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Author News Blog First Feature For Writers News and Events

Writing News and Part 3 of Advice on First Drafts

Cuppa Pulp color wash logo  Writing News

August 15, 2013–Check out local filmmaker Deborah Kampmeier’s crowdfunding drive for her upcoming film, SPLiT, here. It looks AMAZING.  Deborah’s past projects include Hounddog and Virgin, portrayals of women’s experience that are true jewels in the astonishingly small contemporary treasure-chest.  In other news: writing is, apparently, communication!  The age-old rumor that many writers fail to connect with readers because of simple breakdowns in language and syntax–well, author Karl Taro Greenfeld says, it’s TRUE. Check out this interview with Karl in The Review Review, in which he confirms the rumor: writing IS communication.

Writing Advice: First Drafts, Part 3

Vanquish “Writersbane:” Staying Out Of Your Own Way

Donna Lee Miele

Emmy Laybourne says that her editors’ initial rejection of Monument 14 “was very hard to hear,” but the usual banes of self-doubt and writer’s block never bogged down her process. She revised to produce the very different, very polished manuscript for her first novel, which went on to receive a Publisher’s Weekly starred review before release. To date, Monument 14 and its sequel, Monument 14: Sky on Fire, have earned her great reviews, thousands of young fans, and a hot demand for another sequel, due out in 2014.

“I’m really quite out of my own way,” she says. “I’m not critical at all as I’m writing. I just write. I let the stream pour and pour. When you’re writing a first draft, you shouldn’t sit down with that bully writing partner who looks over your shoulder going, ‘No… that’s not good. Start over. That sentence sucks. You know what, it’s not gonna happen today.’ I don’t sit down with that person! She’s not allowed. Not in a first draft.”

A highly trained improviser, comedienne, and actress, Emmy finds that her performance work gives her writing an edge. “Improvisation is just about training your mind never to judge yourself in the moment. That is what I think is crippling to writers. When you’re improvising, you cannot stay in the past for a second. Improv teaches you to stay in the present moment, to never judge yourself.”

Common writersbanes are self-doubt, writer’s block, or garden-variety procrastination, that succubus that likes to sit on your chest, blocking your focus. Emmy dispatches them all without flinching.

“I have a few tricks,” she says. “Number one is attaining a certain velocity. You have get up to speed. In a week where I’ve written for four hours Monday, four hours Tuesday, I sit down to write on Wednesday, and I literally just start to write. It’s right there. The next thing is, if I’m really in the zone, before I go to bed, I think about the next day’s writing. It works like a charm. Then, if I’m blocked, or can’t get started, I walk. It’s better if it’s the same walk every time. I’ll walk as many loops as it takes for me to see the scene in my mind. Then I’ll go back, I won’t check emails, I’ll just sit down and write what I came up with.”

Learn to talk to yourself. You engage your banes via a healthy internal dialogue, instead of one in which they easily sabotage you. When you commit to regular writing hours on consecutive writing days, your storytelling voice strengthens. Walking, or any form of meditative movement that doesn’t wear you out, keeps your focus active.

Your infant creative work is only beginning to find its voice. Your anxieties and fears, by contrast, are well-versed in sending you off-track. Acknowledge them, instead of pretending they don’t exist. Then quiet them. Your task is to nourish this new fantastical being, your story. Recognize your limits, be patient with your process, and the power of your story will eventually guide you past the blocks.

Max Ellendale encountered another common interloper while writing her first novel: too much advice.

Wanting more than anything to make a living as a novelist, Max brought Glyph, a paranormal romance, to the first year of her graduate writing program. But neither she nor her novel were prepared for the literary fire-breathers at the gate.

“At the time, most people were not clued in to the booming sci-fi/fantasy genre. I felt like an outcast. What I was writing wasn’t good enough, because it wasn’t memoir or literary fiction. It dampened my spirit. ‘What are you writing that for? That has no value.’ I butchered Glyph and changed it to attempt to meet the needs of others, breaking Kurt Vonnegut’s rule of writing fiction: ‘Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.’”

How did Max vanquish her banes? By hard, often introspective work, she improved her skills and her story, and gained new confidence. A little help from the magic of online networking did the rest.

**And for a little extra mojo**

Along with Emmy, James King recommends “Sh**ty First Drafts,” a chapter from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. “The first draft is a child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page,” Anne writes.

“Use the first draft to be as creative as possible,” James says. “This is tough to do if that little voice inside your head is constantly piping up… ‘You think anyone’s going to publish that?’”

Lauren Groff’s pet interloper during the first draft is getting into “fetishizing the individual sentences,” she says. “I write the first draft longhand, without really caring what I’m writing about, because the first draft is where the characters come alive, and they start to tell me who they are… And I don’t even look at it again… I go and do another longhand, and then possibly one more…

“If the sentences are good, they’ll stay… And if they’re not good, why not throw them out, and start over again with something else?”

To tune back into her subconscious when she’s stuck, Lauren also observes the ancient practice of… napping. “Napping is a huge part of the writing process!

“The dreamscape is really important… Sometimes [a problem] solves itself in your head, if you just close your eyes and relax.”

