Month: January 2024

My story: The Perfect Game

“We are excited to invite you to our annual AWP reading + celebration on Friday, Feb.9 at 7PM at Sinkers Lounge, in Kansas City.     (Sinkers is just 2.5 blocks from the KC Convention Center.)”

I received this e-mail two days ago. Many of you will remember how excited I was to have a story I wrote be accepted to the Under Review. The on-line digital version of the journal is out (click here). Issue 9. And many of us writers of Issues 8 and 9 have been invited to read our stories at AWP 24 (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) next month in Kansas City.

I sent the invite to my writing group to see if they would come support me and the responses ranged from “Wait, what, the Journal is out and you didn’t tell us?” “Heck yeah!” “How come you aren’t telling everyone they can see your story in print?” That brought me up short. I hadn’t even thought of telling people. Why not? I’d sent the link to a number of people I was sure hadn’t seen it and that was it. We writers have to be brazen about publicising ourselves as no one else will do it. Even for a book, the cost of having publicity done by a company is prohibitive to most people. I’m told that even traditional publishers don’t do publicity unless you are Stephen King or John Grisham. No matter how shy we are or how difficult it feels to tout one’s own horn, no one else is going to do it.

So to those of you who gave me high fives when my story was accepted and all the rest of you who may have missed that blog, now you can see it digitally in print here

If you are going to AWP 24 this year, please come to Sinkers Lounge on Friday evening, Feb 9th. If the weather keeps going in the direction it’s going, which is to say it’s getting warmer, it could well be in the low or high 40s by the time we all get there. So no excuse.

Last year, three people, that includes me, in my writing group went together to AWP 23. We’d only met on Zoom for eight months or so. It was like we’d known each other forever, we got along so well. This year five of us in the group are going. I rented a five-bedroom house that looks as quirky as we feel when we all get together. We may even get a dog staying with us this time around.

I’ll be taking flyers to AWP to advertise the Paris Writers Workshop in Paris, June 2-7, 2024. Which, btw, I have more information about. I wrote my story of Writing in Paris three weeks ago and how honored I am to be part of this year’s planning committee. At the time I published, I didn’t know some exact details. Here they are. This is the landing page telling you exact dates and about the faculty. The entire website will be up and ready for registrations on January 31.

Registration: Early Bird—975€ till March 15, 2024       

    Full price —1,100€ March 16 onwards 

Agent consultations: For an additional fee, you can register for one, or two, agent consultations. More information to come.

Cancellation Policy:

 Full refund through 15 April 2024 minus 100€ admin fee

Half refund through 30 April 2024 minus 100€ admin fee

I hope to see lots of blog writers and readers at the Paris Writers Workshop. I’ve gone twice now. It is excellent and so reasonably priced. Paris will be dressed up in preparation for the summer Olympics. It will be a good time to see all the decorations without having to deal with the crowds.

A bientôt,

Sara

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Snow and…..

Ann Arbor

Friday night, January 12, just as the sun was beginning to descend behind the trees, big fat snowflakes began to fall in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The kind that stick to the ground. Within an hour, I walked to the front door of my sister’s home and peeked out. Then I stepped out onto the porch. In front of me was a white winter wonderland. The snowfall was at least 6 inches and still going. The snow was light, light enough that it comfortably sat on tree limbs without forcing the branch to bow to the ground. Neighbors hadn’t taken down their Christmas lights. Across the street was a tree decorated in only blue lights. Without snow, in the dark, it looked dramatic. With the snow, it looked like a thousand dollar window in Macy’s or Magnins. Windows that were so magical adults as well as children were enchanted.

My sister’s next-door neighbor had started to take his outdoor lights down but couldn’t finish because of the snow and cold. The tree was sprinkled with red, yellow, green, and white tiny lights. They lighted up the lower branches of his snow filled tree. Cars parked on the side of the road had almost disappeared. No one was out. The snowfall was pristine. Even knowing that the morning would probably bring ice, cars that wouldn’t start, dirty brown tracks on the streets as people attempted to go to work or do errands, the sight of the snow Friday evening filled me with wonder. It was moments of pure joy.

