The Icarus Doom

Making myself scarce while working on THE ICARUS DOOM.

 

Creative Writing in Amsterdam – the basics

LiteSide Schrijft!

Cursus creatief schrijven: Verhalen weven langs de Zijderoute.

Borrelen er in jou ook verhalen, maar weet je niet hoe je ze op moet schrijven of welke vorm van schrijven het beste bij je past? Schrijf je al voor je werk, maar wil je je mogelijkheden uitbreiden? Dan is de cursus Verhalen weven langs de Zijderoute van LiteSide Schrijft! beslist iets voor jou!

Are you, too, brimming with stories, but do you have no clue how to write them down or which genre fits you best? Is writing a part of your professional life, but would you also like to explore the creative side of writing? Now, you can sign up for the course Weaving Stories Along The Silk Road of LiteSide Schrijft!

Inhoud cursus 

In alle culturen langs de Zijderoute en ver daarbuiten werden en worden verhalen geweven en geschreven. Verhalen over wat dichtbij is en verhalen over ver weg, verhalen over vroeger en over nu. LiteSide Schrijft! biedt je nu de mogelijkheid om jouw verhalen te schrijven in Verhalen weven langs de Zijderoute, een oriëntatiecursus creatief schrijven in hartje Amsterdam.

Vanaf 5 maart 2012 maak je in acht lessen van tweeëneenhalf uur kennis met verschillende literaire en journalistieke schrijftechnieken en tekstvormen. Denk daarbij aan columns, blogposten, korte verhalen en gedichten. We onderzoeken met veel schrijfopdrachten diverse schrijftechnieken, maar ook hoe je inspiratie opdoet en die omzet in teksten. We behandelen plot en personages, opbouw van een verhaal en perspectief. Tijdens de bijeenkomsten bespreken we het werk en leer je hoe je feedback constructief kunt gebruiken om je werk te verbeteren.

Voor de cursus is geen specifieke schrijfervaring vereist.

Voor degenen die dat willen, is er de mogelijkheid om werk te publiceren op www.liteside.nl en/of werk voor te lezen tijdens het LiteSide Festival van vrijdag 29 juni – zondag 1 juli 2012.

LiteSide Schrijft! is een initiatief van LiteSide en Mina Witteman.

Praktische info

Dag en tijd: maandagavond van 19.15 uur tot 21.45 uur
Data: 5, 12, 19, 26 maart, 2, 16, 23 april en 7 mei
Locatie: kantoor LiteSide, Vijzelstraat 72, kamer 2.13 in Amsterdam (bereikbaar met tram 4, 16, 24, 25 – halte Keizersgracht)
Kosten: € 119,-
Aantal deelnemers: max. 12 volwassenen.
Voertaal: Nederlands, maar er mag in het Engels geschreven worden.

Inschrijven 

Je kan je inschrijven voor de cursus door uiterlijk vrijdag 17 februari een mail te sturen naar mina [at] liteside.nl onder vermelding van naam, adres, e-mailadres en telefoonnummer. Deelname vindt plaats op volgorde van inschrijving. Je ontvangt een bevestiging van de inschrijving.

De inschrijving is pas definitief na ontvangst van het cursusgeld op rekeningnummer 1844698 ten name van Stichting New European Cultural Collaborations ovv. LiteSide Schrijft!

Meer informatie: mina [at] liteside.nl en www.liteside.nl 

I’m Flying

A short post this time. Just to let you all know that in a couple of hours I will be on my way to New York, to the Winter Conference of the SCBWI. Main objectives? Meeting with my friends from all over the world, expanding my network, and learn a thing or two about the craft of writing.

I’ll be at the Marketing Intensive on Friday, where I hope to find out more on how we writers can market our books and find our readers. One of the speakers is Susan Raab of Raab Associates, a stellar marketing firm working the field of children’s books. We are trying to get her to come to the Netherlands and enlighten us here, too.
Saturday will be a busy day with lectures from Sarah Davies of the Greenhouse Lit Agency. She’ll talk about thrillers and most of you know that is my favorite genre. Next on my list is Ruben Pfeffer of the East West Agency. His topic for this conference: Ebooks and apps. The future, in short. I’ll conclude the day with Tara Weikum’s talk about YA fiction, another one of my favorites. Weikum is the executive editor of HarperCollins and she’ll know good stuff about that.
Can you spot my goal?
Exactly! I am in New York to make sure that You’re Not Icarus, my next YA thriller, will be the best ever! Dorian, Venus and Pepto, I’ll make you proud.