Day-to-day anxieties clamor for her attention, but Joanna Clapps Herman has the discipline to let them wait. “I’ve gotten past them so many times,” she says. “Now they are like annoying old relatives. Oh, you’re here again? I know how to deal with you. Sit down and have a cup of coffee, because I have some work to do! If I’m really having trouble, I force myself to sit down for just ten minutes a day. I start a log, where I literally log myself in and out. Even if I am only at work for very short periods of time, especially then, to keep myself honest. By the end of two weeks of this, something always emerges.”

Coming Next Time: Part 4, Be Unstoppable

References: 

Except where noted below, quoted material from James King (Bill Warrington’s Last Chance, New York: Viking, 2010), Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14: Sky on Fire, New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2013), Max Ellendale (Glyph, Breathless Press, 2012), and Joanna Clapps Herman (The Anarchist Bastard: Growing Up Italian in America, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011) are from personal interviews and emails with the author, March-June, 2012.

Quoted material from Lauren Groff (Arcadia, New York: Voice, 2012) is from the author’s transcript of Ms. Groff’s seminar at the New York Writer’s Institute, State University of New York at Albany, March 27, 2012. “Lauren Groff on Writing and Arcadia”

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird (New York: Anchor Books, 1995), 22-23.

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Blog First Feature For Writers News and Events

Writing News and Part 2 of Advice on First Drafts

Writing News

August 5, 2013–In news unrelated to writing, but all about creativity and inspiration and legendary local businesses, Maxwell’s in Hoboken closed on July 31, going out with a block party (during which no one could park their cars, as usual!).  Maxwell’s was one of the best places to see live music during the rise of alternative rock, not because of a great sound system or ambiance, but because you could go there and be yourself! Read writer Jim Testa’s tribute here… Also on July 31, women storytellers and poets gathered for another kind of block party at Maria Luisa in Nyack, New York–follow the conversation here. Thank you, Maria Luisa, and we hope that the trend will continue!  Finally, for reassurance to novelists, this wise plum from Richard Ford, from a recent New Yorker Fiction podcast episode: “To be a novelist and a perfectionist is almost to doom oneself.”  If we’re doomed anyway, at least we know we’re not dooming ourselves. No perfectionists ’round these parts, that’s for sure.

 Writing Advice: First Drafts, Part 2

 Getting Started: Wordsmithing By Any Means Necessary, with James King

There’s not much charm, and only a hint of mystery, to this part. For his first great feat, King Arthur pulled a sword out of a stone. You’ll have to stick your butt in a chair.

James King’s process has evolved over the years. He currently assesses the progress of his story as he goes along. “When I finish a chapter,” he says, “I create a very informal outline for the next chapter, describing the main characters, the goal, and the conflict within the larger, overarching goal and conflict. It seems to help with pacing.”

But he arrived at this by trying “just about everything else.” A professional business writer, James entered the book-length fiction arena armed with a keen and supple work ethic. But he saw three novels rejected, as well as “dozens of short stories and poems,” before Bill Warrington’s Last Chance won the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. “I’ve experimented with every approach to writing imaginable,” he says. “I’ve tried working from extensive outlines, from a brief synopsis, from in-depth character studies, from plotline spreadsheets, index cards… you name it. I even tried several novel-writing software programs.”

Whatever tactic his fickle muse prefers, James’ most reliable weapon is discipline. A Yankees fan, James found in Derek Jeter’s 2009 record-breaking season inspiration for himself as a writer. “What makes [Jeter] successful is his uncompromising commitment to the game… He doesn’t practice only when he’s in the mood. He doesn’t wait for ‘inspiration’ before stepping into the batter’s box. He doesn’t take a day off during the season because, well, he’s been playing a lot of ball and has ‘earned’ a day off.”*

You can’t ignore craft. Stephen King calls it the Toolbox: vocabulary, grammar, structure. You must make craft second nature. Take advice from a mentor, do writing exercises, notice and follow the practices of favorite writers. Without the tools, you are impotent.

But without your ingenuity and industry, the tools are dead matter.

“If you’re a writer and not someone who simply wants to be known as a writer,” James advises, “you’ll keep going.”

**And for a little extra mojo**

In Naming the World, a trove of writing exercises by literary wizards, editor Bret Anthony Johnston includes no less than 17 pages of writing warm-ups, simply geared to “make it easier to get your butt in the chair, and keep it there… [D]evising strategies to capitalize on whatever time we can afford our writing is tantamount to success.”

Lauren Groff concurs. “The butt in the chair is the number-one ingredient for the recipe of a novel.”

Prepare to spend a lot of time with yourself. Find a comfortable process.

You may prefer minimal outlining, like James, or like Max Ellendale. “I plan out the plot turns and climax of the central plot along with the subplots, but I never outline,” she says. “I hate outlining. It confuses me and draws away my focus. I’m a very linear writer. I start stories from the beginning and write straight through to the end.”

Seasoned author Joanna Clapps Herman begins with setting down the full spectrum of ideas and scenes that seem vital to the piece. “I have a rough grocery list of what I am going to write about,” she says. “And I write that grocery list down. It’s not an outline, but just a list of ideas or scenes that I’d like to have in this piece. It’s simple and I can just keep coming back to it in a simple way. Oh, I’ve done some pages on that, let me try the next item and see where that goes.”

Many successful authors, like Emmy Laybourne, write to an outline. Laying out a book-length work from beginning to end, animating scenes in miniature first, may best support your creative energy, may even supercharge your powers.

