Write Now! is Happening at the Eisner

Award-winning journalist, television host and literary events promoter, Gilda Rogers will be instructing a writing workshop every second Wednesday of the month starting on September 14 and running till June 2012. Classes will run from 6:45 to 8:45.

"In an effort to be more of a cultural hub in town," Rogers said. "The library has begun programs like this and in as much as I am a writer and a lover of writing and because I have some clear ideas to convey about the craft, I was obliged to lead the workshops."

The series of workshops will explore the basics of the writing process, including character development, plot, detail, organization and creativity. Participants will examine works of fiction and non-fiction and poetry. Rogers said it is important to stress that Write Now! isn't simply a novice class in writing..."it's a writer's class in writing..." designed for anyone who is "ready to have their voice to soar."

Rogers said the workshops will also offer participants another valuable component to the craft of writing, feedback, pieces written through the instruction will be shared and discussed. "Writers know," Rogers said, "writing is revising...you can revise something over and over, till someone just takes it away from you."

Being economic with words or exercising brevity, "...the soul of wit," as Shakespeare uttered it, is also an important and central aspect of Rogers' literary lessons. "Even in my writing...and I write every day...I'm still trying to find that just right word. It's why I have so much esteem for poets. They are able to take a subject, whatever it is, and so concisely focus it with the precision of an artist creating a detailed painting and with very little it still means a lot. I'm in awe of that, so it's an important part of what I'll be teaching."

Rogers reported that one of the others aspects and lessons of the 10 month-long workshop will be to help her writers connect the dots between memory, emotion and writing. "It's absolutely essential for writers to be able to pick out those moments that changed or shaped them," she said, "and I'll be sharing my work, which includes that to point out the process, structure and possibility."

The workshop's non-fiction focus will be on memoir. "My work is that type of non-fiction and I want to explore that in the workshop. For instance, to get them started...I might asked them to trace back to their earliest memory as a human, which I think will get them thinking about and writing about their lives and help them begin that non-fiction journey."

Write Now! will also expose participants to working, published writers as well. Celine Keating, author of the much praised novel, Layla, will attend and instruct in the second workshop of the series.

Write Now! is a free workshop funded by the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library, but registration is required. To register call 732-842-0690. Participants are asked to bring writing samples to the first workshop.