THIS SUNDAY: Free Online Writers Studio Reading

Published April 22, 2023 by Philip Ivory

Join the Writers Studio Reading Series on Sunday, April 23 at 5 pm ET / 2 pm PT for a reading of original work from our faculty.

During this virtual reading, teachers from our New York City, Tucson, San Francisco, and Rome branches will share their poetry and fiction.

I’m excited to be representing Tucson with a new piece, reading alongside talented colleagues including Lorraine L. Babb, Lisa Bass, Stas Gawronski, Kathie Jacobson, and Sally McElwain.

The reading is free. CLICK HERE to register in advance. We hope to see you there.

UNREAL event at Antigone: Thanks for Support

Published October 21, 2019 by Philip Ivory

Thanks to our students and friends who came out to support our special event last Friday, Oct. 18!

Lela Scott MacNeil

Our teachers at The Writers Studio Tucson had a chance to read from their creative work at a public reading held at Antigone Books on Fourth Avenue here in Tucson.

Richard Leis

It was called UNREAL, and gave our teachers, Lela Scott MacNeil, Richard Leis, Donna Aversa, Reneé Bibby and myself a chance to read selections of poetry and prose that focus on the unusual, the dark, and the unreal.

Donna Aversa

This was the program:

Lela Scott MacNeil / reading novel excerpt, Long Night’s Journey Into Day
Phil Ivory / reading flash fiction, Probably Last Meeting of Bluebell Ridge II Homeowners Association
Richard Leis / reading poems, [Aliens are here], Phantom Taste of Apricot on My Tongue, Cities Through Telescopes, City as Fairy Tale, and Burning Baby
Donna Aversa / reading flash fiction, A Little Bit Of Sausage
Reneé Bibby / reading short story excerpt, That Boy

Reneé Bibby

We had a great turnout who came to hear our work and browse at Tucson’s most celebrated independent bookstore.

Phil Ivory

Many thanks to Antigone Books for being such a gracious and enthusiastic host, and making us and our guests feel at home. We’re looking forward to more events like it.

UNREAL: Writers Studio Teachers Read Their Work

Published October 4, 2019 by Philip Ivory

Join us on Oct. 18 for a public reading event, cohosted by Antigone Books and The Writers Studio. Teachers from the Tucson branch of The Writers Studio — Lela Scott MacNeil, Richard Leis, Donna Aversa, Reneé Bibby and myself — will read selections of poetry and prose that focus on the unusual, the dark, and the unreal.

WHERE: Antigone Books, 411 N 4th Ave, Tucson, Arizona 85705

WHEN: October 18, 2019 at 6:00 PM

No RSVP or admission fee is required.

At The Writers Studio Tucson, we pride ourselves on being active participants in Tucson’s thriving literary community. Please join us, and patronize Antigone Books, one of the finest independent bookstores in the country. Visit their web site and sign up for their newsletter.

The Writers Studio, founded by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Schultz in 1987, offers writing workshops designed to help students discover and nurture their own voices. The Writers Studio Tucson offers four levels of classes to help students achieve their writing goals.

For more information on The Writers Studio, click here.

When Reality Doesn’t Cut It, UNREAL Is Our Best Friend!

See you on Oct. 18!

New Role at Writers Studio

Published October 20, 2018 by Philip Ivory

I’m pleased to announce I’ve been asked to assume a new role at the Tucson branch of Writers Studio. In addition to continuing to be a teacher on the intermediate level, I’ll be serving as assistant director and working closely with branch director Reneé Bibby.

Here’s some info about the program and its philosophy, from our web site at writerstudio.com:

“The Writers Studio, founded in 1987 by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Philip Schultz, offers ongoing writing workshops — both on site and online — designed to help students discover and nurture their own voices. We welcome students at all stages, from those who have only dreamed of writing fiction or poetry to those with MFAs hungry for additional serious, ongoing instruction. Students provide the desire to write and the willingness to learn, and we provide the structure, the technical know-how, the professional feedback and the friendly community to enable them to reach their full potential.”