Monument 14, Emmy’s first novel, almost languished in a structural mire prior to completion. Emmy had sold the idea on a proposal and 165 pages, then tried to finish the manuscript without an outline.

But her focus weakened. “The story meandered,” she says. “I had flashbacks, extra scenes. It was just very languid. And then I handed it in, and they hated it! They hated it so much! I had given them half an action-packed manuscript, half Anna Karenina.”

Emmy’s rewrite for Monument 14 was based on a succinct outline. She brewed up the sequel according to the same strict formula, finishing the first draft in seven months.

Coming Next Time: Part 3, Vanquish “Writersbane:” Staying Out Of Your Own Way

References: 

Except where noted below, quoted material from James King (Bill Warrington’s Last Chance, New York: Viking, 2010), Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14: Sky on Fire, New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2013), Max Ellendale (Glyph, Breathless Press, 2012), and Joanna Clapps Herman (The Anarchist Bastard: Growing Up Italian in America, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011) are from personal interviews and emails with the author, March-June, 2012.

Quoted material from Lauren Groff (Arcadia, New York: Voice, 2012) is from the author’s transcript of Ms. Groff’s seminar at the New York Writer’s Institute, State University of New York at Albany, March 27, 2012. “Lauren Groff on Writing and Arcadia”

Bret Anthony Johnston, Naming the World and Other Exercises for the Creative Writer (New York: Random House, 2008).

James King, “Derek Jeter and Writing,” The Business of Writing, September 14, 2009.

James King, “Easy for Me to Say,” The Business of Writing, March 23, 2011.

Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, (New York: Pocket Books, 2002)

 

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Cuppa Pulp Features Third Feature

Summer Bestsellers

Cuppa Pulp bestsellers through August 1, 2013 included Healing Lyme Coinfections, by Stephen Harrod Buhner and The Apprentices, middle-years fiction by Maile Meloy.  Meadowlark bestsellers included The Children of the Forest, by Elsa Beskow and Therapeutic Storytelling, by Susan Perrow.

Now in stock: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman; &Sons, by David Gilbert; Transatlantic, by Colum McCann; and And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini.

Enjoy the rest of this lovely summer!

bestsellers thru 8/1/13
bestsellers thru 8/1/13

 

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Blog First Feature For Writers

Writing News and Part 1 of Advice on First Drafts

Writing News

July 25, 2013–Just a couple of news items. If you’re a poet and have not yet heard about it, here’s a link to the Poetry Society of New York’s Poetry Festival, happening this weekend.   Second item: Terrible Minds on doin’ it wrong.  If you’ve had a frustrating writing week, maybe these insensitive words of advice will get you to lighten up.

 Writing Advice: First Drafts, Part 1

Other writers may challenge me on this–many consider revision, for instance, to be the hardest part of writing–but in my experience, the greatest obstacle to finishing a book-length writing project is nailing down a decent first draft. By “decent,” I don’t necessarily mean “polished,” but complete, in the sense of having a beginning, middle and end, and representing at least the boundaries, if not the living fullness, of the world you are trying to build.

I had the opportunity in the last year or so to connect with five published authors on the process, and will present their insight in a series of five blog posts.

Before Words: Underneath Arcadia, with Lauren Groff

You begin without writing. Your simmering, creative primordial soup sublimates into the elements of story. Your muse offers sparks, whiffs, even dazzling displays, but she rarely speaks in sentences—that’s your job. In this non-writing stage, you assemble the raw materials for alchemically transforming inspiration into story.

“I’ll carry around a detail or an idea with me for years,” says Lauren Groff, “and one day that idea will interact with something that I read, and explode into a different story.”

Arcadia, Lauren’s second novel, started where motherhood, a move to a new town, and a deluge of grim media events unsettled Lauren’s life. News of escalating war in the Middle East and the U.S. peak oil phenomenon, even the release of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, seemed to foretell apocalypse. It made for a “dark place in my life, and it took me four years to write my way out of that place.”

Pre-writing, Lauren simply sought to escape her emotional downward spiral. “I researched happiness, and people who tried really hard to be happy,” she says. “People who go outside of the mainstream and try to create a better world.

“I visited a number of former intentional communities… I did a lot of talking, and a lot of walking around… I talked to as many people as I possibly could, without a notebook, without a recording device…

“Writing a novel is exercising the imagination, and exercising sympathy.”

Lauren’s longing for community and her real-life efforts to start over set the stage for Arcadia. Observing her own son and her own second pregnancy, she began musing about a fictional child, a depressed mother. “I wanted to write as close as possible to the heart,” she says. “I would never say that writing a novel is therapy. But there are elements of struggle in the book.”

The non-writing aspect of writing infuses your day-to-day perspective. “Things will come to you… Those moments, in your sleep, in the shower, pushing the grocery cart, those are the moments that give you what you need… When you start noticing, everything calls for your attention. When you open up that part in your body, or in your mind, where you’re asking for the world to tell you what you need for this story, it will tell you… deeply, repetitively. There will be words you’ve never seen before that will come at you… three or four times in a day.”

Your creative self is opening a new conversation with the world, forming a unique library of image, emotion, and language—the vocabulary of your story. When you have taken in enough to begin seeing interesting patterns on the wind, you take up your pen.

