Erika Krouse

writer and editor

Official website for Erika Krouse, author of Contenders and Come Up and See Me Sometime.

Lighthouse Zoom class: 4 Week: Submit Now--Short Story/Essay Edition
Jan
8
to Jan 29

Lighthouse Zoom class: 4 Week: Submit Now--Short Story/Essay Edition

The first step in publishing short stories and essays is…you guessed it, submitting your work to literary magazines! But how? And how, and when, and what, and to whom, and at which litmags? In this weekly class, we’ll help you build a solid submission strategy and process that you can use immediately and well into the foreseeable future, based on time-proven techniques to maximize your success.

Here’s what we’ll cover each week:

  • Week 1: The Basics. We’ll cover reasons to publish, what you should submit, when to submit, formatting your submission, and cover letters… and then we’ll submit to our first literary magazine together! If we have time, we’ll end the class with Help Desk time until the clock runs out. During Help Desk time, you can stay online and submit work, asking questions as they pop up.

  • Week 2: Strategic Submitting. During the first part of the class, we’ll work on navigating writers guidelines, creating our own lists of literary magazines, and tracking our submissions. If we have time, we’ll end the class with Help Desk time until the clock runs out. 

  • Week 3: Your First Words. During the first part of the class, we’ll look at our titles and first paragraphs (sharing optional), with suggestions for hooking our readers and editors from our very first words. We’ll end the class with Help Desk time until the clock runs out.

  • Week 4: Rejections and Successes. During the first part of the class, we’ll cover strategies to deal with the inevitable rejections (everyone gets those!), as well as ways to promote and maximize your successes, followed by Help Desk time until the clock runs out. 

To get the most out of the class, have a short story or essay of any size ready to submit (but if you don’t, that’s 100% okay, too). Note: this class is only for submitting short stories and essays to literary magazines, NOT for submitting novels, memoirs, and book-length work to agents and editors.

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The Book Project Presents: “A Spectacular Mustache: On Writing Talent"
Jan
10
7:00 PM19:00

The Book Project Presents: “A Spectacular Mustache: On Writing Talent"

  • Lighthouse Writers Workshop AND ZOOM (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

What is writing talent, and how can we get some? How would we even recognize it if we had it? In this keynote, we’ll examine talent’s contradictory conceptions: a gift, hard work, ease, inspiration, passion, failure, privilege, cultural, grit, guts, and more. You’ll learn how famous writers have regarded talent over literary history, and how those ancient-to-modern definitions influence the way we write (and avoid writing, and berate ourselves, and eat too much chocolate). We will also eat too much chocolate, which Bill has agreed to provide. This keynote will be delivered by Book Project mentor Erika Krouse, author of four books of fiction and nonfiction.

This keynote is available in several different formats. This is the lecture-only version. If you would like to attend this lecture and receive a copy of Erika's new book, Save Me, Stranger, use this link here. If you would like to attend the keynote and have a meal provided, use this link here. If you would like a copy of Erika's book, and have your meal provided, use this link here. Finally, if you want to just attend virtually, click here.

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4-week class: Story Builder IV—Scenes
Nov
20
to Dec 18

4-week class: Story Builder IV—Scenes

  • lighthouse writers workshop (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

https://lighthousewriters.org/workshop/4-week-story-builder-iv—scenes?session=7476

Welcome to Story Builder!

This series of four classes is co-taught by Rachel Weaver and Erika Krouse, and covers the four major aspects of crafting your story: tension, plot, characterization, and scene. Each session is four weeks long, and there are four sessions in the entire series. You can take one session or all four, chronologically or in any order you like, according to your needs. These classes will include many topics, but will be tailored to the needs of the writers attending.

These fast-paced courses work on a cycle of lecture, discussion, and application. The instructor will explore a specific craft element (i.e. conflict, time, setting, protagonists, and more), give a few short examples, open the topic for discussion. After discussion, writers will use exercises to apply the concepts to their own works. We'll focus on practical application rather than theory alone; writers should come with a concrete story idea to which they can apply the week's topics. Writers can expect to generate new writing for a current work-in-progress and gain a broader understanding of all the major elements of story. Beyond general discussion, we won't be doing any workshopping in this class.

Story Builder IV—Scenes: This edition of Story Builder is where the rubber hits the road! We’ll focus on your scenes—how to create memorable ones that grab your reader and don't let go. We'll study the difference between a dynamic scene that leaps off the page and a dull one that just lies there, snoring. We'll study scene-building elements such as dialogue, emotion, setting, conflict/suspense, and epiphany so we can create that must-turn-the-page feeling. Most importantly, we’ll write vital scenes from every point in our story: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, crisis, climax, falling action, and resolution. We'll also work on practical plans so we can build our scenes list and keep going. Our focus is on practical application, generating new work, and bringing clarity to your masterpiece-in-progress.

Scheduling note: To accommodate the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be no class on November 27.

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