In between Kirsten Carlson of the SCBWI Germany and I will try and find good speakers for the European Tri-Region conference we’re trying to pull off. Ambitious? Yes, maybe. But hey! Children’s and YA books writers and illustrators deserve nothing less!

I’ll keep you all posted.

You’re Not Icarus

Or how to fly through 2012.

Pepto Bismo, fragment from Tekenen en rekenen

A long time ago the works of the inimitable Panamarenko – artist, engineer, poet, physicist, inventor and visionary — grabbed me. Panamarenko has dedicated his life to the force of gravity, or rather to beating that force, to flight and speed, to movement and energy, to spaceships, aircrafts and submarines.
From the moment I came across his work I was awed by how his amazing mind works, mesmerized by his pencil drawings, lightly colored and with scribbled calculations all over them, and intrigued by his installations. One of his projects drew my special attention, the one where he crosses my love for myth with my love for science: the Icarus Project.

We all know about Icarus and about how he boldly ignored his father Daedalus’ instructions, how he flew too close to the sun, melting the wax of his wings, and how he fell to his death. Pepto Bismo is one of Panamarenko’s attempts to improve Daedalus’ wax-and-feather work. Of all Panamarenko’s characters and projects, Pepto Bismo stuck to me like an alter ego and I knew that sooner or later this friendly science fellow would show up in my scribblings.

And so he did.

Pepto Bismo at St. Jansplein in Antwerp

The deuteragonist in You’re Not Icarus has the same fascination for Panamarenko as I have. Like me he is a science guy — well, I’m actually a science girl, but let’s not fuss about details. Like me he’s curious if Panamarenko’s formulas and calculations add up. In the book he is dubbed Pepto Bismo. I won’t divulge his real name, yet, I’ll leave that to you for once the book is out, but to satisfy a little bit of your curiosity you can take a peek at Pepto Bismo at the St. Jansplein in Antwerp or in Panamarenko’s fabulous book Tekenen en rekenen (Drawing and Counting), if you can get hold of it.

Together with Pepto Bismo I will fly through 2012, I will fly to that one editor that falls in love with my Pepto Bismo just like I did. Together with Pepto Bismo I will fly towards my 2012 goal: publication of You’re Not Icarus. Will you fly with me?

Bart Moeyaert is a Dreamer

One of the people I admire immensely is Belgian author and poet Bart Moeyaert, so when my teacher, prize-winning author Benny Lindelauf, read a chapter from Moeyaert’s much-praised book Brothers (Broere), last Saturday, I sat back and let his beautiful prose seep into my inner world. In Brothers Moeyaert gives the reader a touching peek into his childhood as the youngest of seven brothers.

Good things never come in ones, is my experience. And indeed this one didn’t either, for Bart Moeyaert turned out to be scheduled for a talk, an interview and a debate in Amsterdam. Needless to say that I rushed over to the Balie right away. I have to thank my dear friend Daphne de Heer of the SLAA – the association that organizes literary activities in Amsterdam – for once again organizing a fabulous evening.
In the intimacy of a small theater room, Moeyaert told us how he came to be a writer. He told us about quietness and about din, about the facades we hide our secrets behind, about the world of inspiration around us that you will find if you listen intently and look with an open mind. He touched upon the fact that the ‘literary world’ often regards children’s book writers as irrelevant. We’re not! We’re the solid grounds on which the tuition of every child is built.

Anyway, Moeyaert told us he was labeled a dreamer in school and that struck a chord with me. I still have my old school reports. They are stashed away somewhere, but it doesn’t take me much to call them to mind, every single one marred by variations of the same line in that grim school teacher’s handwriting: ‘Mina could do so much better if she would stop dreaming.’
No matter how hard those teachers tried to grab my attention, I never did stop dreaming. It took me years before I figured out why I was destined to dream. Dreaming is what makes me a writer. Dreaming is what makes me me. I dream up stories and characters and lives and worlds. Something flashing by in the corner of my eye can spark a new plot. A ripple in the water can cause a wave of new stories.
If you ever meet me and I drift off, don’t be alarmed. Or offended. It’s not because I think you’re boring. It’s because you kindle my writing fire. Your voice might be the voice of a character in my next book, your story might offer me just that turn or twist of a plot that I need. Let me dream and I will give you stories.

