ONLY A FEW SPOTS LEFT!
Workshops are filling up fast! Registration closes on June 30. To secure your spot in the morning workshop of your choice, use the link below to register today!
Photo by Mimi Carroll
SPOTLIGHT ON MCWC 2023 WORKSHOPS
Emerging Writers’ Workshop: A Writing Workshop to Revive and Revise Us
Muriel Leung
In this multi-genre writing workshop led by Muriel Leung, participants will share five pages of their "stuck" work, and we will engage in a series of generative exercises that will remake the work or a select excerpt) multiple times through expansive prompts or challenging constraints.
Mystery Workshop: Developing Your Mystery Toolbox
Rachel Howzell Hall
In this workshop, New York Times bestselling author Rachel Howzell Hall shares her step-by-step process for turning ideas into a novel of suspense. She will share her toolbox so that you can write your own story. There are no shortcuts - but there is a process that you can learn to love.
Screenwriting Workshop: Beyond the Page
Q. Terah Jackson
This hands-on workshop led by Q. Terah Jackson is a chance to reflect, retool, and rethink with other creative minds on how we approach developing a screenplay through a mixture of lecture, in-class exercises and workshopping of participants' material.
Speculative Fiction Workshop: The Shapes of You
Ploi Pirapokin
In this workshop led by Ploi Pirapokin, we'll examine how experimenting with structure can impact plot, patterns of unease and pleasure, style, and other elements in a narrative. We'll work on revealing details and particulars of a world, characters, and conflict through the possibilities of our fantastical and sci-fi elements, and how magic and advanced technology can intensify our real-life stories.
MCWC CONTEST
All conference registrants are encouraged to submit to our writing contest which will be open for submissions until June 30, 2023. There is no entry fee. However, the contest is only open to registered participants of the full three-day conference. Winners will have the opportunity to read their work at the conference, receive credit to the conference bookstore, and winning entries are considered for publication in The Noyo Review.
Miah Jeffra at MCWC 2022
Q&A WITH MCWC 2023 FACULTY, RACHEL HOWZELL HALL
We caught up with Rachel Howzell Hall who will be leading the 2023 Mystery Workshop. Her latest thriller, What Never Happened, will be released August 1, just in time for the conference and we can’t wait! You can find more about her work via her website and follow her @rhowzellhall on Instagram and /rachel.h.hall on Facebook and @rachelhowzell on Twitter.
Rachel Howzell Hall is the critically acclaimed author of the Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestseller We Lie Here, the Anthony-, Strand and International Thriller Award-nominated These Toxic Things and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize-nominated And Now She’s Gone, which was also nominated for the Lefty-, Barry-, Shamus- and Anthony Awards. The author of the Audible Originals bestseller See How They Run, and the Thriller Award- and Audie Awards-nominated How It Ends, Rachel is a New York Times bestselling author of The Good Sister with James Patterson. She’s also received acclaim for They All Fall Down and for her Detective Elouise Norton series. Her new thriller, What Never Happened, will be published in summer 2023, and her first fantasy novel, The Last One, will be published in October 2023.
The third in the Lou Norton series, Trail of Echoes, received a coveted Kirkus Star and was one of Kirkus Reviews 'Books That Kept Us Up All Night.' Land of Shadows and Skies of Ash were included on the Los Angeles Times’ “Books to Read This Summer”, and the New York Times called Lou Norton “a formidable fighter—someone you want on your side.” Lou was also included in The Guardian’s Top 10 Female Detectives in Fiction.
Rachel is a former member of the board of directors for Mystery Writers of America and was a featured writer on NPR’s acclaimed Crime in the City series and the National Endowment for the Arts weekly podcast; she has also served as a mentor in Pitch Wars and the Association of Writers Programs. In her daytime life, she works as a fundraising writer at one of the largest medical centers in Los Angeles.
Rachel lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.
What drew you to begin writing in your genre?
I was always a word-nerd and bookworm. I was also a worrier and often wondered why people did the things they did to other people. Why do we hurt each other? What leads to broken hearts and broken homes? Mystery and crime fiction helped me figure those things out in a way that didn't require me to public speak, do math or go to law school.
What patterns, rituals or routines are crucial to your writing practice?
I'm a very-early-in-the-morning writer. I get up at 4:30 every morning. Before she passed the weekend of last Thanksgiving, my golden retriever acted as my alarm clock. I'd take her out to pee, feed her and the cats. I'm still waking myself up at 4:30, making my cup of instant Nescafe and writing until it's time for me to start day-jobbing around 7 am. Writing at zero-dark-thirty every day is crucial for me. The only times I don't write every day are true vacations and Christmas morning.
Who/what are your key influences and sources of inspiration?
The world around me—crime-writing relies on being around people, reading news stories, opening your world to learn more and be horrified at what we do (and that doesn't always mean illegal, breaking laws). My college-aged daughter and twenty-something-old nieces are also sources of inspirations. Bright young women entering the world and learning what it means to be an adult is both fascinating to me and terrifying. I hold my breath as they move into their own apartments, date people, travel on public transportation.
What do you love most about teaching writing?
I love sharing my experience - I'm an African American working mother who survived cancer and never earned an MFA. It's taken some determination to get where I have and I'm still learning. I like pulling out from students why it's important for them to tell their story - and then, sharing with them, tips on how to persevere.
What are you hoping participants of your MCWC workshop will get out of the time they spend with you?
I hope participants will understand that writing is a joy and a privilege, that it is work and can break your heart sometimes. I want participants to see that you can be excited about this form of art. That we are a community that must bring people in and not push folks out. That our stories are more than just 'content' but also our own personal truth.
COMMUNITY NEWS
The 16th Annual Mendocino Film Festival, June 1 through 4, will screen 60 films from 15 countries—documentaries, shorts, animated films, and a free children’s program. Special events include live performances by the John Santos Quartet and Sonoma County Taiko, as well as the Rogue Wave award presentation to director and Oscar-nominated writer Nicole Holofcener. Nicole’s new film, YOU HURT MY FEELINGS, about a writer played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, will screen at the festival. Writers will also enjoy an appearance by Karen Bates, daughter of Sally Schmitt, who will speak about the book SIX CALIFORNIA KITCHENS following the Friday, June 2, 10 am, screening of SHORT FILMS: FASCINATING WOMEN and then sign copies of the beautiful book at Gallery Bookshop on Friday at noon. LIVING, starring Bill Nighy, is a British drama based on a screenplay by Kazuo Ishigura, which was adapted from the 1952 Japanese film IKIRU directed by Akira Kurosawa, which in turn was inspired by the 1886 Russian novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. Details and tickets are available at MendoFilm.org.