Janelle Drumwright, who has done an amazing job as Tucson branch assistant director for years, is relocating to another city. I hope I can carry on in her spirit and continue to bring the Writer Studio discipline and devotion to craft to students looking to expand and improve their skills. I’ll also be involved in outreach to potential students and planning of special events.

I started as a student in the program, and its emphasis on craft and the importance of creating a distinctive persona narrator for every piece of writing has been extremely helpful to me. It jump-started me after a long period of non-writing and put me on the road to getting work published. I can definitely attest to the program’s effectiveness.

New classes will be starting in January. Writers of all experience levels are welcome. Online classes are available as well as our in-person classes here in Tucson. Feel free to send me any questions about the program at philivory@writerstudio.com.

Debut Novel by Alice Hatcher: The Wonder That Was Ours

Published September 4, 2018 by Philip Ivory

My good friend and fellow Tucson writer Alice Hatcher had her debut novel published today, The Wonder That Was Ours, and I couldn’t be more excited. Congratulations, Alice!

I’m eager to get my copy, because Alice is an awesome writer, who combines a sense of history and social awareness with wry humor and an ability to create compelling characters who are flawed but deeply human.

If you’re in Tucson, come out this weekend to see Alice read from her novel and take questions at Barnes and Noble at 5130 E. Broadway at 2 PM on Saturday, Sept. 8.

The Wonder That Was Ours won Dzanc Books’ 2017 Prize for Fiction and can now be ordered through Amazon.

A former academic historian, Alice has published stories, essays and poems in such places as Alaska Quarterly Review, The Beloit Fiction Journal, Notre Dame Review, Lascaux Review, Fourth Genre, Contrary, Chautauqua, and Gargoyle, among other journals.

Adrienne Celt, author of Invitation to a Bonfire and The Daughters, says: “Hatcher’s unique narrators offer a bird’s-eye view of history, with all the glory and devastation that entails: an ambitious experiment that ends in an achingly compassionate achievement. This book is funny, warm, and piercingly intelligent―and it will probably break your heart.”

For more on Alice’s work, check out http://www.alice-hatcher.com.

Be sure to come out and meet her on Saturday. I’ll see you there!

Arizona Mystery Writers

Published April 19, 2018 by Philip Ivory

My thanks to my friends at A rizona Mystery Writers for inviting me on April 14 to deliver a reprise of the “Craft of Dark Fiction” lecture I gave for Writers Studio last December. My friend Bill Adams is a longtime member and accomplished writer who initially approached me about repeating this lecture for his group. My thanks to him and also to the group’s workshop chair Kay Lesh who made the arrangements with me. Thanks also to another good friend and outstanding writer, Alice Hatcher, for helping with the audiovisual aspect of my lecture.

The lunch was tasty, the meeting was fun and the group was attentive and appreciative. I was speaking about horror fiction, which often intersects with mystery, although the two genres can also seem like two very different worlds.

Just for fun, I created and handed out the flyer below, a personal list but one that name checks examples of short writing in the dark fiction field that have impressed and influenced me. Check it out.

The Horror! The Horror! The Craft of Writing Dark Fiction

Published November 29, 2017 by Philip Ivory

Calling all Tucson-area writers and devotees of the scary and macabre! Come out and hear me, Phil Ivory, deliver a special free lecture at 2:30 on December 9, 2017 at the Himmel Park Library here in Tucson. It’s part of the Writers Studio lecture series. It should be fun, inspirational and a little bit scary!

DESCRIPTION:

From William Faulkner to Shirley Jackson to Margaret Atwood, writers have achieved memorable effects by putting characters in extreme situations and evoking sensations of fear, dread, awe and horror. In this Writers Studio lecture, we’ll look at horror not as something confined to the macabre shelf but as an emotion that will add power and resonance to any material regardless of genre. We’ll talk about using description to evoke a dark and lingering mood. Crafting the best narrator to evoke singular emotional effects. Laying groundwork for readers to have a powerful emotional experience while never telling them what to feel.