**And for a little extra mojo**: 

Stephen King says that story is a found thing, like a fossil. The germ for his novel Misery came during a catnap on an airplane. J.K. Rowling famously claims that Harry Potter “strolled” into her head, “fully formed.”

While you can’t idly wait for inspiration, accept that the initial work of any book-length piece takes place off the page: an irresistible image, a scribbled phrase, a spate of intense research. Many authors carry ideas in their heads, little black books, or hard drives, long before beginning to write.

Max Ellendale always keeps a little black “idea” book in her pocket. When an idea seems ready, it “gets its own notebook.”

Emmy Laybourne hardly writes at all during what she calls the “conception stage.” “I walk a lot, I think about it and let it grow. Inside myself, I start to feel another being that has its own heart, its own volition, its own little world. At some point, the book begins. The focus becomes, well, you’d better sit down and write it! Because the words will stop.”

Joanna Clapps Herman describes her new, barely-conscious ideas as “the strangest creatures. I love how inchoate they are. First there is a flitting of images, bits of language. At some point there are a few sessions of intense writing, where I begin to get very excited with what I am trying to say. A flood of language, ideas, images… I just ride that flood, try to keep up with it and not talk back to it.”

“What seems to work for me,” agrees James King, “is to, first of all, spend a lot of time thinking about the story and the characters. Then, I pretty much jump in with a first chapter to see how it ‘feels.’”

Over weeks or months, related images appear in your jottings. Word-patterns emerge. You decide to commit to the work. You finally begin your first draft.

Coming Next Time: Part 2, Wordsmithing By Any Means Necessary, with James King

References: 

Except where otherwise noted, all quoted material from James King (Bill Warrington’s Last Chance, New York: Viking, 2010), Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14: Sky on Fire, New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2013), Max Ellendale (Glyph, Breathless Press, 2012), and Joanna Clapps Herman (The Anarchist Bastard: Growing Up Italian in America, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011) is from personal interviews and emails with the author, March-June, 2012.

Except where noted, all quoted material from Lauren Groff (Arcadia, New York: Voice, 2012) is from the author’s transcript of Ms. Groff’s seminar at the New York Writer’s Institute, State University of New York at Albany, March 27, 2012. “Lauren Groff on Writing and Arcadia”

Subtropics: The Literary Magazine from the University of Florida, “Interview with Lauren Groff,” www.english.ufl.edu/subtropics/Groff_interview.html, quoted in “Lauren Groff on Writing and Arcadia.”

Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, (New York: Pocket Books, 2002)

Scholastic, “J.K. Rowling Interview”

 

 

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News and Events Reviews Top Feature

CP Book Club Tackles Oates’ The Accursed

The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oates
The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oates

All honor and praise to Joyce Carol Oates.  We expect that if science can accomplish such things and she is willing, her brain will one day be among the most valuable relics to grace a Princeton University pickle jar.

We are all glad that we read The Accursed.  One member even loved it (I consider it important to note that this particular member just finished writing a 450-page novel herself, and happily wallowed through Oates’ 600-plus pages within a week or so).  Some of us are just wired for gothic, labyrinthine sentences, language so rich it leaves a coating on your brain, and story so wildly crafted that you can’t see to the edges of its vast universe.

The Accursed traces the lives of Princeton, New Jersey’s upper class during the reign of a bloody and unspeakable curse.  Is Annabelle Slade the victim of her own twisted appetites, or bewitched by a demon?  Was Professor Pearce Van Dyck cuckolded by the same demon,his child a changeling, or is he a madman, his child a bastard?  And why is it–Count English Von Gneist by some accounts favors the look of the sinister Axson Mayte, yet others see in him a saint or a god?  For good measure, Oates throws in the question of whether young author Upton Sinclair will starve himself and his new family to death in horror over the state of the meatpacking industry. See?  The Accursed is not for the reader who likes to know, once and for all, what the heck is going on here.

We all agreed that, in addition to being wild and rich and gothic-labarynthine, The Accursed is masterfully written.  Scary-masterful.  Oates is clearly in a class beyond even the gifted among us, and her work destined to outlive most.

We also discovered, thanks to our attentive facilitator (we have been rotating facilitators so far–much more fun than having a single maven), that The Accursed is actually the fifth in a series of gothic novels by Oates.  This reassured me, as a reader, since the story did appear to take rather odd turns, which I now believe are resolutions of earlier plot-lines.  The rambling oddness was not out of place, but reading 600-plus pages of considerable oddness did make me scratch my head at times.

The verdict: the beauty of this book is that you can read it either as a weird, fantastic tale, a literary gross-out of a thick summer read; or as a shape-shifting parable in which the upper class may be taking some deserved medicine for the horrors they and their monstrous appetites have visited upon others.  For sure, The Accursed is huge, it’s dense, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

FALL BOOK CLUB PICK: THE ROUND HOUSE BY LOUISE ERDRICH!

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News and Events Third Feature

Great Summer Reading

For fiction, we continue to recommend The Round House, by Louise Erdrich; and add the upcoming &Sons, by David Gilbert.

