Next Three Classes Set for RRWC Writers Series

Karen Prior will talk about memoir in July.

The Writers Series classes continue to round into shape with the addition of a July class on biography and memoir and an August class on writing Public Radio essays.

The classes are scheduled July 17 and August 21 at 6:30 in the auditorium at Community High School and are sponsored by the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference.

Connie Stevens and I recording an essay at WVTF.

The memoir/biography class will feature Liberty University English professor Karen Swallow Prior, whose most recent book is Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me a look, via memoir, at the importance of writing in her life. Karen is funny, perceptive and a fine teacher.

Connie Stevens and I will teach a class on writing essays for public radio in August. Connie, for my money, is the best electronic news reporter to emerge from this region (and I'm including some of the national figures) and she is the news director for WVTF, which airs the essays regularly.

Karen Chase

Connie assigns and edits many of the essays and has an occasional show featuring nothing but essays. She's a strongadvocate of the form and of much more inventive radio programming.

I've been writing radio essays for north of 20 years and have written many dozens of them. It is a form many writers are interested in and I get a lot of questions about becoming involved. Here's your chance to learn how to do it.

The June 19 class, previously announced, has Karen Chase, a former Roanoke designer, talking about her book Bonjour 40, Karen's blog-to-book group of essays recording her 40th birthday, 40-day trip to Paris. It's a wonderful (and quite attractive) read and it is one of the self-publishing success stories of recent vintage.