Write By The Rails Writer’s Enrichment Workshop

10/12/2024 ‑ Greetings one and all from Curious Penman.  The Curious Penman staff were out and about in Old Town Manassas to attend a workshop held by Write By The Rails, a member organization of the Virginia Writers Club. This group event was held on Saturday, October 12, 2024 at 10 am at Bull Run Unitarian Universalist Church at 9350 Main St in Manassas, VA, and it was awesome! Mary Ellen Stone hosted the event.  This month’s workshop focused on how to write horror fiction!

Writers chose three different prompts for three ten-minute writing exercises, and the results were beast!  There were spooky tales of possessed dolls, monsters under beds, drinking with the devil, and voices in the woods. Everyone’s submissions were equally spooky and fun!  The next Write By The Rails workshop will be held at Bull Run Unitarian sometime in November.

Happy Halloween and Catch you on the flipside!

Spilled Ink VA EAST

Curious Penman attended Spilled Ink East via ZOOM on Friday, October 11, 2023.  Seven participants read pieces of poetry and prose.  This month’s fare included poems about the changing of the leaves, a spooky tale about a chemical plant, and the Curious Penman read various works of Knight Shade fiction.  Whether it’s fun or frightening, choose something to read or write about that speaks to you.

Catch ya on the flipside!

Fourth Friday Writer’s Roundup

10/02/2024 – Greetings one and all from Curious Penman! Happy Hour Café and Spilled In VA were held on Friday, September 27, 2024 at Jirani Coffeehouse at 9425 West St in Manassas VA at 4 pm and 6 pm respectively, and it went gangbusters!

Happy Hour Café

Walt Wolfrham hosts Happy Hour Café, a discussion group for aspiring writers to meet and discuss work, accompanied by exercises to encourage creativity (Bring pen and paper). This month’s prompt was a book cover from a pulp series featuring the Spider.

Spilled Ink VA

Spilled Ink VA is an open mic venue for new and established writers to road test new material in front of a built-in audience. Curious Penman and the host of Happy Hour Café were among those in attendance. Much poetry was heard and enjoyed, with a couple of touching memoirs thrown in. Among the themes of these pieces were Spanish poetry, comedic science fiction, and fantasy. Curious Penman read micro fiction excerpts from an upcoming book in the Knight Shade series to be published later this year. There were three newcomers in addition to the crowd of familiar faces.

The next Happy Hour Café will be held at Jirani Coffeehouse on Friday, October 25, 2024 at 4 pm, and Spilled Ink VA will follow at 6 pm.

Catch y’all on the flipside!

Quin-Quotes

Today’s Quin-Quote comes from novelist Ray Bradbury. He once said, “I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.” Libraries really are wondrous places, they supply education and supplement imagination all at once.

Read more at Brainy Quotes

Arts Alive! 2024

9/23/2024 – Arts Alive! 2024 was held at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas, Virginia on Saturday, September 14, 2024. The literary arts, visual arts, and performing arts were well represented. The Hylton Center was buzzing with activity and heavy foot traffic, with an open mic event hosted by Spilled Ink, paintings, prints, fiber and other visual arts by various artists located in the center’s lobby, and live performances in the theaters as well.

Inside Arts Alive! At the Hylton Center

Members of Spilled Ink gave live readings, where Curious Penman read excerpts from Poems in the Key of Carlin and The Knight Shade Files: Open Slay alongside local authors John Dutton Alice Mergler, Tom Burson, Cathy Hailey, Cathy Smallz, and two new comers!

Our thanks to the Prince William Arts Council for including our local authors in the annual festivities. We are definitely looking forward to Arts Alive! 2025.

Catch y’all on the flipside!