Recently released in fiction: Transatlantic, by Colum McCann and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman. For nonfiction, Barnheart by Jenna Woginrich, The Astor Orphan by Alexandra Aldrich, and two books by Stephen Harrod Buhner, Healing Lyme and Healing Lyme Coinfections.

Come by the store for 15% on new hardcover titles.

 

2013-7-15 features

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Author News Blog Top Feature

Meet Emmy Laybourne

Meet Emmy Laybourne!

Monument 14:Sky On Fire, by Emmy Laybourne
Monument 14:Sky On Fire, by Emmy Laybourne

In preparation for the next workshop in our Working Writers series, we spoke to Emmy Laybourne, who will present The Secret Power of Story Structure on May 8. She might even show us her cape.

Cuppa Pulp Booksellers was a lucky recipient of an advanced review copy of Monument 14:Sky On Fire… and we liked it even better than the first book! The story really kept us on the edge of our seats. What can you tell us about the second M14 installment, without giving too much away?

SKY ON FIRE has two narrators, for one thing. Knowing that puts some of my readers instantly at ease – because if you read the end of MONUMENT 14 carefully, you can guess who they are! One of the things that readers told me they really liked about M14 was the velocity of the plot – things just keep happening! SKY ON FIRE definitely continues the momentum. There are a bunch of surprises packed into that thin volume! 

With regard to your upcoming workshop, The Secret Power of Story Structure, is this power something only writers have, when they shed their secret identities and stay away from Kryptonite? What secret powers will we unleash?

These secret powers are gifts of advanced perception. All those who attend the workshop will leave with x-ray vision – perfect for decoding stories that have gone wrong or for admiring the structural bones of a story well told. 

How about capes? Do we get to wear capes? Do you wear a cape?

Emmy Laybourne
Emmy Laybourne

I have a cape tattooed on my back. How did you know?

“Story Structure” sounds so… structured. But I love to be poetic when I write, hang loose, go with the flow. Will the secret power allow me to use the words and styles I like?

Oh, I love this question. I hope you’ll bring it up at the workshop so we can discuss it some more. Learning about story structure will not cramp your style, I promise you. If anything, writing with direction and within a framework, gives you more freedom.Come to the workshop and let’s really get into this question!

What are some of your favorite stories, and what are you writing next?

I am finishing up MONUMENT 14 Book 3: SAVAGE DRIFT. It will be released next Spring! After spending so much time in the dark world that I’ve created with this series, I’m into reading light stuff! I just finished The Education of Calpurnia Tate, which I savored. I’m also really loving the work of Diane Wynne Jones right now (Howl’s Moving Castle). I can’t wait to read her other works.

Thanks for interviewing me here, Cuppa Pulp! I look forward to our workshop!

Monument 14, by Emmy Laybourne

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News and Events Second Feature

GMWS-HS Summer Reading

Below are links to Green Meadow’s 2013 High School Summer Reading lists.  Call us at (845) 290-1572 to ask about titles you’re interested in–we have quite a few in stock, but quantities are limited.  10% off to all GMWS students.

 

9/10th Summer Reading

11th Grade Summer Reading

12th Grade Summer Reading

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Cuppa Pulp Features Cuppa Pulp Selections Seasonal Features

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Karen Russell became the child prodigy of the Pulitzer world when she almost won for this debut novel in 2011. Set in the Florida Everglades during the rise of the swamp-and-small-attraction-eating theme park, Swamplandia! follows the Bigtree family saga in the wake of star ‘gator whisperer Hilola’s death by cancer. Told by 13-year-old Ava, Swamplandia! is creepy, funny, strange, and sad, and resonant with the disconnection every family experiences between its own ideas of “normal” and the expectations of the outside world.

Enjoy a discussion of Swamplandia! with us at our spring Book Club.

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Cuppa Pulp Features Cuppa Pulp Selections Seasonal Features

Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander, M.D.

Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander, M.D.
Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander, M.D.
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Cuppa Pulp Features Cuppa Pulp Selections Seasonal Features

The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain

The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain
The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain
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Cuppa Pulp Features Cuppa Pulp Selections Seasonal Features

Tenth of December, by George Saunders

Tenth of December, by George Saunders
Tenth of December, by George Saunders
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Cuppa Pulp Features Cuppa Pulp Selections Seasonal Features

The Round House, by Louise Erdrich

The Round House, by Louise Erdrich
The Round House, by Louise Erdrich

An Ojibwe teen seeks to bring his mother’s rapist to justice, and along the way awakens to the sweetness and sorrow of his community’s long-threatened, intricately formed, and ultimately loving soul.

We don’t know how Erdrich maintained humor and compassion throughout this story, alongside the terror and anger, but we hope to spend the rest of our writing lives figuring it out. One of the best reads of the century to date.

Yup, that’ what I said, and I’ll stand by that.
–Donna

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Author News News and Events

Andrew Shurtleff To Discuss “Leaning on Cedars”

Leaning on CedarsOn Thursday, April 25 at 7:00 pm, join us Upstairs@Meadowlark as we welcome Green Meadow Waldorf School alum Andrew Shurtleff, author of Leaning on Cedars: A Story of Initiation for Our Time.

Now a PhD student at Columbia University, Andrew began the book as his high school Senior Project, and completed it as an undergraduate at Clark University. He’ll be hear to offer a reading of the text, and lead a discussion on his experience with the writing and publishing process.

