Big Blue Marble Bookstore

Classes at the Big Blue Marble

Would you like to hold a class in our community room? For queries and scheduling, email events@bigbluemarblebooks.com or call 215-844-1870.

Story Corners with Cordelia Jensen

1. Teen Creative Writing Intensive

Are you a teen that loves to write? Come spend an afternoon with Story Corners, participating in games and writing exercises that focus on some of the fundamentals of story telling, such as setting, character development and imagery. Be prepared to share your creative spirit and have fun!

Saturday, June 22, 1:00-4:00pm.
To register: email cordeliaj@gmail.com. Price: $35.

2. Writing Workshops for Young People

Does your child love to tell or write stories or poems? Story Corners will help support the creative writer in your child. We will have six one and a half hour sessions. For the first half an hour we will play writing games that focus on a particular teaching point, such as character development or dialogue. For the next thirty minutes, Cordelia will teach on the corresponding subject. The final half an hour, we will do in-class writing; students may work on given prompts or ongoing stories. During this time, students will have the opportunity to speak with Cordelia individually about their pieces. There will also be an emphasis on how to submit work to publications and how to read your own writing in front of a crowd. The class will culminate in a class reading, where students may invite friends or family to listen to their work. For children ages 8-12. Children must be in at least third grade.

Thursday afternoons, 4:15-5:45pm, from October 3 to November 7, with a special class reading on November 14 from 5:30-6:30pm.
To register: email cordeliaj@gmail.com. Price: $95 per student.

About Cordelia: Cordelia Jensen is a YA Writer; her novel in verse SKYSCRAPING is forthcoming from Philomel/Penguin. Cordelia Jensen graduated in 2012 with a MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Cordelia graduated from Kenyon College where she majored in English, with a Concentration in Creative Writing. Cordelia was Poet Laureate of Perry County in 2006 & 2007. She has also had nonfiction work appear in Literary Mama. Cordelia has worked with young people for most of her career; with a Masters of Education in Counseling, she has worked as a counselor and teacher and spent ten summers as a camp counselor in Central PA. Cordelia lives in West Mt. Airy with her husband, Jon, and twin seven-year-olds, Tate and Lily.

Minter Krotzer's Spring Writing Workshops

1. Life Stories workshop with Minter:
"All literature is, finally, autobiographical." - Jorge Luis Borges
Learn to shape life experiences into various forms of creative nonfiction with some exploration of other genres, in particular the writing of memoir, the personal essay, and the nonfiction short/flash nonfiction. We will focus on all phases of the writing process although the emphasis will be on generating new material. Selected readings will be provided for discussion as well. Open to beginners and to those who already have written about life experiences. The workshop concludes with a private writing consultation with Minter and a celebratory group reading.
Tuesday evenings from 7-9pm, for seven meetings, from April 2nd-May 18th
or
Saturday afternoons from 3-5pm, for seven meetings, from April 6th-May 18th

2. Poetry Workshop with Hal Sirowitz:
"Hal Sirowitz is the bard of the deadpan delivery. His poems are like a mad combination of the haiku and the Borscht Belt - they make me laugh and smile with happiness at the pain of being alive." - Jonathan Ames (Author and creator of the HBO series "Bored to Death")
Led by Hal (with Minter Krotzer's accompaniment), we will mostly read and write poems in free verse although at times we will explore other forms such as the sonnet and list poems. Selected poetry will also be read and discussed. The former Poet Laureate of Queens, NY, Hal has taught poetry across the country and abroad. The workshop concludes with a private writing consultation with Hal and Minter.
Wednesday evenings from 7:15-9:15pm, for seven meetings, from May 1st-June 19th (no class 5/29)

3. Bird by Bird - A Creative Revision Workshop:
“Revision isn’t cleaning up after the party, revision is the party.” — William Matthews
Bird by Bird is a workshop for prose writers of all genres who want to get beyond first and early drafts of their work with the support and critique of a solid group of experienced writers. Discussions of craft will be included along with selected readings and in-class writing. The workshop concludes with a private writing consultation with Minter.
Tuesday evenings, from 7:00-9:00pm, for six meetings, from May 21st-June 25th. Cost: $200.

For more information and to register: If you are interested in registering for a workshop, or if you have questions about them, please email Minter at minterk@gmail.com. A $50 deposit will be required to secure a spot. Except as noted, all workshops are $235. Electronic participation is also available for those who are unable to attend in person. Note: a minimum of five participants is required for workshops to run. Also, we are now offering a $10 discount for those who refer new participants.

About Minter: Minter Krotzer's prose has been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including Many Mountains Moving, the Saint Ann's Review, the Arkansas Review,Upstreet, Night Train, Before and After: Stories from New York (WW Norton 2002), Louisiana in Words (Pelican Press), God Stories (Random House 2008), and Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Twenty-Five Words or Fewer (WWNorton). She has received creative writing fellowships at the New School, where she received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction, Bennington College, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Squaw Valley Writers Conference, and the Moulin a Nef in Auvillar, France. Click here to read a recent interview with Minter on Apiary literary magazine's website. (www.minterkrotzer.com).

About Hal: Hal Sirowitz is the author of six books of poetry, Mother Said, My Therapist Said (Crown/Random House), Father Said, and Before, During & After (Soft Skull Press), the forthcoming Stray Cat Blues (Backwaters Press), and a newly completed collection of prose poetry, A Hole in My Heart. His work has been translated into nine languages including Icelandic and Turkish. Garrison Keillor has read his work on NPR's Writer's Almanac, and he has included Hal's poems in his anthologies, Good Poems and Good Poems for Hard Times. Hal has performed and appeared on MTV's "Spoken Word Unplugged", PBS's "Poetry Heaven," NPR's "All Things Considered," and "Fresh Air with Terry Gross." Awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, Hal is the former Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. (www.halsirowitz.com)