Library Culture Picks: November 2017
6 November 2017Interview with Callan Wink, author of Dog Run Moon
13 November 2017James Verini longform magazine writing workshop
From mid-January through the end of March, visiting fellow James Verini will conduct a six-session writing workshop focused on longform magazine writing. He will instruct students in how to develop magazine story ideas, report them, write them and pitch them to publications. He will also introduce students to certain instructive classics of the longform genre. The course will include a number of preliminary writing assignments and a larger essay whose topic will be of the student’s choosing.
Class time will consist of discussion of the rudiments of effective magazine writing, such as description, characterization, argumentation; discussion of the work of magazine writers such as George Orwell, Joseph Mitchell, Joan Didion and Jonathan Franzen; and discussion of the students’ own work.
The course is open to aspiring and working magazine writers whom will be chosen based on a writing sample. Samples should have been published, but exceptions can be made for outstanding writers who have not yet published. Applicants should be prepared to work hard and should be able to receive constructive criticism well. Sign-ups are for all six sessions, and the fee is 225€.
The workshop is open to members and non-members alike. The sessions will be on the following Saturdays from 14h30-16h30 (NOTE THE CHANGE FROM THE ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED SUNDAYS):
13 January
27 January
10 February
24 February
10 March
25 March
Deadline for submitting samples is 15 December 2017. Please send to programs manager Grant Rosenberg at rosenberg@
James Verini is a staff writer at National Geographic Magazine and a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and other magazines. He is the recipient of a 2015 National Magazine Award and the 2015 George Polk Award for Magazine Writing. Several of his articles have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prizes. His first book, about the war against ISIS in Iraq, will be published by WW Norton next year.
