Hop On Board Spring Workshop

05/05/2024 – Hello one and all from Curious Penman!  Curious Penman’s Derby Day was spent at the Hop On Board Spring Writer’s Workshop at the Clearbrook Center for the Arts at 2237 Tacketts Mill Drive in Lake Ridge, Virginia.  The workshop opened with a panel called “Keeping Pace: Living the Writer Life” presented by published authors and Virginia Writer’s Club Board members Charles Tabb, Harry Heckel, and D.A. Godwin.  These gentlemen had many tips for first-time and struggling writers to get their ideas out of their brains and onto the printed page, particularly the importance of scheduling time each day for writing.

Northern Virginia Writing Project’s Andrea Yarbough’s “So Stylish” panel was about the use of punctuation as a storytelling device, which included a fun and engaging exercise in re-punctuating a story excerpt multiple times for different narration styles.  According to Tom Burson, alias “Doctor Love”, “Poetry Speaks,” as he demonstrated with his panel on how to find your creative voice in rhymes.  John Dutton closed the workshop with a panel based on his personal catchphrase “Just Write and You’ll Be Right!” followed by an open mic session  This panel was a terrific exercise in encouragement to knuckle down and get creating, and those who presented showed tremendous courage, something essential to every writer!

Many thanks to Write By The Rails for hosting the event!  Keep up the great work!

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Catch you guys on the flipside!

Ben Elton Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Ben Elton, born May 3, 1959.

Benjamin Charles Elton is a British comedian, actor, author, playwright, lyricist and director. He was a part of London’s alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on the sitcoms The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as continuing as a stand-up comedian on stage and television. His style in the 1980s was left-wing political satire. Since then he has published 17 novels and written the musicals The Beautiful Game, We Will Rock You, Tonight’s the Night, and Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. His novels cover the dystopian, comedy, and crime genres.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Esther Freud Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Esther Freud, born May 2, 1963.

Esther Freud is a British novelist.

Born in London, Freud is the daughter of Bernardine Coverley and painter Lucian Freud. She is also a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and niece of Clement Freud. She travelled extensively with her mother as a child, returning to London at 16 to train as an actress at The Drama Centre.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Bobbie Ann Mason Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Bobbie Ann Mason, born May 1, 1940.

Bobbie Ann Mason is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and literary critic from Kentucky. Her memoir was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

A child of Wilburn and Christianna (Lee) Mason, Bobbie Ann Mason grew up on her family’s dairy farm outside of Mayfield, Kentucky, with four siblings and her great niece Mya Mason. As a child she loved to read with encouragement from her parents; however, choices were limited. These books were mostly popular fiction about the Bobbsey Twins and the Nancy Drew mysteries. She would later write a book about these books she read in adolescence titled The Girl Sleuth: A feminist guide to the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Their Sisters. Mason credits her time at a grade school in Cuba, Kentucky with influencing her adult fictional characters.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Annie Dillard Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Annie Dillard, born April 30, 1945.

Annie Dillard is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. From 1980, Dillard taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Jill Paton Walsh Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Jill Paton Walsh, born April 29, 1937.

Gillian Honorine Mary Herbert, Baroness Hemingford, known professionally as Jill Paton Walsh, was an English novelist and children’s writer. She may be known best for her Booker Prize-nominated novel Knowledge of Angels and for the Peter Wimsey–Harriet Vane mysteries that continued the work of Dorothy L. Sayers.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Carolyn Forché Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Carolyn Forché, born April 28, 1950.

Carolyn Forché is an American poet, editor, professor, translator, and human rights advocate. She has received many awards for her literary work.

Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Michael Joseph and Louise Nada Blackford Sidlosky. Forché earned a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing at Michigan State University in 1972, and Master of Fine Arts at Bowling Green State University in 1975.

She has taught at a number of universities, including Bowling Green State University, Michigan State University, the University of Virginia, Skidmore College, Columbia University, San Diego State University and in the Master of Fine Arts program at George Mason University.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

August Wilson Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to August Wilson, born April 27, 1945.

August Wilson was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the “theater’s poet of Black America”. He is best known for a series of 10 plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle (or The Century Cycle), which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. Plays in the series include Fences and The Piano Lesson, both of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom  and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. In 2006, Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Anita Loos Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Anita Loos, born April 26, 1888.

Corinne Anita Loos  was an American actress, novelist, playwright and screenwriter. In 1912, she became the first female staff screenwriter in Hollywood, when D. W. Griffith put her on the payroll at Triangle Film Corporation. She is best known for her 1925 comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and her 1951 Broadway adaptation of Colette’s novella Gigi.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Dorothy Salisbury Davis Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Dorothy Salisbury Davis, born April 25, 1916.

Dorothy Margaret Salisbury Davis was an American crime fiction writer.

Davis, an adopted child, was born in Chicago and raised in Illinois by Margaret (Greer) and Alfred J. Salisbury. She worked in Chicago in advertising as a research librarian and as an editor of The Merchandiser, prior to taking up fiction writing. She was married to Harry Davis, the character actor, from 1946 until his death in 1993. She published many novels and short stories. Among them are two sets of series novels, but she mainly wrote standalone novels.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.