Go Write Your Book

November 18, 2011 New One Writer’s Coffee Connection

by Jason Korolenko, MFA Graduate Assistant 2011-12

Why do writers feel so connected to coffee houses? Is it the art of people watching, scouring faces and eavesdropping on conversations so we can add some revealing tic or detail to one of our characters? Is it the easy access to large amounts of caffeine? Free wi-fi so we can keep up-to-the-minute (read: stalkerish) tabs on our friends’ Facebook pages when we can’t think of anything to write?

Back home in New Hampshire, before the economy or Obama or the Kindle or poor management practices or the 99% or fatcat Republicans or whomever you blame killed it, Borders was my locale of choice. I’d pack up the Macbook, a thumb drive with The Collected Works of Jason Korolenko, hit up Taco Bell for some of the best worst faux Mexican food ever, then convene in the Borders café with a large Crème Caramel Javakula.

(In case you’re wondering, my typical caloric intake on those days was somewhere in the 4,000 range. Not kidding, I’ve counted.)

Naturally, I was not the only person toting a computer bag into the café. People fought over power outlets as if they were the last cans of green beans at Shaw’s during Armageddon. Those who lost the battles resigned to typing on dimmed screens to preserve battery life. I know you know this, because you’ve done it too.

Even here in Brazil, where only a tiny fraction of the population reads and even less write, Starbucks is the place to be if you want the world to view you as a Serious Writer. A new mall has recently opened up in my city, and in it a bookstore called Saraiva, which is the Brazilian version of Borders or B&N only smaller. Half of the store is lined with bookshelves, the other (more populated) half displays CDs, Blu-Rays, and computer equipment, all of which boast greater sales numbers than our little paper friends with words printed inside. Still, in the café upstairs, you’ll find writers brooding over their computer screens, rewarding themselves with a Facebook refresh every time they craft a particularly sweet sentence.

Perhaps, since writing is such solitary work, we simply need to be around real flesh and blood from time to time.

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Posted under 2011, Inspiration, International Students

October 11, 2011 How to Make a Writer’s Pitch Kit

photo by Craig Childs

A pitch kit may be the last thing you think about during the first three semesters of your MFA. And then fourth semester is on your doorstep, accompanied by the irrefutable deadline for your book-length manuscript. While toiling away on your novel, memoir, essays or short stories, it is likely that the notion of promoting your work was just a distant possibility. Perhaps you even practiced an elevator pitch for the story line during residency or with a stunned but polite cashier at the office supply store after too many hours spent in writer’s isolation. At some point the pages will be at rest and you want to be prepared for the next stage: shopping the manuscript.

Here’s fourth semester student Wendie Leweck (spotlightpublicity@comcast.net) to the rescue. Wendie is the owner of Spotlight Publicity, a comprehensive publicity firm which specializes in assisting authors, artists and entrepreneurs with media exposure. She offers the following check list for a pitch kit.

biography sheet
sample chapter
one-page synopsis
business card*

All pages should be typed in a conventional font (Times New Roman or Arial) and double-spaced. Use white or cream paper stock. Paginate the chapter pages. Assemble everything into a fresh presentation folder. The fancier ones come with a die-cut for your business card.

You and your manuscript are now good to go. Wishing you good shopping in the new universe of literary agents!

*A word on business cards — these do not have to cost a small fortune. Staples Office Supply recently ran a coupon special for 100 black-and-white business cards for *free*! For the cost of shipping only, Vista Print frequently promotes an order of 250 free business cards. This morning’s Google search for ‘coupons business cards’ produced 146,000,000 results in 0.25 seconds!

Tags: "literary agent", "pitch kit", "shopping the manuscript", low-residency, MFA, publicity

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Posted under 2011, Book Promotion, SNHU-MFA

September 27, 2011 New program milestone: the SNHU MFA Newsletter!

Our newsletter banner.

We launched the MFA newsletter last week. I was particularly excited that our mail list is up to 120 alumni, current students, faculty, Advisory Board members, and campus staff. If you haven’t yet seen your edition of this inaugural issue of the monthly MFA news blast, please check your email’s spam folder and look for the subject line “Tim Woodward Signs Book Deal.”

There are some exciting success stories coming out of our community of MFA graduates. In fact, I’ve just started a new blog page for them. If you have news to share, or are an alumnus and suspect we may have an out-of-use email address for you, please email: L(dot)Allen1(at)snhu(dot)edu.

–Lisa Allen, Administrative Director

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Posted under 2011, Alumni, SNHU-MFA

September 7, 2011 Where Do You Want To Be?

Jason Korolenko working his craft while soaking up the sun in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Sept. 2011

A dull winter sun shoulders its way between low cloud cover like a morning commuter fighting through the subway mob to catch a departing train. I’m sitting in the courtyard of Santa Casa hospital, surrounded on all sides by Gothic arches, mangled and twisted trees, invisible birds screaming, “Bem-te-vi! Bem-te-vi!” The sick and the weak hobble into an on-site chapel to my right, doctors flit around with calm assurance, mumbling under their breath while scrolling through their iPhones.

It could be Europe, but it’s not. This is only one of two Gothic buildings in all of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the sixth largest city in the world. And this will be my home for the next three-and-a-half months.

One of the greatest things about studying in Southern New Hampshire University’s low residency writing program (www.snhu.edu/mfa) is that I can do my work from anywhere on earth. We have students and faculty living everywhere from Vegas to Damascus.

Take award-winning nature writer Craig Childs, for example. Sometimes known as the “Indiana Jones of Non-Fiction,” Craig is so nomadic he seems to receive each of his students’ submission packets in a different location. I can see him now, ink smeared across his palm–a jotted quip or idea he just couldn’t afford to lose–saying, “In one month, I want thirty pages sent by carrier pigeon to a boulder in the shape of a finger pointing to the sky, at these precise coordinates, in Death Valley. Attach a message for Roberto, who is camped at the boulder waiting for your manuscript, and he will know where to find me. Oh, and don’t forget the tequila. Some is Roberto’s fee, but most is for me. It gets cold out there at night.

Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one.

My point is this: you don’t have to be a New Hampshire local to get the most out of this program. You don’t even have to live on the same continent. All you really need is a passion for writing, for finding that voice inside you and translating it into words. — Jason Korolenko, Graduate Assistant & MFA Candidate 2012