I cannot remember last seeing snow like that. Living in California, we might get a sprinkle on Mt. Diablo that was gone by mid-day. On ski trips, it was rare to be lucky enough to get fresh snow for the next morning. In the ten years I’ve lived in Paris, I’ve seen snow fall five or six times. Usually flurries. Everyone gets excited but the snow doesn’t stick. The one time it did stick, the snow removers were out in record time making sure all the parked cars on every street could move.

When I was young, in college, Paris often got a foot or more of snow. Foot traffic tapped down paths on the sidewalks so people could stroll. Les marchands de marrons(roasted chestnut sellers) brought their stoves, huge iron apparatuses, and several bushels of chestnuts. They’d set themselves up at the foot of a bridge, then barbecue the chestnuts till they became soft. I’d buy a newspaper cone full of the piping hot chestnuts for two francs. Buying and eating those chestnuts became the definition of winter in Paris for me. I think I’ve seen three chestnut sellers in the last five years.

It seems I’ve only been to Ann Arbor in the winter. People say I have to come in the summer when trees are in bloom and flowers of every color are flowing off porches. The weather is warm often verging on very hot. But for my money, the experience of witnessing an untouched field of snow that goes as far as the eye can see is a wonder to behold. Of course, I don’t have to live there and suffer all the problems that are sure to happen for the next week or two.

Ann Arbor is a great town. Most important to me, if I lived there, is the fact that there isn’t a rush hour. My sister asked me to go to Plum Market for a few things for our dinner. Since it was 5:15pm, I assumed I’d have to take side roads. “No, no,” she said. I drove down Miller, turned left on to Maple, a major thoroughfare, and soon I was at Plum Market. Same amount of time as if I’d driven at 1pm. Same amount of cars. Heaven!!

It’s a walking town. The Huron River runs very close to the town and provides walkers with many lovely tow paths. The University of Michigan is right smack dab in the middle of town. I’d even go so far as to venture that the town of Ann Arbor grew up around the University. Wonderful stores line State St, Huron St and Hill St. After Michigan won the National Football Championship last Monday, the M den was packed with people buying T-shirts declaring Michigan the best at 15-0 ( I just had to get that in. It was very exciting and I love the excitement of Championship games!)

Ann Arbor is a bookstore town. There are a minimum of eight bookstores that sell both used and new books. There is even a map showing where all the bookstores are. One can make a walking tour out of a search for all the bookstores. The love of books and bookstores is very Parisian! My sister took me to Literati which sells new books. The ground floor is floor to ceiling fiction. It looks like an old timey academic library, There are even ladders. Below, on the lower floor, was non-fiction and the first floor (second in US) was the best book floor I’ve seen in a long time. Children’s books, jigsaw puzzles, beautifully crafted dolls, cards and stickers, and a collection of old typewriters on display. All this was managed by Vicky who knows every book in the store and is so personable that I found myself buying books and cards even though I almost always get my books from the Library.

I’m writing this sitting on a plane two hours out of Detroit. Thanks to all the snow that, indeed, became ice, the plane left two hour late. I’m flying west so maybe I’ll still see some daylight when we land. Meanwhile, it’s lovely to revisit Ann Arbor.

A bientôt,

Sara

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Writing in Paris…….Paris Writers Workshop June 2-7, 2024

If you have ever dreamed of writing a memoir, a short story, a novel, and doing it in the City of Light: Paris, you can do it this summer. My writing story follows.

I discovered reading for fun the summer I turned 14. During summer camp in Vermont, we were bussed down to Tanglewood in Western Massachusetts to picnic and listen to the Boston Symphony who summered there (Back then it was known as the Boston Pops).  Wandering off by myself, I found a gift shop. A plethora of paperback books on three racks greeted me as I walked in the door.  I’d never bought a book on my own.  Going into a shop and browsing, having a title leap out at me and paying for it with my own money, this was new and foreign territory for me. I spun one of the book racks and the title A Separate Peace (John Knowles, 1958) jumped out at me. I bought it.

