September Memoir Writing Workshop in the Catskill Mt.'s

-Have you ever wanted to learn how to write a memoir? Here's your chance. This small (only 10 writers accepted) workshop in the Catskill mountains ensures you get the personal, one-on-one attention and personal feedback and critique of your writing over three days. $550 covers your tuition, catered lunch, morning coffee, and your room/housing/B&B on site - no commute, just walk out the door and into the classroom. Private rooms - no dorm housing. Some rooms come with a kitchenette. All come with private bathroom/tub/shower. There are campfires at night, and a grill if you want to grill out. Parking is never a problem, and there are hiking trails, a stream, and plenty of places to explore if you'd like. The workshop includes one-on-one feedback 30 minutes or more each day with Stephen H Foreman, a Hollywood Screenwriter and author (He wrote the screenplay for The Jazz Singer, among others).

Here's an excerpt from one of his books:

Excerpt 2 - from the book Toehold
How Sweet-ass Sue Got to Toehold, Alaska
           Sweet-ass Sue weighed eighteen pounds six ounces at birth, larger than a polar bear cub. Her mother complained throughout her entire pregnancy that she felt like she was carrying a cow. Sue was a full blood Athapaskan Indian with a frame like a refrigerator – big, very big, but solid. She was not Walmart Fat at all, just huge. If she had on a football helmet you’d mistake her for a nose tackle. She always wore her raven black hair in two long braids hanging down her back topped with a purple headband. People have a tendency to believe, when somebody’s so big, that deep down inside they’re really just a pussycat. Sweet-ass Sue gave the living lie to such bullroar. She had a heart, but you’d have to dig halfway to China to find it. People knew one thing about her for sure: they didn’t want Sweet-ass as an enemy. They weren’t totally sure they wanted her as a friend, either.
           Sue was in her forties, so she just missed out on the time when female athletes were coming into their own. Even so she would have had a tough go of it because her sport of choice was football. So often Sue wished she had been born a boy, not because she wanted to sleep with other girls (which she certainly did not, high school gossip to the contrary) but because she wanted to compete in a man’s game at a man’s level. She considered it a cosmic misfortune that she had been super-sized at birth but handed the sex of a woman. By the time she was sixteen she was six feet three inches tall, weighed two hundred and fifty pounds with the sleek, muscular haunches of a draft horse, and she could bench press three hundred.              So Sue decided to right a cosmic wrong and go out for the football team. She was bigger than any of the guys except for the star defensive end who had her by a hair. Still, the coach dug in and said no way. She was a girl; she’d get clobbered; he didn’t want to be responsible for what he considered child abuse.
            “Why not take up soccer?” he said. Sue pointed out that their school had no soccer team to which the coach threw up his hands and insisted, “No can do.” Then he pulled his sweat pants out of the crack of his ass, took a sip of his diet Pepsi, and said could she excuse him, he had a practice to prepare for. Sue never had been one to take no for an answer, she decided this called for drastic measures. How to prove that she had the stuff to play football?  When she finally thought of a way, she knew somebody was going to get hurt, but she didn’t think it’d be her. Whatever. Sue was willing to take that chance. This kid had guts for days!
            “Stop thinking,” she said to herself. “Get to it.”  
            And she did.
​            At lunch the next period, in the cafeteria in front of the entire school, she knocked the tray out of the defensive end’s
            hands and told him to watch where the fuck he was going. He didn’t know what to do.
            “Are you gonna apologize or what?” she demanded.
            “You bumped into me,” he retorted.
            “You calling me a liar?” She went right up in his face. Then she pushed him.
            “You better cut this shit out,” he threatened.
            “Why? You gonna hit me?” she said.
            “You’re a girl, goddamnit,” he squealed totally confused about what the hell was going on here.
            “I think you’re a pussy,” she replied.
            “What the hell are you?” he said.
            “You calling me a pussy? Huh? You insulting my sex? Huh?”
            He was completely bewildered, and then she smacked him across the face. “Does that feel like pussy, asshole?” she
             taunted. “Does it?”
            “Let her have it,” shouted one of his teammates. “She’s asking for it.”
            “Yeah, kick her ass,” yelled somebody else.
            “He can’t,” Sue yelled back. “He’s afraid of a girl. He ain’t nothing but a pussy himself.”
            At that, the poor kid lost it and punched Sue so hard she fell backwards into a table. The rest of the students expected to see blood and tears. What they got instead was a smile on Sue’s face. “Is that your best shot?” she wanted to know. “You didn’t kill me with it, and you’re going to remember that mistake for the rest of your life,” at which point she charged head first, speared him in the belly, and landed two hard shots to each side of his jaw before he hit the floor. Later, in the nurse’s office, he didn’t remember anything after the charge. The school still refused to let her play football. In fact, the administration refused to let her continue as a student. They kicked her out and wouldn’t let her back in the door. Not that she gave a shit. As soon as she came of age, Sue joined the Coast Guard and struck out for what she hoped would be more interesting than watching TV and chewing whale blubber.
            It was there that she got her nickname and met the love of her life.

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​Do you want to learn to write like that? Then consider attending this workshop in September. Go to SprucetonInn.com to sign up and reserve your spot. There are only a few spots available. Email [email protected] or call 518-989-6404 to reserve your place. They’ll take a 50% deposit via credit card upon booking. Registration officially closes August 1st, if not sooner once it’s full!