The Muse Writers Center

Welcome to our new email newsletter!

As the weeks go by, we'll be trying different formats and ways to bring you all the information on what's going on at The Muse Writers Center.
The Muse Writers Center exterior of building

Spotlight on Our Events

Writers Happy Hour

February 12, 2020 @ 5:15 pm to 7:00 pm at The Torch Bistro
Every week, we’ll be visiting a different bar in Norfolk’s Ghent! Join us every Wednesday from 5:15-7 p.m. at a different location in Norfolk’s Ghent for an informal get-together where area writers and Muse teachers, students, and friends enjoy conversation, camaraderie, and drinks. Come and join us! More information

The Muse Neighborhood Jam

February 14, 2020 @ 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm at The Muse Writers Center
Everyone's the Audience, Everyone Can Play
Join us for an evening where everyone is welcome to make music, sing, read, laugh, or just hang out and listen. This is not an "open-mic" with a sign-up list. The Muse Jam is more fun! We'll alternate between individual-led and collaborative performance and pure unplugged jams. Who's welcome? Anyone from beginners to professionals, whether you like to play an instrument or just listen, sing or be sung to, read your work or hear great stories and poems, practice your standup or improv or laugh yourself silly. Feel free to bring songbooks, sheet music, instruments, and friends. Suggested donation: $2 (goes to our scholarship funds; donation not required to attend). More information

Spotlight on Our Classes

We have 116 great classes, workshops, and seminars this coming session. Visit www.the-muse.org/classes for a searchable listing of our classes or the-muse.org/classes-at-a-glance to see it broken down by genre. Tuition assistance and flexibility is always available. Visit the website, call the office at 818-9880, or email us at muse@the-muse.org for more information.

Creating a Web Presence and Blog

February 15, 2020 @ 10:00 am to 12:30 pm at The Muse Writers Center
7 seats left
Are you ready to launch your writing career? You’ll need an online presence where readers can find you. Whether you are already published and need to create an online portfolio, or you are just getting started and would like to begin blogging, an author website and blog will help you begin to build your online platform. We’ll work through the step-by-step process of setting up the typical three-page author website, and we will examine ways to keep a blog fresh and successful. Join us to take the next step you’ve been looking for! Students should plan to bring a laptop to class to complete in-class exercises. Instructor: Belinda Elliott. Open to: all. More information

Getting Started (or Restarted) on a Novel

February 15, 2020 @ 10:00 am to 12:30 pm at The Muse Writers Center
3 seats left
Do you have an idea for a novel, but you’re not sure how to start writing it? Or maybe you’ve already been writing a draft, but got stuck, bogged down, and you can't figure out what to write next? It happens to all of us! Come along as we tame these demons using easy techniques, and help you start, or restart, your novel project and turn it into a finished draft. Instructor: Rick Eley. Open to: all. More information

Teen Writers Multi-Group Workshop: Saturday Mornings

February 15, 2020 @ 10:00 am to 12:30 pm at The Muse Writers Center
6 seats left
In this workshop, you can explore fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and more. Each meeting, teachers will lead different breakout groups, focused on different genres, with creative exercises, prompts, and readings. You can learn a new genre or sharpen your skills while working on something you are already writing and have ample time to share and comment on each other’s work. Plus, we’ll have a visit or two from our comic book writing teacher to work with visual stories. Come hone your unique writing voice in a creative and fun atmosphere. Instructors: Robbie Ciara, Jeff Hecker, Jessica Kelley, Kristin Mehaffey, & Abi Putnam. Open to: all ages 12-27. More information

Write Great Sentences

February 15, 2020 @ 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm at The Muse Writers Center
7 seats left
Great sentences are not simply building blocks, they reflect the nature of what they are expressing within a story. Understanding and designing sentences is key to developing your personal style and voice and to becoming the writer you set out to be. Sentences that sing move your readers through the rise and fall of syntax and provide the musicality of the story or poem the sentence reveals. This seminar will help you manipulate subjects and verbs, use the punch of parallel structure, and eliminate annoying prose clutter so you can create sentences that are either short and punchy or long, elegant, and coherent. Instructor: Jean Klein. Open to: all. More information

The Glory of Fantasy: Creating Secondary Worlds

February 15, 2020 @ 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm at The Muse Writers Center
7 seats left
"Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory," writes J.R.R. Tolkien in 1947. "If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?" In this seminar, we will probe this compelling idea by briefly surveying "secondary world" fantasy, i.e. stories set in alternative mythical spaces where magic works, mythical creatures roam the wild, and otherworldly dangers await intrepid warriors and sorcerers. In discussion we will explore the conventions of secondary world fantasy, and in writing activities we will test world-building techniques, practice characterization methods, and otherwise "escape" into the elsewhere and elsewhen. Students should expect to leave the seminar with drafts of three flash fictions in the fantasy genre they can later expand. Students will also receive information about current markets for short fiction in the secondary world fantasy genre. Instructor: Jason Carney. Open to: all. More information

Become a Member

We invite you to become an annual Sustaining Member of The Muse Writers Center: With your support, we are able to strengthen our programs and outreach. All members will receive a discount on Muse classes, discounts at local businesses, and their own author page on this website. Library check-out privileges will begin in the spring of 2020, and for those joining at higher levels, thank you gifts will also be distributed beginning in the spring of 2020.

We're Open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, & Thursdays!

We are open to the public on Monday from 12:30-7 p.m., Tuesdays from 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Wednesdays from 12:30-5 p.m., and Thursdays from 12:30-7 p.m. Come join us and write, read, or learn more about The Muse. The Muse Writers Center is at 2200 Colonial Ave. Suite #3 in Norfolk’s Ghent neighborhood (23517)—in the Ghent Market Shops. Visit www.the-muse.org/visit to learn more.

Join The Writers Reservoir on Facebook

Visit www.facebook.com/groups/WritersReservoir and connect with other writers and share articles, essays and personal experiences about being a writer in the world today as well as information about places to submit, contests, conferences, and more. The Writers Reservoir is more than a writers’ resource, it is a writers’ community! It is a place where writers can share, learn, connect and find that often elusive creative spark. The Writers Reservoir is an open Facebook group. All writers are welcome to join and send invitations to join.
The Muse Writers Center is open to the public on Mondays: 12:30-7 p.m., Tuesdays: 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Wednesdays: 12:30-5 p.m., & Thursdays, 12:30-7 p.m.

The Muse Writers Center’s projects, classes, and events are made possible in part through sponsorship by the City of Norfolk Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Queen of Virginia Skill & Entertainment, the Business Consortium for Arts Support, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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