I devoured A Separate Peace. Every afternoon rest period, I read. At night, in my sleeping bag, flashlight on, I read. The book, about two teenage boys at Exeter Academy, spoke to me.  Before I’d finished, I knew I wanted to write. It wasn’t a crystalized thought. I had so many pent-up teenage emotions with no idea how to express them other than screaming at members of my family. I just knew that getting what was in my head out on paper had to have some kind of transformational impact.

From then on, reading became my way of not feeling so alone. I wasn’t great at talking. I had an A+ in complaining. And, like so many teenagers who feel unfocused creative thoughts, I soon started writing awful poetry.

Over the next 20 or so years, I tried to write stories. I’d start out fine but could never find a way to end them. In my thirties, it dawned on me that I had nothing to say. My life experience was limited, and I had little self-awareness to make sense of the experience I did have. As years passed, I began telling myself that I was Going To Write A Book when I was 55 instead of 30.

Fifty-two years after that Tanglewood experience, I moved to Paris.  I was retired. I had more curiosity than I could contain. Writing courses were plentiful, almost on every street corner! After signing up for the requisite immersion French class, I decided NOW was the time to learn the craft of writing. I joined WICE (Where Internationals Connect in English), an organization that teaches language, creative writing, and photography courses among other offerings. It was mid-October and the only writing course that wasn’t full was a memoir class.

I am eternally grateful that the teacher loved my writing. I signed up for another of her classes in the Spring. I learned that WICE hosts a biannual Paris Writers Workshop (PWW). Unlike many workshops that take place year round in France, this one was reasonably priced. I didn’t hesitate.  Those nasty voices that tell us ‘we’re no good’, ‘Who do you think you are?’, and the zinger, ‘You’re too old to do this’, hadn’t yet taken up residence in my brain. I signed up.  I even met with one of the agents at the conference. She wanted to see more of my writing.

Four years later, I published my first book, Saving Sara: A Memoir of Food Addiction (SheWritesPress, 2020).

I became aware that in my adopted country of France, there are thousands of offerings for the writer and the would-be writer: in-person writing courses, video writing courses, workshops in gorgeous chateaux in the French countryside. But the Paris Writers Workshop stayed my first love. It was the place that had given me the confidence to call myself a writer.

This year, I’m excited to be on the planning committee of the new Paris Writers Workshop, which will be held June 2-7, 2024.

PWW began in 1988. It is the oldest continuous writing workshop in Paris. The 2024 workshop promises to be one of the best so far. The Writing Workshop includes six tracks—Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Memoir/Creative Non-Fiction, Travel Writing, Poetry, and Screenwriting — with an amazing faculty lineup. The wonderful Jennifer Lauck whose Substack Flight School with Jennifer Lauck was one of Sarah Mays top 10 writing Substacks last November will be teaching the Memoir/Creative Non-Fiction track. For the first time, we will be partially sponsored by the Columbia Global Centers and will meet in CGC’s beautiful Reid Hall, in the center of the literary Montparnasse neighborhood. 

Reid Hall at the Columbia Global Center in Paris, 6th arrondissement.

The PWW website goes live January 31, 2024. You can go to the landing page now. Click here to see it. There you will find information on each track and a bio of the teacher.

Registration starts on January 31, 2024. There is an Early Bird registration which gives the writer 100 euros off the 1200 euros price. 

And if the unexpected happens, one can get a full refund. Those dates will be up on the website.

You can also write pww@wice-paris.org for specific information. If you are sure of a track before registration opens, you can claim a spot at pww@wice-paris.org.

A bientôt,

Sara

A different version of this blog appears in the Jan/Feb issue of the AAWE News Paris

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