Author Andrew Shurtleff
Author Andrew Shurtleff

From the publisher: Rebuffed by a girlfriend and bored by the monotony of an unfulfilling job, Jason Chapman takes to the solace of the mountains. A modern day initiation, his quest for meaning leads him to the brink of death and to a new perspective on life.

Refreshments will be provided, and Leaning on Cedars will be available for purchase. Please join us!

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Author News Blog News and Events

Make Goldilocks Into A Hard-Boiled Detective Novel!

 

Free association!
Free association!

One chilly evening in February at the Pearl River Library, author Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14: Sky On Fire, Feiwel and Friends, forthcoming April 2013) led workshop participants through a series of vigorous warmups.

“I feel electric after these!” Laybourne exclaimed, as the others, including teens and adults, grinned and shook out the kinks.

Warming up with Emmy Laybourne
Warming up with Emmy Laybourne

This was not an aerobics class–it was a writing workshop.

“Ideas come through the body. Wake up your brain!”

Once the juices got flowing, the workshop kicked into full creative gear. Laybourne covered the basics of story structure, but added healthy doses of improvisational techniques in written and spoken free association, encouraging writers to both discipline their wordcraft and free their muses to explore the outer limits.

How did these writers transform over the course of the workshop? One teen began a word-association exercise saying, “I don’t know where to go from ‘banana.'” By the end of the evening, during another exercise in imagining unexpected things a character could get from a donut shop, she yelled out, “An eyeball!”

Getting down to business
Getting down to business

In a genre-bending exercise, writers riffed off each other’s most outrageous ideas, eventually spinning out ideas for tales that made Goldilocks into a hard-boiled detective novel, or had Tinkerbell fending off goblins in a futuristic post-apocalypse.

Laybourne’s writing, performing, and publishing experience gave writers a great source for information as well as inspiration, as the discussion turned to the limitations of genre fiction (the sky!) and publishing trends.

Catch Emmy again in May for an intensive workshop on story structure. More news on that to come!

Categories
Cuppa Pulp Selections

Spring Features

Spring Features

Welcome to spring!

We’re honoring the season with romance, rebirth, and great stories about human resilience.

It might seem like a no-brainer to call Louise Erdrich’s The Round House one of the best books published in recent years–it won last year’s National Book Award, after all–but we’ll go the extra step and say that it took our breath away. Erdrich handles the most devastating of subjects with a wealth of humanity, humor, and depth. An Ojibwe teen seeks to bring his mother’s rapist to justice, and along the way awakens to the sweetness and sorrow of his community’s long-threatened, intricately formed, and ultimately loving soul.

Tenth of  December, the much-anticipated  collection by George Saunders, has been an Indie favorite since it was published, and the New York Times called it “the best book you will read this year.” With characteristically unconventional style, Saunders taps into more mainstream cultural questions and fears, from a teen thwarting the kidnapping of a neighbor to two families’ very different ways of viewing parenting and puppies.

The Confidant, by Hélène Grémillon, is a soft-spoken psychological thriller translated from the French. A young editor mourning the loss of her mother begins to receive epistolary letters. Are they a clever ploy for attention by a budding novelist, or an elaborate message from a sinister stranger?

Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife, a bestseller, is now out in paperback. This novel, based on historical fact, relates the romance, marriage, and eventual estrangement of Ernest Hemingway and Hadley Richardson, told from Hadley’s point of view. McLain sustains a lengthy and absorbing portion of the narrative exploring Hemingway’s fascination with bullfighting, weaving the conflicting passions of his artistic drive and intense love for Hadley throughout.

Eben Alexander, M.D.’s Proof of Heaven is another now-in-paperback bestseller, a memoir by a neurosurgeon who survived seven days in a brain-dead coma to relate his conviction that humankind’s spiritual existence is no ephemeral myth–it is the fabric of the universe. After relating his fantastic story, Dr. Alexander turns to the scientific process to analyze his own thesis, offering the conclusion that despite scientific resistance, human  spiritual experiences encountered near death have a logical basis for acceptance.

Thanks for visiting.

 

Categories
For Writers News and Events

Spring Events At Cuppa Pulp

Aaahhh, time to blossom!
Aaahhh, time to blossom!

Saturday March 23 Genre Writer’s Workshop
NEW DATE: July 6
with author Max Ellendale
3:00-5:00 pm Upstairs@Meadowlark

Paranormal romance author Max Ellendale (Glyph, Breathless Press 2012) will lead a 2-hour workshop on all aspects of beginning a plot-driven novel.  A great introduction to the discipline of writing a book-length work for fantasy, sci-fi, and other genre fiction writers. Optional individual consult.  Sign up at info@cuppapulp.com or call Meadowlark at 845-290-1572. $20 2-hour intensive, $10 optional consult. Read our interview with Max Ellendale here.

Monday March 25 Open Write-and-Read workshop
NEW DATE: Monday, April 1
7:30 pm Upstairs@Meadowlark

Led by Donna Miele. Join us to read and discuss your work. Bring a notebook, pen, and anything you have been working on. Be prepared to read 3-5 pages (up to 1000 words) aloud for compassionate comment from fellow writers. You can do this!
Sign up at info@cuppapulp.com or call Meadowlark at 845-290-1572.