My next story, ‘Opa is de weg kwijt’ (‘Grandpa’s Lost’) is scheduled to appear in May 2012 in the read-aloud anthology Het grote voorleesboek voor opa’s en oma’s (The Big Read-Aloud Book for Grandpa’s and Grandma’s) by Ploegsma children’s book publishers.

I Survived!

The Literary Death Match. I can easily say that for me it was one of the highlights of 2011, even though it scared the shit out of me.

People filed into the theater at the Smart Project Space, more people than I had anticipated. I ducked into one of the reserved chairs in the front row, my back turned to the masses, pretending they weren’t there. My muse and a couple of friends had my back, so I could concentrate on breathing.
Breathing?
What breathing? I didn’t breathe at all.

Todd Zuniga and Megan C. Garr took the stage. They introduced the Literary Death Match and what it was about: 4 readers reading from their work, 3 jurors ready to slash 2 of the readers, 1 in every round. And of course the epic finale where the two survivors of the earlier rounds would fight to the death.
Call it luck, call it fate, but I was the first one to go. My opponent poet Jane Lewty won the toss and sent me into the arena first. I read my piece. Scary stuff from my YA thriller — I think I’ve got the title nailed now: You’re Not Icarus; You’ll Make It. 7 minutes flat and I made it to the sizzling end of one of the most gruesome scenes in the book in time , keeping Megan from shooting me down.
Jane came on stage. Iowa-born poet and assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam, she recited a poem about fellow Iowan and serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
Yeah, well, who can compete with a man who killed 33 teenagers?
Anyway, the jury let Jane live and I could sit back and relax.
Next were author Philibert Schogt and poet Anna Arov. Philibert won the toss and left the stage to Anna who brought her sexy poetry with suspense and wit. The Jury appointed her winner of the round, but for me Philibert was the winner. Not because of his being the other Dutch contestant, but because I am a math girl. He read from Wild Numbers, his novel about a mathematician Isaac Swift. The scene? Swift making love to his girlfriend while wrapped up in a math problem. I loved his prose, I loved his characters and I loved his style.
The epic finale was a spelling bee and not just any spelling bee. Jane and Anna had to spell the names of famous writers. While Philibert and I sat back and watched, they got to spell Dutch authors like Multatuli and Nooteboom. The stakes were raised with Houellebecq and finally Jane won when Anna, despite her Russian roots, found her Waterloo at Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn.

Of course only when I got home I realized I had failed to introduce myself and my book and the fact that it was my first reading in English for a large audience and my first manuscript in English. Slumping back onto the couch I just knew I was a winner.

I had an absolute fabulous time at the Literary Death Match and if you ever have the chance you go there! It’s hilarious and fun and you get to hear great stuff from great writers. Way to go Todd Zuniga for giving us the Literary Death Match!

Some pictures of the night:

Todd Zuniga, creator of the Literary Death Match - (c) Anthony Stone

Take off with Megan C. Garr and Todd - (c) Anthony Stone

The Jury - (c) Anthony Stone

Me, dead-nervous - (c) Anthony Stone

Todd and Jane Lewty, the winner of the LDM Amsterdam, ep. 2 - (c) Anthony Stone

Jane Lewty - (c) Anthony Stone

Just One More Day To Go!

One more day to go before the second Amsterdam Literary Death Match.
I’ve told you how it works: 4 writers, 3 judges, 2 rounds and 1 epic finale.

I know who I will vote for: Fantasy-fictionista Mina Witteman, author of The Soul Snatcher, The Weed Man and Dark Fiber.
Hey?
That’s me!
Right, it is me!

Unveiling just a shred of my strategy to win (and those who know me know that I’m merciless if it comes to winning)… I will be reading from my new and burning YA thriller THE WEED MAN. Prepare for a scare, people! The smell of weed and the stink of burning flesh will linger for a long, long while in the great Old West.
The Booktunes Blog will play my anthem while I’m fighting: The Guns of Brixton.

Buy your tickets now and let me tell you about Dorian and Venus — Yes, Venus was her name and she’s got it!

LITERARY DEATH MATCH: December 1, Smart Project Space, Arie Biemondstraat 105-113. It starts at 8:15pm. Sharp!

Want a warm-up? Check out this YouTube video, a compilation of Literary Death Matches from all over the world, starring the ever funny Todd Zuniga.