The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pen will present a series of six ninety-minute interactive workshops geared toward beginning/intermediate writers, both fiction and non-fiction. Each session will include handouts and exercises. The series will close in Week Six with a panel where attendees may ask questions and will be invited to read their works.

Week 1) Make ‘Em Smell the Coffee: Creating a Sense of Place—A reader has five senses. Pamela Foster will discuss and use exercises to tap into the senses to create a world readers will enter and experience.

Week 2) Whose Head Are You In?—Claire Croxton will define point of view and demonstrate through discussion, skits and exercises.

Week 3) Trimming the Fat from Your Story —Is your story flabby? Full of passive verbs? Too many adverbs or adjectives? Wasted words? Get ready for a writerly workout with Ruth Weeks!

Week 4) Interviewing Your Character —Learn to interview your characters, whether over martinis or coffee. Using demonstrations and handouts, Jan Morrill will discuss how to add dimension and depth to characters, so that readers will go beyond reading to experiencing the story.

Week 5) Thawing Writer’s Freeze —The road to publication is scattered with obstacles that freeze our brains and make our fingers cold on the keys. In this session, Linda Apple will address these problems and use exercises to help break through these barriers.

Week 6) Panel Question and Answer—Pam, Ruth, Linda and Jan will answer and discuss questions and invite attendees to read their stories.

This team of authors has been published in non-fiction and fiction genres including romance, paranormal, historical, inspirational and mainstream. Their writing activities include judging writing contests and serving as board members of organizations such as Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc., a multi-genre organization with more than 600 members from Oklahoma, the surrounding states, and around the world; Ozarks Writers League and Northwest Arkansas Writers.

Registration begins December 17.