Wednesday, April 3-Swamplandia!
NEW DATE: Monday, April 22
7:30 pm Upstairs@Meadowlark

Led by Julie Goldberg
Join us for a cup of tea or glass of wine and refreshments as we discuss this Pulitzer Prize nominee for 2012.
Sign up at info@cuppapulp.com or call Meadowlark at 845-290-1572.

Saturday, April 13 Meadowlark Storyteller’s Series
11:00 am Upstairs@Meadowlark

Led by Jen Choquette. An informal time to explore oral storytelling, for parents and other tale-weavers! Based on Josie Felce’s Storytelling for Life: Why Stories Matter and Ways of Telling Them.
Sign up at info@cuppapulp.com or call Meadowlark at 845-290-1572.

Thursday, April 25 Leaning on Cedars
with author Andrew Shurtleff
7:00 pm Upstairs@Meadowlark

GMWS alum Andrew Shurtleff will talk about writing his novel, Leaning on Cedars: A Story of Initiation for Our Time. Now a PhD student at Columbia University, Andrew began the book as his high school Senior Project, and completed it as an undergraduate at Clark University. Come join the discussion on the writing and publishing process! Refreshments will be served, and Leaning on Cedars will be available for purchase. We’d love to hear if you’re planning to come (everyone gets more cookies that way)… call Meadowlark at 845-290-1572 or email us at info@cuppapulp.com

Wednesday, May 8 The Secret Powers of Story Structure
with Emmy Laybourne
7:00-9:00 pm Upstairs@Meadowlark

Emmy Laybourne (author of MONUMENT 14, “Frighteningly real… riveting,” – NYT) will lead a workshop investigating classic three act story structure. Using lecture, discussion and in-class writing exercises, the class will explore the elements of story structure, learn to diagnose when structure has collapsed, and how to use plotting to strengthen any project. Anyone interested in writing, film, television, teaching, oral storytelling or any other story-based craft is encouraged to attend. This workshop will benefit beginner and professionals alike. Cost: $40. Sign up at info@cuppapulp.com or call Meadowlark at 845-290-1572.

Categories
First Feature

Meadowlark Toys, Sunbridge Books, and Cuppa Pulp Booksellers

Step into our store and enter a vibrant world of tranquility, wonder, exploration, and creativity!

Timeline:

2005: Meadowlark Toys was conceived by a collective of families at Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge, New York, to offer a local retail source for toys made of natural materials that encourage creative play, in keeping with Waldorf education.  Our selection of children’s books was curated to honor similar ideals, highlighting stories to encourage children’s emotional growth and sense of wonder.  Our craft books and supplies offer inspiration and natural materials for your projects.

2006: Meadowlark Toys expands its selections to include responsibly made gifts for all ages from craftspeople around the world.

2010: Meadowlark merged with Sunbridge College Bookstore,  incorporating Waldorf educational resources and other anthroposophical treasures that support local and visiting teachers and families.

2012: Cuppa Pulp Booksellers represents a further expansion into the best in trade fiction and nonfiction. The Writer’s Space offers writer’s resources, including in-store texts, wifi for Internet research, events for writers, and a seasonal book club.

Mission:

We strive to meet the needs of our customers for:
• carefully sourced, natural toys, craft supplies, and gifts;
• foundational and innovative anthroposophical research, commentary, and literature; and
• for trade fiction and nonfiction that both challenges and entertains.

Our plans this year include a new online store, which will include selections from the whole store–toys, gifts, and anthroposophical resources from Meadowlark and Sunbridge, as well as trade fiction non-fiction, and writer’s resources from Cuppa Pulp.

Explore our Chestnut Ridge store and our many ways of encouraging play, exploration, and creativity for all ages.

Categories
Author News Blog News and Events

Meet Max Ellendale!

We caught up with author Max Ellendale and heard about her work, her plans for leading the upcoming Genre Writers’ Workshop on July 6, and her habit of acquiring local accents while traveling.

Check out Max’s website at www.maxellendale.com and her blog at  maxellendale.wordpress.com.

So, Max, what have you written and what’s it about?

Glyph by Max Ellendale
Glyph by Max Ellendale

I have a few projects that I’m working on at the moment but the most prominent is my Legacy Series, starting with book one titled, Glyph. This particular piece follows protagonist, Shawnee, as she navigates through the denial that’s left her blind to the world around her. Shawnee’s a doctor who finds herself working for a corrupt organization that experiments on werewolves and other werespecies. Glyph is categorized as a paranormal romance. So, if you like werewolves, quirky characters, and survivor tales, this might tickle your fancy! Book 2 in the series is complete as well and in the hands of my lovely editor. Glyph’s print release is due any moment! I’m really excited about that. eBooks are lovely but there’s nothing as satisfying as holding a book in your hands.

Hey, I know a guy writing a story JUST like that! Except the heroine is a snake instead of a wolf, and she has this boyfriend who is a scientist, and he doesn’t know, and when he finds out he tries to trap her in snake form and sell her to a special zoo… but the author is stuck. How will your workshop help him?

This workshop in particular is geared toward providing writers (both new and more experienced) with tools that can help “unstick” their work. We’ll be talking about plot turns and sub-plots that often help propel a story forward while keeping reader interest. We’ll also talk about character development. Plot-driven novels are great, but we cannot forget about depth of character. Character-driven stories are equally important! (We’ll talk about that, too!) I’m big on handouts and providing writers with something to take away with them!

