Elizabeth Stark's Blog
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Aug.06.2012
Dear Authors,
I am currently teaching several sections of a writing craft class based on some techniques that transformed my own writing post-publication of my first novel, post-M.F.A., and post-years of teaching. It’s pretty powerful work, based on ancient rhetorical strategies for learning...
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Sep.06.2010
The Book Writing World is about to open the doors to our first fall quarter. This is going to be an exciting term and we’d love to get your insight and ideas. As a thank you for taking our short survey, we will enter your name to win a month-long coaching-package with me, Elizabeth Stark. In...
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May.12.2010
In our interview, author Kate Moses raised the topic of magical thinking about the ways your writing can impact the events of the world or your life. We've been talking about this in the Book Writing World, discovering that we all have our superstitions about the power of story, of words, to...
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Apr.29.2010
“Do we have to go to Europe this summer?” a kid asks his mother.
“Shut up and keep swimming!” she replies.
This was a story my dad liked to tell, and it’s always seemed to me to describe perfectly the experience of trying to figure out how to write a novel while you are in the process of...
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Dec.16.2009
Quick:
What do you remember about March 7, 2005?
What do you remember about September 11, 2001?
Now, for all I know, you were a teenager giving birth on March 7, 2005. Or, like someone I know, you lost your spouse of sixty years on 9/11/01, and that’s what you remember. But if you are like me,...
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Dec.15.2009
This is a magical time of year. Everyone in my family has a cold; I can't hear anything except the sloshing in my head. It snowed this year, but most of us in Berkeley weren't dreaming of a white Christmas, and the idea that global warming might in fact be leading to strange climate change haunted...
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Nov.05.2009
I ran a coaching call this morning made up of a group of writers most of whom had finished or were nearly finishing a first book—and by finish I mean putting on the final touches, NOT completing a rough draft. They asked questions and shared techniques, and each approach that had worked for someone...
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Oct.09.2009
I’ve had a couple of recent queries about first person v. third person. Maybe I’ll tackle them in my blog. I’d bloody well do something in my blog if I’m to hold up my head as a content creator. And what, after all, was a writer if not the ur-content creator?
She’d had a couple of recent queries...
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Sep.16.2009
I’ve been part of an interesting conversation about plot in literature lately. By “part” I mean that through Tweeted and emailed links to blogs and articles, a conversation has made itself available me as witness, commenter and now commentator.
First, Lev Grossman wrote a piece, “Good Books Don’t...
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Aug.14.2009
The following is the letter I wrote to the brave group of folks who started–and yes, finished–books with me last fall. I thought it might be useful to anyone gearing up to write a book. If you want to join my group, check it out HERE.
Dear Book Writers,
Why a Frame? Why are we starting with plot...
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Aug.01.2009
Everything is changing. This much we know. People lament or exalt the Kimble, perhaps via Facebook or a Tweet. Yes, it’s a different world than the one where your morning newspaper (what’s that?) landed with a thump on your doorstep and you put a thumb between the pages of your book to call out to...
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Jul.13.2009
I've been recommending this link to a number of my clients who are getting ready to go in search of an agent, and I thought I'd post it for the rest of you who might be heading that direction.
Jamie Ford, in case you haven't heard of him (and apparently there are folks who haven't heard of Kafka...
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Jun.16.2009
Every month, I host a free coaching call for writers on the third Thursday of the month. This week, on June 18, the call, from 5 - 6 p.m. PST, will look at how to make scenes pop. In addition, I'll respond to any questions you have. Stuck? Struggling? Need some help with daily momentum, mastery of...
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Apr.06.2009
Word of Mouth Bay Area TOUR
EVENTS
April 16 Orinda Books
On Story and Story Telling
Jessica Barksdale Inclan Frances Dinkelspiel Susan Freinkel Michelle Richmond Brenda Webster
April 26 Clayton Books Author Festival Jessica Barksdale Inclan Catherine Brady Maria Espinosa
May 7 Bookshop...
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Apr.04.2009
What makes a blog both exciting and dangerous is the immediacy of the format. Confessions, passions and urges are typed onto a little box on a screen, one rectangular button with the corners worn off is clicked with a tap of a key, and those confessions become public.
I’m a person with three novel...
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About Elizabeth
Elizabeth Stark was born in Berkeley, California, and raised on vision theory and folk music in the after-math of the "free love" movement. Descending on her mother's side from a matriarchal family of vaudevillains, communisits and Christian...
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