop on how to sell the foreign rights for your bestsellers. (More details to come...stay tuned!)
Sylvia Hayse is a well-known foreign-rights agent and each year attends the international Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest trade fair for books.
Price $55

PRACTICAL SELF-PUBLISHING
Tuesdays, October 2–November 6, 6 to 8:30 pm
(a series of six classes)
Learn the ins and outs of publishing the book within. (More details to come...stay tuned!)
Dennis Stovall is the Coordinator of Publishing Curriculum at Portland State University and Publisher of Ooligan Press in the MA/MS in Writing. He has won numerous awards and recognition for book design, general contributions to the literary community, humanitarian contributions to that community, service to related organizations, and excellence in his writing. He has served on the boards of the Pacific NW Writers Association, the Oregon Writers Colony, Northwest Association of Book Publishers, and the Oregon Publishers Industry Alliance. He is currently a director of Literary Arts, Inc., where he also serves on the awards advisory committee for the Oregon Book Awards. Besides organizing the publishing program, Dennis teaches Introduction to Book Publishing and leads several graduate seminars. Prior to PSU, he was publisher of Blue Heron Publishing, which he founded with this wife Linny.
Price $375

EXPLORING THE MYSTERY IN MEMOIR: A fall workshop
Sunday, October 21, 10 am to 4 pm
(light lunch provided)
The first mystery is simply that there is a mystery, a mystery that can never be explained or understood, only encountered from time to time. Nothing is obvious. Everything conceals something else. ~ Lawrence Kushner
Many cultures dedicate the month of November to commemoration of the dead, of what has passed, and partake in a range of ceremonies, including honoring of ancestors, of those who have left us, but whose legacy has gifted us directly or indirectly. The closing in of winter is a time ripe for interior reflection, for meditating on what endures when the shifting waves of life, of death, settle. In this weekend intensive, we will take time to address these questions, through selected readings, discussions, and our own writing. Poetry, memoir, story are all welcome. Be prepared to delve into your own life's endless mysteries, its pleasures and pain, its love and loss, and to share your findings and gifts.
Ana Callan offers intimate, nurturing, challenging workshops in writing, with a special emphasis on the spiritual aspects of life and creative expression. She has taught at Fishtrap, The Esalen Institute, The Sitka Center, The Northwest Writing Institute, and Oregon Council For The Humanities, and served as Writer In Residence at numerous writing establishments in the USA and Europe. She welcomes anyone who can bring a pen and an open heart to her classes.
Price $300