Author Max Ellendale
Author Max Ellendale

What is a day in your life like? I can’t imagine having the time AND discipline to make fantasies into stories and books. Do you have a personal assistant and a private spa with a masseuse and a chef?

*blinks* wait… what? Spa? Assistant? Authors are supposed to have these things?! Dammit! Sigh… I knew I was missing something. All kidding aside, right now I have a day job (often referred to by emerging writers as the EDJ, or evil-day-job). So Monday through Friday, I’m a 9 to 5er… and then a 6 to midnight-er. Writing being the latter and weekends. A typical weekday for me is waking up way too early and spending at least fifteen minutes talking myself into getting out of bed to go to work. After that, I work at a counseling program for seriously mentally ill adults. I have a prior degree and clinical counseling license, though I recently received my MFA in Creative Writing and I’m working on making a big career change. So… I work at the program all day, then come home to my dogs. I spend some time with them and make dinner then it’s right into my home office for writing time. I’m not always as productive as I like. As I don’t yet have an agent, I’m my own publicist, director of marketing and promotions, financial manager, blogger, accountant, bookkeeper, etc. etc. I also do individual manuscript consultation and mentoring. I have several private clients that I currently work with and I’ve loved it so far! I really love helping writers find their voice and their story. The weekends are a bit different. I’m a night owl, so most of my work is done after sunset. Weekends are spent grumbling about daylight then working well into the early morning hours. How do I have the energy for all of this? Well… I don’t really, but coffee helps. Lots and lots of coffee. Coffee and writing are soulmates. I’ve come to a point where I’ve accepted that until I make the great leap and fully change my career, I’m going to have to manage my time well. And struggle with the emotional burden of my choices at times. All of it though makes for good stories and poetry. In the end, I know it will be worth it.

You have a full-time job, you’re writing a series of books, and you also have other projects? Wow. What other projects?

Of course! Along with Glyph and it’s sequel, I’m working on book 3 in the series. Right now I’ve got at least 5 books planned for the Legacy Series. I’m not sure how far I will take it. Only the characters can tell me that, but they’re being rather shy at the moment. I’ve also completed a Young Adult fantasy manuscript which I’m trying to get an agent to represent. I started the query process a little over a month ago and I’m hoping for some positive responses! That story follows an orphaned protagonist named Jessica who’s just learning the consequences of dabbling in not-so-good magic. It’s a softer fantasy rooted in practical means. There won’t be any wand waving or broomstick-ing in that story! In other projects, I’m working on another Young Adult manuscript that I like to call an “apocalypse tomorrow” kind of story.  It’s not really sci-fi or dystopian. I’m not sure what genre it is just yet but I’m sure I’ll know by the end of the first draft! That’s all the work I’m doing on the genre fiction front. In the literary world, I’m working on a poetry chapbook. It’s nearly complete but I’m still very nervous about my literary stuff, especially nonfiction. It makes me panic a bit!

What do you like to do besides write? Do you have any hobbies?

I like to travel. I spent a significant period of time in Australia. Actually, large portions of Glyph were written while I was staying in Melbourne. And, yes, I did return to America with an accent. It took several months for me to ditch the high rising terminal at the end of my sentences. Some phrases have become permanent though! Other portions were written while in Los Angeles on a long layover, and I have Boston to thank for bits of chapter two. My next destination is Ireland. Other than travel, I play guitar (not very well), draw and paint (also not very well). Photography is a passion of mine, too. And of course, reading. Reading is just as important to me as writing.

Categories
News and Events

Winter Events at Cuppa Pulp

Monday January 28 Book Club
NEW DATE: Wednesday, February 13-Rules of Civility
7:30 pm Upstairs@Meadowlark

Led by Donna Miele
Join us for a cup of tea or glass of wine and refreshments as we discuss one of the best books of 2012.
Sign up at info@cuppapulp.com or call Meadowlark at 845-290-1572

 

Monday February 4 Exploding Writer’s Block
with Emmy Laybourne
6:00 pm Pearl River Public Library

A reprise of our fall 2012 workshop. Free and open to the public. See the PRL Events calendaror call Christina Linder at 845-735-4084 for further details.
The Pearl River Public Library is located at 80 Franklin Avenue, Pearl River, New York.

 

Monday February 11 Open Write-and-Read workshop
7:30 pm Upstairs@Meadowlark

Led by Donna Miele. Join us to read and discuss your work. Bring a notebook, pen, and anything you have been working on. Be prepared to read 3-5 pages (up to 1000 words) aloud for compassionate comment from fellow writers. You can do this!
Sign up at info@cuppapulp.com or call Meadowlark at 845-290-1572.

 

And Coming Up This Spring…

Saturday March 23 Genre Workshop
with author Max Ellendale
10:00 am-12:00 pm Upstairs@Meadowlark

Paranormal romance author Max Ellendale (Glyph, Breathless Press 2012) will lead a 2-hour workshop on all aspects of beginning a plot-driven novel.  Optional individual consult.  Sign up at info@cuppapulp.com or call Meadowlark at 845-290-1572.
$20 2-hour intensive
$10 optional consult