Upcoming Seminars
and a Short Course

Verbs and Adverbs Tuesday, October 27 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Verbs are at the heart of our sentences, and understanding a few basic ideas about them—what is meant by the principal parts of a verb, a direct object, and tense—can go far in helping us to revise our drafts. Adverbs work with verbs, but they …

Upcoming Short Course:
Reading Closely to Write

Reading Closely to Write Wednesdays, November 11 & 18 and December 2 & 9 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. It’s an open secret that we learn to write by reading. On Wednesday, November 11, I will begin a course of four one-hour sessions called Reading Closely to Write, each of which will examine the sentence structure …

The Power of Structure

I would venture to say that the first sentence of Charles Dickens’ Nobody’s Story will bring most anybody’s attention to a halt: He lived on the bank of a mighty river, broad and deep, which was always silently rolling on to a vast undiscovered ocean. The sentence opens a very short story (only six pages), …

Upcoming Seminars:
October 20 and October 27

Nouns and Adjectives Tuesday, October 20 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. On October 20, again from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., the next Writing Smartly seminar, Nouns and Adjectives, will clarify the difference between count and collective nouns, and explain how that knowledge can keep your ideas exact and clear. Adjectives make nouns more specific, and using …