So take a writing journey to the dark side, and come back stronger than you were before.

Hope to see you there on Dec. 9!

And while you’re at it, why not sign up for one of our upcoming Writers Studio Winter classes? Show the world how scarily creative you really are.

Tucson Writers: Free Lecture to Jumpstart Your Writing Skills

Published June 9, 2017 by Philip Ivory

Check out the latest in a series of special free lectures from Writers Studio. Join us for an inspiring talk by Writers Studio teacher Frances Lynch on the value of using writing exercises to improve your craft.

WHAT: Free Lecture: Writing Exercises — The Path To Your Best Writing

WHERE: Woods Memorial Library at 3455 N. First Avenue

WHEN: Thursday June 22 at 6:30 to 7:30 PM

Hope to see you there!

Also, new classes start at the Writers Studio here in Tucson in only a few weeks. Sign up for a workshop class and put exercises to work to enhance your writing skills and try your hand at new voices and techniques:

Register here.

Flash Sale: $30 off any summer writing class. Discount must be taken at time of registration, cannot be combined with any other offer. Valid while supplies last. Expires 6/12/17. Use coupon code: Facebook17

New Flash Fiction: The Daytime People

Published May 26, 2017 by Philip Ivory

Today I had a flash fiction piece published in a new online journal, Edify Fiction. It’s called “The Daytime People” and was directly inspired by an afternoon I spent observing people in a fast food restaurant here in Tucson. You can Read It Here.

The Daytime People

Embed from Getty Images

The piece was created for a Writers Studio reading event last fall. My thanks to Renee Bibby and all my friends and colleagues at Writers Studio for providing the inspiration for this piece and the impetus to write it.

Hope you enjoy the piece, and feel free to leave a comment by clicking on the orange dialogue box to the right of the story title.

If you have fiction, poetry or digital art of a uniquely positive nature, consider submitting it to Edify Fiction.

Thanks for reading!

Writers Studio 30th Anniversary Anthology

Published April 20, 2017 by Philip Ivory

The Writers Studio is the renowned creative writing program founded in 1987 in New York by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Philip Schulz. With its branches in NYC, San Francisco, Tucson, Hudson Valley as well as its online and “Kids Write” components, Writers Studio has been helping poets and fiction writers reach their potential for 30 years.

Through my work with Writers Studio as a student and now as a teacher, I’ve become more confident at developing strong narrative voices that take command of my creative material. Using effective narrators that help guide the reader through a satisfactory literary experience has helped me publish multiple short pieces and make progress on a novel, a first draft of which I hope to complete later this year.

WS+Anthology+Cover

To celebrate its three decades of helping writers develop their craft, Writers Studio is releasing a 500-page 30th anniversary anthology, featuring nearly 100 hundred authors. The publisher is Epiphany Editions.

The Writers Studio at 30 features work by Writers Studio advisory board members Jennifer Egan, Robert Pinsky, Edward Hirsch, Grace Schulman, Matthew Klam, Carl Dennis, and Jill Bialosky, as well as 30 years of students and teachers from its creative writing classes.

I’m proud to be one of the authors featured, with a short fiction piece titled “Probably Last Meeting of the Bluebell Ridge II Homeowners Association.” It was previously published in The Airgonaut.

A celebratory reading will be held in New York on May 6 at the Strand Bookstore to mark the occasion. Wish I could be there, but traveling to NY is not in my budget right now.

The Writers Studio at 30 Anthology should be a great resource for anyone interested in enjoying a smorgasbord of strong narrative voices used in service to poems and stories containing wildly divergent subject matter.

Until May 6, you can pre-order the anthology at a discounted price of $20.